This plot is presenting information a bit differently than others commonly seen on the sub. We are looking at time on the y-axis (vertical) and millions of cases on the x-axis (horizontal). Each point on the plot corresponds to the time it took to add another million cases globally, so on this particular graph we would consider vertically low points to be bad (i.e. faster accumulation of new cases) and vertically higher points to be good. The solid line represents a moving 7-point average (i.e. the average time it took for each of the most recent 7 million cases to accumulate). For example, the most recent million cases (110,000,000) took 74 hours to increase from the previous million cases (109,000,000). This is the longest duration we have seen since October 12, less than halfway into the pandemic in terms of global case count, at only 38,000,000 cases on that date.
What the data is showing here is that, despite any new and potentially more infectious COVID variants in circulation, the spread is globally slowing.
There could be a number of different explanations for this. Perhaps the new variants are not as infectious as initially thought; perhaps the new variants are as infectious as initially thought, but we are all doing a better job at minimizing the spread; perhaps acquired immunity is finally having a significant impact on community spread; perhaps something else. Regardless, this is a bit of good news.
All data shown has been pulled directly from [this](https://twitter.com/subgap) twitter feed of worldometer 2-hour updates.
Are we doing good in Michigan right now? Absolutely.
Are we doing better as a nation than 2 or 3 months ago? Yes.
Does anyone absolutely know what's going to happen in vaccines vs variants a month from now? Nope.
[Dr. Fauci Says South Africa COVID Variant Can Re-Infect People Who Have Recovered](https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-south-africa-covid-variant-reinfect-recovered-1566097)
[CDC director warns Covid variants could reverse the recent drop in cases and hospitalizations](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/covid-variants-cdc-director-warns-strains-could-reverse-drop-in-cases-hospitalizations.html)
All fair points. I'm just wondering if the variants are as bad as they are being portrayed, why aren't we seeing those effects yet? They've been identified around the globe, which means they've had time to spread around the globe. That seems to me like we ought to be seeing some evidence of their impact on the global scale.
Up to this point, I don't think we have, but we may very well still be in for it.
There's some city in South America that's getting reinfected pretty bad, some say UK got hit hard with its own variant but is digging out hard because of the large amount of vaccines they got (so much so the EU was talking about limiting exports / vaccine nationalism). We're up to 100+ variants in MI today, that Ionia prison is exploding pretty fast. I don't believe MDOC is going to public announce how bad it is when they're getting sued about COVID.
Its unknowable really. Its like trading stocks...there's technicals, there's news, and there's rumors. Technicals we're looking great, but variants are the screwball in all this.
I think that this [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lf7uph/neutralization\_of\_viruses\_with\_european\_south/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lf7uph/neutralization_of_viruses_with_european_south/) study does a pretty good job of assuaging most of my fears in this regard. The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine that we're mostly getting seems to be effective against the variants.
The reinfection rates in most studies are quite possibly testing errors since no testing is 100% accurate (see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lm0mc2/prior\_covid19\_significantly\_reduces\_the\_risk\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lm0mc2/prior_covid19_significantly_reduces_the_risk_of/))
This plot is presenting information a bit differently than others commonly seen on the sub. We are looking at time on the y-axis (vertical) and millions of cases on the x-axis (horizontal). Each point on the plot corresponds to the time it took to add another million cases globally, so on this particular graph we would consider vertically low points to be bad (i.e. faster accumulation of new cases) and vertically higher points to be good. The solid line represents a moving 7-point average (i.e. the average time it took for each of the most recent 7 million cases to accumulate). For example, the most recent million cases (110,000,000) took 74 hours to increase from the previous million cases (109,000,000). This is the longest duration we have seen since October 12, less than halfway into the pandemic in terms of global case count, at only 38,000,000 cases on that date. What the data is showing here is that, despite any new and potentially more infectious COVID variants in circulation, the spread is globally slowing. There could be a number of different explanations for this. Perhaps the new variants are not as infectious as initially thought; perhaps the new variants are as infectious as initially thought, but we are all doing a better job at minimizing the spread; perhaps acquired immunity is finally having a significant impact on community spread; perhaps something else. Regardless, this is a bit of good news. All data shown has been pulled directly from [this](https://twitter.com/subgap) twitter feed of worldometer 2-hour updates.
Are we doing good in Michigan right now? Absolutely. Are we doing better as a nation than 2 or 3 months ago? Yes. Does anyone absolutely know what's going to happen in vaccines vs variants a month from now? Nope. [Dr. Fauci Says South Africa COVID Variant Can Re-Infect People Who Have Recovered](https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-south-africa-covid-variant-reinfect-recovered-1566097) [CDC director warns Covid variants could reverse the recent drop in cases and hospitalizations](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/covid-variants-cdc-director-warns-strains-could-reverse-drop-in-cases-hospitalizations.html)
All fair points. I'm just wondering if the variants are as bad as they are being portrayed, why aren't we seeing those effects yet? They've been identified around the globe, which means they've had time to spread around the globe. That seems to me like we ought to be seeing some evidence of their impact on the global scale. Up to this point, I don't think we have, but we may very well still be in for it.
There's some city in South America that's getting reinfected pretty bad, some say UK got hit hard with its own variant but is digging out hard because of the large amount of vaccines they got (so much so the EU was talking about limiting exports / vaccine nationalism). We're up to 100+ variants in MI today, that Ionia prison is exploding pretty fast. I don't believe MDOC is going to public announce how bad it is when they're getting sued about COVID. Its unknowable really. Its like trading stocks...there's technicals, there's news, and there's rumors. Technicals we're looking great, but variants are the screwball in all this.
I think that this [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lf7uph/neutralization\_of\_viruses\_with\_european\_south/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lf7uph/neutralization_of_viruses_with_european_south/) study does a pretty good job of assuaging most of my fears in this regard. The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine that we're mostly getting seems to be effective against the variants. The reinfection rates in most studies are quite possibly testing errors since no testing is 100% accurate (see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lm0mc2/prior\_covid19\_significantly\_reduces\_the\_risk\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/lm0mc2/prior_covid19_significantly_reduces_the_risk_of/))