Thought of the Day - February 14 - By the Numbers

With the world debating the vaccine-versus-variant race here is what has been happening on the ground.

Looking at countries (of over 5M) with the most new cases per capita, Czechia is once again at the top of the list. Also, as we have talked about before, despite leading the world in vaccinations Israel is second on the list, and UAE is fifth in new cases and second in vaccinations.

Looking at the total deaths per capita top-ten list, while the order has shuffled all countries are still from Europe and North America.

On the other hand, looking at hospitalizations, as seen below, Israel is doing fairly well, meaning that the vaccine is at least having a therapeutic effect if not imparting immunity. Czechia, unlike Spain and France, has yet to have the new cases translate into hospitalizations.

Here in Canada, hospitalizations continue to drop in all Provinces. Overall COVID hospitalizations are down about 17% compared to a week ago.

New cases across Canada are way down, less than half of what they were at the beginning of the year.

That said, Newfoundland had a spate of new cases late this week. This is their biggest spike of the pandemic, rumoured to be driven by the South African variant. In response, alert levels have been moved up to 5, the highest, along with sweeping restrictions, closures and lockdowns.

Below is the latest summary of vaccination across the country. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are falling behind as vaccines allocated to those provinces have been diverted to the territories.

This week's shout-out goes to Canada. The second wave is behind us, and most of the country has a holiday tomorrow (sorry Quebec and NFLD), so get out and enjoy the mid-winter weather, ahead of the third-wave, eh.

Happy Valentines Day!

Cliff