So, how bad is the holiday spike so far

 We've compared a number of regions (e.g. counties, states) in previous posts.  For this post, I'd like to illustrate our three local counties (the BIG AGricultural Counties for California) once again.   

We've discussed these in previous posts.   See, for example, June 7, July 6, July 13 and Nov 21.

Well, this new graphic compares the June/July spike (our previous 'all-time' high) to the past few weeks

Note the characteristic lag in deaths vs. Confirmed cases.   The troubling thing here is that quite possibly the true death impact of the 51,000 cases from Dec 8-Dec 28 are not yet reflected in the huge spike from Dec 21-28.   We'll see, and let's hope it doesn't rise much higher if at all.

Think of it this way, though:  51,000 cases for a population of about 2.5 million.  Says 1 in 50 people in these 3 counties were confirmed in a three week period, for a pandemic that is now within three weeks of a year's duration.    At that rate, 1 in 3 people would be confirmed over a year.   I'm 80, love to have the vaccine do its work as soon as practical.

We called yesterday to try to find a schedule for me to get the vaccine--just as with tests in our county in March, the answer was "we don't have any vaccine, and we have no idea when we might get some, let alone an idea of who will qualify first."

Meanwhile, keep the faith