If you’ve been a running fan for a long time, or subscribed to Runner’s World a decade or two ago, you’re probably familiar with Team Hoyt.  Dick Hoyt pushed his profoundly physically disabled son in hundreds of races.  If you click the link, you can read their inspirational and moving story.  Sadly, Dick Hoyt passed has just passed away.

The WSJ had an article about how the Covid vaccine may be protecting the old.  I thought a couple of the plots were encouraging.  This plot showing the decline in nursing home deaths as a share of overall deaths since the beginning of the year, even while overall deaths have declined precipitously, is extremely encouraging.

The progress isn’t as obvious on this age chart, but I think it’s still encouraging.

Deaths 85+ have dropped dramatically, while deaths 75+ have remained steady by percentage, but because 85+ deaths have dropped, I believe that really shows an improvement (since you are seeing a constant percentage of a smaller pie).  The share of deaths 55-64 is increasing, which is what you’d expect to see, since that group is more vulnerable to Covid due to age and not protected by the vaccine.  Seattle only opened it’s mass vaccination sites to 65 year olds on March 1st; previously they were open to 70+, and not longer before that, only to 75+.  I’m sure there are other cities doing similarly poorly, and in some other states, vaccine distribution seems rather haphazard, to put it nicely.  In any case, a huge percentage of 65-74 year olds only got the shot in the last month.  I hope that the curve will look even better in another month.

On the negative side, the CFR is roughly the same now as it was last September, so we haven’t made any measurable progress in either detecting minor cases or healing more serious cases in the last six months.