Covid Comparsion: 2020 and 2021

Now that we're nearing the end of 2021, I thought it would interesting to compare the Covid numbers worldwide, in the US, California and Santa County (where I live) on December 1, 2020 and December 1, 2021. Something I haven't done in a while. What I discovered kind of surprised me.

As a refresher, early December 2020 was in the midst of the largest "surge" to date. Vaccinations were at the end of their testing phase, and wouldn't begin to be administered for another month. So 2020 was basically a vaccine-free year. And for at least the first half of the year, most indoor functions were closed. 

Going into doing this update, I was definitely prepared for a couple of things. The confirmation rate was certainly going to rise as the number of confirmed cases increase. But with the vaccine being distributed since late winter 2021 and over 60% of the country and state being vaccinated (over 75% in Santa Clara County), I thought the increase would be relatively minimal. And for the same reason, the death rate lower. And all of that happened. But not to the degree I had thought.

So let's start local and work our way up to global. On December 1, 2020, Santa Clara County, with a population of 1,948,407, had 35,945 confirmed cases going back to roughly late February, or nine months. That's a confirmation rate of 1.8%, so less than 2% of the counties population had contracted the virus by then end of 2020. With 487 deaths reported, the death rate was a pretty low 1.3% (1.3 out of every 100 cases resulted in a fatality). 

Fast forward to yesterday, As of December 1, 2021, the number of cases reported was 152,268 and deaths were 1,930. So from December 2, 2020 through November 30, 2021, cases went from nearly 36,000 to just over 152,000 (+ 322%), and deaths from 487 to 1,930 (+ 296%). With the increase of new cases, the confirmation rate not surprisingly rose from 1,8% to 7.8%. Still a pretty low number, considering. The death rate did drop from 1.3 % to 1.2%. 

On the surface, the rate of case increases and deaths were a bit surprising to me, considering that a heavy percentage of the Santa Clara County population was vaccinated during the past six months or so. I guess that goes to show you how bad it could have been had no vaccines been available.

Things were slightly worse for California as a whole, as the confirmation rate went from 3.2% in December 2020 to 12.7% on December 1, 2021 (1,272,041 cases to 5,090,300 - a 300% increase), while deaths rose from 19,440 to 74,781 (+ 284%). The state death rate did drop slightly, from 1.5% to 1.4%. 

Nationwide, cases rose from 13,996,455 to 48,490,805 (+ 246%) or a confirmation rate increase from 4.24% to 14.7%. Deaths rose from 273,490 to 781,556 (+ 185%) with a death rate of 1.6% (down from 1.9%).

So taking a look at all of these numbers, two things in particular caught my eye:

  

1) The percentage increases/decreases in all three locations where very similar, despite Santa Clara County having a much higher vaccination rate (nearly 80%) than California or the US (both approximately 60%).

2) It's surprisingly clear that 2021 was a worse year for Covid than 2020, despite vaccinations being available since February 2021. 

But that fact that these numbers increased as much as they did despite the vaccine indicates how bad things could have been without them. Even to a catastrophic level. Just over 6% of new cases are people who were vaccinated (known at the positivity rate), compared to over 24% unvaccinated (the last I looked), so the vaccines seem to be working. It's evident that the Delta variant was much worse than expected. Need to consider as well that pretty much everything was opened up in late spring/early summer, including things like movie theaters. Also, for a time, masks weren't required indoors. So I'm sure all of that contributed to higher numbers in 2021.

In case you're interested, worldwide, the number of cases grew from 64,547,851 to 263,536,848 (+ 308%), a confirmation rate increase from 0.8% to 3.3%  (based on a 7.9 billion worldwide population). Deaths rose from 1,493,716 to 5,232,983 (+ 250%), but the death rate dropped from 2.3% to 1.9%..Not including the 3.3% confirmation rate, which was surprising low compared to the US (14.7%), the percentage increases/decreases were similar to those of the Santa Clara County, California and the US.  

So what are the positive takeaways? Percentage-wise, 97% of the worlds population, 84% of the US population, 88% of the California population, and 92% of the Santa Clara County population has not contracted Covid. And of those that have, over 98% survive.  Of course, if you convert those percentages into numbers, it still adds up to a lot of people. Can't forget that.

 

 

 

Movie Review: "Godzilla vs. Kong "

This past January I received my Comcast bill and noticed that it had increased by nearly $20 from the previous month. I also noticed that my last discount "perk" had expired a month earlier, which was a primary reason why. So I did what I usually do when that happens: give Comcast a call and inquire about current deals for existing customers. That usually works, and really paid dividends this time as they dropped my monthly bill $15 lower than what it was before the increase, while doubling my internet speed and throwing in both HBO Max and Showtime for two years. Thank you Comcast!

This allowed me the opportunity to do something I hadn't done in over 1 1/2 years: watch a new theatrically-released movie. In case you weren't aware, HBO Max, at least for the time being, is showing an occasional theatrically-developed movie in conjunction with it being released in the theater. Two such movies this year were "Wonder Woman 1984", which I didn't like and won't waste time writing about, and this one, "Godzilla vs. Kong", which was pleasantly entertaining. And after watching two bad Godzilla movies in 2014 and 2019, and an almost equally bad King Kong move in 2017, I never thought I'd say that!

Sure, "Godzilla vs. Kong" still had some lame storylines, and even lamer characters, but the action and visual effects all but made up for them. The general plot features a race between legitimate scientists and the proverbial nutty professor to find a power source in an unexplored area at the core of the earth. This power source is evidently what empowers the "Titans", or the prehistoric creatures that have appeared in the aforementioned Godzilla and King Kong movies. Including the two star "Titans" themselves.

The film starts out with King Kong discovering that the habitat he was moved to after his 2017 movie is man-made. Concerned that he might escape, his "keepers" decide to move Kong and plot to use him to lead them to this "power source" at the earth's core, and possibly discover Kong's original home. In the meantime, Kong has bonded with a deaf young girl named Jia who, it turns out unbeknownst to everyone, he can communicate with using sign language. On route to the entrance point of the earth's core, which I'm not quite sure how they discovered, Kong's keepers are alerted that Godzilla has sensed the presence of Kong, evidently through his power source, and is tracking him down. Can they get Kong to the core before Godzilla finds them?  That's the million dollar question. Or at least the first one.

In addition to all of this, a wealthy, ambitious, soft spoken, mumbling, hard to understand, borderline good actor business magnate has come up with the brilliant idea to create a mechanical man-controlled "Titan" that will destroy all of the other "Titans" threatening the world. And once he gets wind of this earth's core power source that could empower his creation, he and his loyal band of followers join in on the chase.

What did I tell you about the storylines?

I won't spoil when and where they happen, but Godzilla and Kong do have numerous confrontations (wouldn't be much of a movie if they didn't), including one with the mechanical "Titan", reminiscent of 1974's "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" movie (sans Kong). And that's where the movie really shined. These confrontations were game changers, cinematically. They were really incredible to watch. Even on a 55" screen!  One of the big reasons why is that they happened during the day!  If you go back and watch the two previous Godzilla movies, practically all of the monster fight scenes were done either at night or during a rainstorm where you could barely see what was happening. The fighting in "Godzilla vs. Kong" was a completely different, satisfactory experience. And even a little funny at times, as I'm willing to bet the movie makers are wrestling fans, as I could have sworn I saw both combatants use one or two WWE moves during their fighting.

Getting back to subplot #2, the wealthy magnate does get to the power source, thanks to a spy within the Kong group, but things don't go as planned when he tries to apply it to his mechanical monster. This all leads up to a pretty tasty conclusion.

Cast-wise, not all of the characters made a whole lot of sense. There was a trio of nitwits that tried to infiltrate the businessman's headquarters for apparently no other reason than to be the comedy relief for the movie. Their roles served no real purpose to the overall plot and were really a distraction for me. I rolled my eyes whenever they appeared, as they take you away from what's really happening. And as I stated earlier, the business magnate, played by actor Demian Bichir, although not bad, was very hard to understand, as the combination of mumbling, speaking softly, and having a thick accent is not ideal for one of the integral stars of a movie. Plus I have tinnitus, which doesn't help!

Overall, though, the movie was fun to watch and enjoyable with a pretty satisfying ending, despite the issues with some of the plot and characters. Ideal "brain candy", if that's what you're looking for. I'd recommend trying to see it in a theater if you can. I'm sure it's pretty spectacular watching it on a 50 foot screen compared to my 55" TV!

Covid-19: One Year Later

According to the Santa Clara Health Department, this past weekend marked the 1st anniversary of Santa Clara County’s first official Covid case, so I thought I’d take a look at where we’re at, number-wise, in the country, state and county. The intent is not to insinuate, suggest, or imply anything. Just to report the numbers. I’m taking Covid as serious as anyone. I wear a mask in public places, and avoid public places as much as possible. BUT….

I will dine outdoors on occasion, attend outdoor church services, get take out, go to Starbucks, shop at a retail store and all of that good stuff. In moderation. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I think it’s equally important to support our local businesses as well. 

One message I am hoping to convey here is not to panic. It’s serious, do your part, but don’t overreact. Which is hard to do with the press and social media posting a running case and death total on their front pages everyday for a year now. Unfortunately, you never see an “active” number posted, i.e. the number of people who currently have Covid, which is a fraction of the total. Several organizations attempt to post the number of recovered, and I've included a couple of them here.

So I hope you find this interesting and maybe even educational. Note that the numbers below are as of January 29, 2021.  

UNITED STATES

• Total cases:                  25,615,268
• World Meter estimated recovered:         16,196,528
• University of Virginia estimated recovered: 22,370,648
• % of total population (330.06 million): 7.8%
  
• Case % by age:
• 22.6% 18-29 
• 16.4% 30-39
• 10.1% 17 and under
• 49.1% are 39 and under
• Cases by sex:
• 52.3% female
• 47.7% male
• Total deaths:                 431,619
• % of all USA cases:        1.68%
• Death by age:
• 81.1% of deaths are 65+
• Death by Gender:
• 54% male
• 46% female

Takeaways:

• With over 330 million people in the United States, the 25+ million total case number represents 7.8% of the total population. Again, that is not indicative of how many people currently have the virus.
• Although very few states report the people who have recovered, two organizations have come up with “formulas” that estimate that number. 
• World Meter estimates that of the 25,615,268 cases, 16,196,528 have recovered. 
• The University of Virginia is a little more optimistic, estimating the recovered number at 22,370,648. 
• That would mean that just over 9 million or 3 million people currently have Covid-19. If either of those numbers are true, or at least close to being true, then either 2.7% or 0.9% of the population currently has Covid-19.
• Nearly half (49.1%) of the Covid cases consist of people under 39 years of age. Nearly one in four are under 29. 
• The mortality (death) rate in the United States at 1.68%. In other words, 1.68 out of every 100 Covid cases have been fatal. Or, if you are a glass half full person, 98.32 out of every 100 people who has gotten Covid has survived. As low as those percentages sound, and they are compared to other outbreaks, we can’t forget that over 400,000 people in the US still have died. We are very fortunate those numbers aren’t higher, however. Here’s how Covid compares to recent, albeit much smaller, outbreaks:
• SARS (2002 -2004) mortality rate: 9.6%
• Ebola (2014 – 2016) mortality rate: 40.4%
• MERs (2012-2015) mortality rate: 34.4%
• Swine Flu (2009) mortality rate:  0.2%
• 81.1% of all deaths are people over 65.
• Although fewer men than women have gotten Covid (47%), more men have passed away from it (54%).

CALIFORNIA

• Total cases:                  3,205,947
• World Meter estimated recovered:          1,545,316
• University of Virginia estimated recovered:              2,757,963
• % of USA cases:                 12.5%
• % of state population (31.51 million): 10.17%
  
• Five LA area counties:         1,898,744 (59.2% of state cases)
• Five LA area counties + San Diego county: 2,131,711 (66.5% of state cases)
• 58% of cases are 18-49
• 55% of cases are Latino
• Total deaths:                   39,578
• % of all cases:                  1.23%
• 46% deaths are Latino
• 48% cases are male; 58% deaths are male
• 75% of deaths are 65+

Takeaways:

• California’s 3.2 million cases represent 10% of the state’s population. If the recovered estimates listed above are correct, that would mean either 4.2% or 1.1% of the state’s population currently is infected.
• The state total case number represents 12.5% of the cases in the United States.
• Nearly 60% of the cases in the state are located in the five Los Angeles-area counties. If you include San Diego County, the number goes up to 66.5%.
• Nearly 60% of all cases are people under 49. 
• 55% of all cases and 46% of all deaths are Latino.
• The mortality rate in California is 1.23%, below the countries 1.68%.

SANTA CLARA COUNTY

• Total cases:                 100,470 (6th of 58 counties)
• University of Virginia estimated recovered: 84,253
• % of state cases (3,205,947):        3.13%
• % of county population (1.9 million):        5.3%
• Case % by age 
• 19.4% 20-29 
• 18.0% 19 and under
• 17.5% 30-39
• 54.9% are 39 and under
• Case % by Ethnicity:
• 51% Latino
• 16.1% Asian
• 12.9% White
• Total deaths:                1,344
• % of all SC county cases:       1.34%
• % of all state cases:       0.04%
• By Ethnicity:
• 32% White
• 28.6% Latino
• 24% Asian
• 48.7% cases are male; 51.5% deaths are male
• 87.6% of deaths are 60+
• Underlying health conditions
• 71.9% (1 or more)
• 19.6% (none)
• 8.5% (unknown)

Takeaways:

• To their credit, Santa Clara County breaks down their Covid numbers into a little more detail than the state does.
• Just over 5% of the county’s residents have contracted the virus since January, 2020. If the recovered estimate listed above is correct, then 0.8% of the county’s population is currently infected.
• Although the largest county north of Los Angeles, Santa Clara County’s case total comprises just 3% of the state’s total cases.
• Like in the state, over half of the total cases are Latino.
• Nearly 55% of the cases are people under 39 years of age.
• Over 87% of the deaths are people over 60.
• Nearly 72% of the people who have died had at least one underlying condition, while 20% didn’t have any.