Hoosier

Interesting. I wonder why that is. Is New York City keeping the numbers more elevated?

Texas has had a mask mandate since July, which means it was still in effect during their downturn in Sep/Oct. This isn't even about whether someone personally agrees with a mask mandate. If you're just going by data, it seems kind of illogical to remove it now if you didn't remove it during the fall.

I get the eagerness to try to get back to normal life, but boy, why not keep the mask mandate another month or two at least until most of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated. In the grand scheme of things, that's not that much longer when you are talking about mask mandates that have been in place for many months. A lot of vulnerable have been vaccinated but there are still a lot that haven't.

I just remember in the fall that the highest national case numbers tended to occur toward the end of the week, often on Friday. I haven't followed the data that closely lately to see if something changed with which day of the week is highest. I know Tuesday/Wednesday tends to put up the biggest death numbers.

I thought highest cases is usually more toward the end of the week.

Something I was thinking about just now. The exact percentage can be argued but we know there is a slice of people that the vaccine won't completely cover and they will go on to develop covid, at least in a milder form. Will those people with milder symptoms who had the vaccine even bother to get tested? I would hope so, as it would be nice for the unvaccinated around them to know.

It sounds like they are factoring in Johnson & Johnson based on the paragraph below. We actually did have an increase in cases last summer (worst in southern US and in CA) after a bit of a relaxation in late spring but obviously wouldn't expect that again in summer 2021. Our initial model factors in the rollout of two vaccines: Pfizer and Moderna. In February, we began also factoring in the rollout of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine beginning in March. More vaccines may be approved in 2021 (e.g. AstraZeneca), but the exact timelines are still unclear. We will incorporate additional vaccines as more data becomes available.

It does seem surprising, considering the trajectory we are on. One thing to consider is that the biggest spreaders of covid (younger adults) will tend to be the last people to be able to get a vaccine, so I definitely think it's plausible to see the case decline slow down if not rise again to an extent. We have competing factors at work so figuring out the exact trends that we'll see is a bit of a guess. Noticed this part on that website: We assume new infections will undergo a steady decrease from mid-December 2020 to March 2021. We account for the possibility of another wave of infections in late winter/early spring (March/April) as virus variants become more predominant and states relax restrictions from the fall wave. This final wave may not happen if a quick vaccine rollout can dampen the effects.

The Cliffs Notes version of beavis' last post -Not happy with the lack of consistent winter -The 5 week stretch was solid but not long enough -Winter should simply happen in winter without needing a bunch of things to go right

The lion is not satisfied

Public Information Statement National Weather Service Chicago IL 207 PM CST Mon Mar 1 2021 /307 PM EST Mon Mar 1 2021/ ...A Look Back at the Climate for the Month of February 2021 for Chicago and Rockford... At Chicago, the average high temperature was 27.4 degrees, which is 7.9 degrees below normal. The average low temperature was 13.0 degrees, which is 7.1 degrees below normal. The average temperature for the month was 20.2 degrees, which is 7.5 degrees below normal. During the month of February, 1.25 inches of precipitation were recorded, which is 0.54 inches below normal. 21.6 inches of snow fell, which is 12.5 inches above normal. Two daily records for Chicago were set during the month of February 2021: * Record daily lowest maximum temperature of 4 degrees on the 14th. * Record daily snowfall of 6.1 inches on the 15th. One Top Ten Monthly Record: ** 9th snowiest February on record since 1871 with 21.6 inches of snow. At Rockford, the average high temperature was 23.8 degrees, which is 10.4 degrees below normal. The average low temperature was 7.4 degrees, which is 10.3 degrees below normal. The average temperature for the month was 15.6 degrees, which is 10.3 degrees below normal. During the month of February, 0.81 inches of precipitation were recorded, which is 0.60 inches below normal. 9.2 inches of snow fell, which is 1.5 inches above normal. One daily record for Rockford was set during the month of February 2021: * Record daily lowest maximum temperature of 1 degree on the 14th. One Top Ten Monthly Record: ** 6th coldest February on record since 1905 with a mean average temperature of 15.6 degrees. $$ Ogorek

We hit the 1 million mark in vaccinations in Indiana (15% of the population). A little over 8% of the population has received both doses.

I wish this were the March 31 run.

The speed of the meltdown is similar to what happened in 1979. On 2/22/1979, the snow depth was 20" in Chicago and it was down to 2" just 10 days later on 3/4. On 2/17/2021, the snow depth was 20" and was down to 5" as of 2/27. Of course 1978-79 was a much better winter overall. As much as I enjoyed the stretch that we just went through, I would've rather had it earlier in the season for a couple reasons. One, I love snow around the holidays and two, it is easier to keep adding to the snow depth at that time of year. I wanted to see something truly extraordinary like 3 feet depth but we ran out of time for that. By the time it gets into later February, you need more to go right to keep building the snow depth at our latitude.

Oh, but isn't it more fun to call a dud now?

January/February 2021 is the first time with back to back months of 20"+ snow at ORD since December 2008/January 2009. It came up a hair short in 2014, with February having 19.5"

Hopefully we can find 3" more snow at ORD before the end to put an exclamation point on the epic comeback. Only about 1 in 5 winters in Chicago produce 50", and none did so with quite as slow of a start as this. Because of measuring issues, could make a case that ORD has actually already had 50", but that is not the way it works of course.

The final CFS went toward a less wet look for the sub... we'll see. It has kept a warmer than average signal. The last widespread warmer than average March was... 2020. The perception in recent years is for slower starts to spring, and there's truth to that, so hopefully we don't deal with unwanted cold in April.

I'm not sure the virus itself has mutated into a less deadly form yet. Now we'll have the vaccines impacting the mortality data, so one way to look at it would be to compare the death rate of unvaccinated people now vs unvaccinated people a few months ago.

Half of the list since 2008

The "national mandate" is fairly narrow, applying in places such as federal buildings and airports/airplanes/trains.

Your snowcover is definitely holding tougher than mine. I can safely say there is well under 11" of snow left here lol

Article about the extremely low flu levels. The last part caught my attention. The low flu levels may actually complicate flu vaccine development for next flu season since there is not a lot of info to go on about which strains are dominating. https://apnews.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-us-pandemic-2145d999319b53d8a32a829a324f398d

Quite a 1 day drop in hospitalizations. I have noticed that there are these random 1 day drops by 100+ before slower drops in the ensuing days so will be interesting to see if that happens again. As I mentioned, there are signs of the case numbers plateauing in the past several days but will need some more time to see if that is a short term blip or a trend. Even if cases are plateauing, the old rules about cases--->hospitalizations may start to not work as well at some point as the more vulnerable are vaccinated in larger numbers with each passing day.

It is funny how the facial hair becomes part of your identity and you sort of develop an attachment to it. Yeah, it is my top stretch in a 3 week period. Narrowly at the top, but still at the top in my book.