Thread by @SteveDeaceShow

Let's look in this thread at how Delta Variant performed in other countries. Two with higher vaccination rates than the U.S., and one with much, much lower vaccination rates so we get a well-rounded sample.

Let's start in the UK, which didn't come out of lockdown until July 19th. Its Delta Variant case climb began around June 4th. From that day to its peak on July 17th (43 days), cases in the UK rose a whopping 772%!

However, there wasn't a parallel stark rise in deaths. In fact, the UK (population 66 million) hasn't eclipsed 100 daily deaths since March 23rd (128 days). Its reasonable to assume lower natural immunity in UK with longer lockdown, too.

The UK is currently reporting 55.9% of population fully-vaccinated, compared to 49.1% of U.S. So slightly better, but not that much so. And you have to assume U.S. has more natural immunity having been far more open and for longer.

Now let's look at Israel, which had one of the strictest lockdowns in the industrialized world. Israel went weeks reporting zero cases, until it reported 123 on June 21st. July 28th it hit a current peak of 2328 cases. That's a massive 1,793% increase!

It's too early to tell if that is Israel's peak, but cases have declined the next two days. If so, that would put Israel in a 37-day escalation scenario. So within range of what the UK saw at 43 days.

However, the highest daily deaths Israel has recorded over these 37 days is just 4! A country of over 9 million hasn't hit double-figures in daily deaths since June 10th -- which is 50 days ago.

Given Israel's far stricter lockdown, it's also reasonable to assume it has a lower rate of natural immunity than the U.S. But Israel reports 62.1% full vaccinated, which is about 25% higher than the U.S.

Finally, let's look at India, where Delta Variant originated. The daily curse curve there really began to escalate around March 18th. From that date until its peak on May 8th (51 days) cases rose an insane 945%!

India has a population of 1.4 billion, or more than 3 times what the U.S., UK, and Israel have combined. That could explain why its case escalation scenario lasted longer. 50 days later, cases in India had decreased over 800% from that peak.

Now, unlike the UK and Israel, India did see a parallel rise in deaths. Daily deaths in India exceeded 5k on May 23rd, or about two weeks after the case peak, so that lag period checks out with what we've seen since the start of the pandemic.

Deaths in India rose 3,115% during its case escalation scenario. India also has one of the lowest full vaccination rates in the free world at just 6.7%.

However, daily deaths in India dropped 818% over the next 50 days from that peak (and are still dropping btw), which implies high levels of natural immunity given the paltry vaccine numbers there.

So what does this mean for the Delta Variant in the U.S.? From a public policy perspective, we can probably draw three conclusions from this data sample.

1) From a transmission standpoint, the Delta variant is gonna variant (h/t @AlexBerenson). Neither locked down or higher vaccinated countries could stop its escalation scenario. I would argue our escalation scenario began around July 13th (18 days ago).

Cases were rising before then, yes, so we could quibble on exact launch date in the time prior. But we can't argue they have been rapidly rising since then. In the last 18 days cases have risen 216%.

The case escalation scenario from these other countries would also suggest we're about halfway through ours, give or take some days here or there (depending on when you believe it actually started).

And given the rise in breakthrough cases throughout the U.S., that coincides with what we saw in Israel and the UK as well, which are each more fully vaccinated than we are.

2) Death numbers in the U.S. remain at record lows since the pandemic began, which is the pattern we observed during the escalation scenarios in the more vaccinated U.K. and Israel but not the paltry vaccinated India.

On June 10th, before the current Delta variant escalation scenario, the U.S. recorded 489 deaths. 50 days later on July 30th, right in the heart of our current Delta variant escalation scenario, the U.S. reported 419 deaths.

And during our Delta variant escalation scenario we have recorded record-low numbers of daily deaths since we started charting them in March of 2020.

Therefore, we are currently following the same epidemiological pattern as the more vaccinated UK and Israel (skyrocketing cases while deaths remain at record lows), and not the pattern in paltry vaccinated India -- where both exploded simultaneously.

"But what about hospitalizations?" Deaths and hospitalizations tend to rise congruently, hence from a public policy standpoint there's really no need to break them out. In other words, if we're not having a death rise in the U.S., hospitals aren't suffering collectively either.

3) India does tell us, though, that our public health officials/media are ignoring natural immunity at their own peril. Yes, Ivermectin was used by several Indian states, but not systemically enough to account primarily for the large decrease there within such a large population.

However, seroprevalence would account for such a pattern (i.e. hitting a herd/population immunity threshold). If we are going to credit the vaccines for keeping deaths low in countries with likely lower vaccination rates, then we have to be intellectually honest about India, too.

Just as the data clearly implies the Covid therapeutics couldn't contain Delta transmission in Israel and the UK, but still kept deaths down. In India, its data implies natural immunity was the primary weapon that crushed its curve (albeit at a higher cost of life).

Both of these scenarios could be good news for us. Because since we've been one of the more open countries for a year now, we should have a higher rate of natural immunity, too. But we also have almost half the country fully vaccinated as well.

Therefore, it is possible we could end up with the best of both worlds versus Delta. We could potentially keep deaths down AND have shorter case escalation scenario with therapeutic vaccines and natural immunity working together.

This constant ignoring and dismissing of natural immunity by our health/media elites is doing tremendous damage to their credibility in real-time. Natural immunity is clearly our friend right now.

Meanwhile, and I say this as someone who VEHEMENTLY opposes vaccine mandates and remains skeptical of the long-term Covid vaccine efficacy and side effects still to be learned, I also don't think you make the claim vaccines didn't help in the UK/Israel or aren't helping us now.

This data clearly suggests they did. There is no other way to explain how deaths remained low in locked down countries with low natural immunity during their escalations, because they're not using Ivermectin in Israel and the UK obviously.

So what does this all mean? It means we should be coming together right now, not being torn further apart. Vaccine mandates that won't stop transmission divide us, just as completely dismissing the role vaccines seem to have played in mitigating severity may as well.

The data clearly suggests, at least for now, we need both therapeutics and natural immunity to crush this curve and keep deaths low. That calculus may change with future variants, or future adverse side effects data, but for now that appears strongly to be the case.

Of course, Delta -- like most mutations/variants -- could also just be a weakening of the virus as it looks to find its place to endemically survive. That could also explain higher transmissibility with lower lethality to some extent. But we still must confront Indian death rise.

Finally, we are winning in real time. The truth is our friend. Let the data speak for itself. To have public officials and media elites act as if they're a hammer and everything is a nail breeds suspicion and division. Let the truth have its day, and follow the data.