Here’s a summary of some of the things that were predicted in blog postings this year.
Vaccine rollout
On November 15th, in a section titled Vaccine News, it was predicted that it will likely take at least 10 months to vaccinate enough of the population to reach an immunity level that will slow the spread of Covid-19, assuming that all the challenging logistics of distributing and vaccinating millions of people can be managed without major delays. Given the track record of public health with the coronavirus this does not seem likely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/14/health/covid-vaccine-distribution-plans.html
The post on December 17th provided more detail to explain why the vaccine rollout in both the U.S. and Canada was not likely to meet the announced dates. In the last few weeks this story has become headline news almost every day.
https://anydaynow.blog/vaccine-rollout-confusion/
The U.S. had announced a plan to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December. Only 15% of this goal was achieved.
In Canada, despite declarations by several provincial premiers that the federal government was not delivering enough vaccines, the actual statistics show that inoculations have lagged way behind the delivery of vaccines.
https://covid19tracker.ca/vaccinegap.html
Operation Warp Speed in the U.S. declared that they would vaccinate everyone by June 2021. In Canada, Trudeau promised that all Canadians would be vaccinated by September 2021.
The December 17 post called these targets overly optimistic and repeated the prediction made on Aug 15, 2020 that enough of the population (less than 100%) will be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity by the end of October 2021.
https://anydaynow.blog/vaccines-on-the-way-in-2021/
On Dec 31, 2020 Dr. Fauci said that the U.S. could return to normal life by early fall.
https://abc17news.com/news/health-news/2020/12/31/fauci-says-us-can-return-to-normal-by-fall-if-it-puts-aside-slow-start-and-is-diligent-about-vaccinations/
Who is more believable, Warp Speed and Trudeau or Dr. Fauci and this blog?
The second wave
The blog of May 9, 2020 predicted a second wave in October and stated it was “pie in the sky” to think that any combination of interventions that did not include a full lockdown could avoid it.
https://anydaynow.blog/opening-up-the-economy/
In the September 24th blog, a detailed analysis concluded that we were in the second wave and a full lockdown scenario would be necessary.
https://anydaynow.blog/wheres-the-pandemic-going-the-big-picture/
However, governments only fiddled with small changes to restrictions while the pandemic continued to accelerate. In December, in Ontario and Quebec especially, it was on the verge of being out of control.
In the U.S. the pandemic went out of control after American Thanksgiving and there does not seem to be any path forward to bring it back under control. Joe Biden has ambitious plans to address the coronavirus pandemic, but he will not be able to enforce or convince many states to enact a strict lockdown.
In Canada and the U.S. people do not even know what a real lockdown is. In Europe during periods of extremely high case counts (notably Italy, Spain, France) lockdowns are enforceable stay-at-home orders and you cannot leave your home without a permit, even to go to the pharmacy.
Virus spread from workplaces
On October 25th a rare graph showed that the source of the largest number of Covid-19 cases were from industrial settings (besides Long-Term Care homes and Health Care).
https://anydaynow.blog/the-whole-truth-about-the-source-of-virus-spread/
Little by little there has been more coverage of the virus spread from workplace environments.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7503363/coronavirus-outbreaks-workplaces-ontario-covid-19/
However this does not seem to have made enough of an impact on some of the latest restrictions and lockdown policies that have been implemented. In Quebec they instituted a curfew which really has dubious value in significantly reducing spread.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/covid-19-curfew-france-california-ohio-1.5866808
In Ontario they continue to blame John Q Public for not following the social health guidelines and have put the public under a stay-at-home order. There is no mention of any policies to reduce the spread of the virus in workplace environments except in construction.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-restrictions-state-of-emergency-rules-jan-12-1.5870215
The number of people in crowded warehouses and factories should be reduced, as has been done for restaurants and stores. And in spite of many calls for paid sick leave so that workers can take time off for Covid-19 testing and quarantine, there has been no move (in Ontario at least) to supplement the federal allowance so that workers can at least get a minimum wage for sick time off.
My favourite part of all of this? The “rare graph”!