US daily new cases are on an up-trend. They're a month ahead of us on vaccinations, so the up trend is nowhere near as pronounced as what we have, but it is definitely increasing.
On the news today, it was indicated that in Ontario, ~70% of new cases are variants.
The USA doesn't seem to be doing much screening for variants, but I have little doubt that it would be similar there, if they were testing for it.
They're increasing the sequencing for variant detection, but they still pale in comparison to us. And we pale in comparison to other countries yet again for that matter...but we're doing not bad.
The explanation for why the USA is doing so much better than us though, despite variant spread that's likely happening there but not detected, remains a bit of a mystery to me, especially in the face of the fact many of the southern states have effectively given up on everything covid protection related - IE, Texas, Florida, et al. The only thing possibilities I see are:
- They hit herd immunity through sheer infection volume as well as the vaccination levels on top of that
- The weather. As we saw here in Ontario last summer, when the weather was hot and humid, our numbers plumeted despite many people throwing caution to the wind.
Look only as far as many of the northern US States like Michigan and NY for 2 examples - they're having the same issues as we are despite their higher vaccination rate, and in the case of NY at least, a far better adherance to covid guidelines.
What's left? The fact it's still cold and crappy in the north versus warm and sunny in the south already.
But yes, they are on an uptick for sure. It'll be interesting to see if they escape a 3rd wave that we're now getting. Super spreader events like the baseball game earlier this week should tell the tale in a few weeks.
