Corona Virus Crisis Discussion Thread

[Dumpling]

Really I am pretty impressed by all of the measures that
most of us are taking to stop the spread of coronavirus and
its variants. All of it, informing the public, keeping everyone
updated, has taken over a large section of mainstream media.
Everyone, you are doing good.

Moving on to Michigan Capitol Confidential, the Mackinac Center
mouthpiece news site. [I'm not a big fan of the Mackinac Center
and am slanted so there. But they are a big influence on
Michigan thinking and opinion.]

I want to give them credit for homing in on a particular
phenomenon: various states and various regions of the
world seem to be better at keeping overall cases down
than other states do. Capitol Confidential could look at
various instances of this and go in depth into what is
going on.

Capitol Confidential posted a New York Times map that shows
that Michigan is getting high rates of cases during the current
UK variant COVID-19 surge:

'COVID Knows No Boundaries' - Michigan Excepted? – Michigan Capitol Confidential

This was posted 4/23/2021. If you check it out, indeed
most of Michigan is bright orange and red and indeed it all
stops right at the Michigan border. What are the best
explanations for that? Does youth sports fill the bill? Few children
are vaccinated, so COVID-19 is more likely to spread within
groups of children. Are youth teams in the state border counties
more likely to play opposing youth teams in neighboring Michigan
counties or in neighboring Ohio and Indiana counties?

The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard shows Indiana counties
as having higher case rates overall. This occurred earlier in the
pandemic, so for the current surge, there is a higher immunization
rate among children as well as adults in those Indiana counties.

Even if youth teams in Michigan border counties were to play as
often in Ohio and Indiana counties as they would in other
Michigan counties, the transmission during the current surge
would be less there.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

In case everyone's pandemic dread has worn off, there is
apparently a new variant of COVID-19 in India that bypasses
the sinuses and throat, causing false negative
test results and going straight for the jugular of the lungs.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/...-experts-76609