I’ve noticed a shift in thinking in the US. Not only have we had people who have denied COVID, the effectiveness of masks, social distancing, and a ton of conspiracy theories to contend with, but now with vaccination, even those who have been taking it seriously seem to think that it’s over.
Both global cases and deaths are about to climb into new highs.
The next graph shows cases with the slope of the rate of case climb or fall. It forecasts ten days into the future and shows global cases moving into a much higher rates of spread.
The most alarming rise though remains in India. I spoke with a team last week that has support operations out of India. They indicated to me that the prevailing attitude (at least anecdotally) was that everyone is tired of the pandemic and is going to let it go naturally. That would be a disaster for the people there, but for the whole world as well. At least in the US, most people don’t seem to understand how interconnected we are. Our supply chains and just in time delivery processes makes the entire world vulnerable. Apparently people haven’t learned yet from the incident in the Suez Canal with the Ever Given or the impact on multiple industries from silicon chip shortages. India supplies about 40-50% of the generic pharmaceuticals used in the US. In addition, India is also the largest COVID vaccine supplier in the world.
The situation in India is but one example, but it is horrifying given their population density and global impact. Everyone should be very alarmed that they have gone from about 25,000 cases/day to almost 250,000 cases/day in just over a month.
American exceptionalism is our Achilles’ heel.
And the band played on…
