It’s bad. Before we get to that, only Ward 2 is below the German rollback threshold of 50 new cases per 100,000 per week–which also is the threshold the CDC suggests schools for all grades can reopen (0.05% in the second column below; n/a is not available):
| Ward | one-week prevalence | one-week % pos. | two-week prevalence | two-week % pos. |
| 1 | 0.074% | n/a | 0.123% | n/a |
| 2 | 0.043% | n/a | 0.080% | n/a |
| 3 | 0.055% | n/a | 0.085% | n/a |
| 4 | 0.060% | n/a | 0.103% | n/a |
| 5 | 0.090% | n/a | 0.154% | n/a |
| 6 | 0.102% | n/a | 0.169% | n/a |
| 7 | 0.109% | n/a | 0.173% | n/a |
| 8 | 0.108% | n/a | 0.200% | n/a |
| D.C. total | 0.080% | 2.8% | 0.136% | 2.8% |
The entire city didn’t get below the German rollback threshold of 50 new cases per 100,000 per week, and had a 42% increase in new cases in the last week. Every ward saw large increases this week, especially Wards 4 and 8 which had doublings of new cases. We also lack percent positive rates for each ward, so there’s no context for these numbers.
D.C. had two COVID-19 related deaths in the last week. Hospitalizations and ICU stays related to COVID-19 increased slightly too. Vaccination is still too slow: at roughly 0.7% of the population becoming fully vaccinated per week, we are nowhere near close to 85% fully vaccinated–at this rate, we likely wouldn’t reach 85% before 2022. We desperately need vaccine mandates, because asking nicely isn’t working fast enough. It’s not only good policy, it’s good politics.
Because east-of-the-river still resembles Southwest Missouri in terms of vaccination. And kids haven’t even started returning to school yet.
None of this needed to happen.
Anger is the appropriate emotion.
mikethemadbiologist