Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Remember when the only number we cared about was our tourney seed? Man the world changed quick.

 

U.S. fatalities trending down. Let's hope this continues.

 

There are 3 shades of rising and a pale yellow that is stable.

 

It is on top of the county data. Three shades are labeled as rising, one shade as stable and one shade as declining.

 

I am not trying to be obtuse or even combative, since this has been a friendly discussion. However, I think that I am missing whatever your point is on the ventilator usage, which we both agree is low. For several weeks now, most doctors have not considered ventilators as part of the standard treatment for Covid-19 patients and many doctors are only using them as a Hail Mary for those that they feel have become so ill that they are likely to die anyway. The use of ventilators has further fallen off now that many agree that Covid-19 is likely a vascular disease that is entering the vascular system as a result of damage to the blood vessels in the lungs, and apparently ventilators may be exaggerating that process.

Also, again not to sound snarky, because you have been very polite through all of these disagreements and I would like to respond in an equally friendly fashion, but why does it matter if the overwhelming majority of ICU beds are not Covid patients? ~ 710 of the ~ 3000 occupied ICU beds are Covid patients. That is not disputed. However, with the increase in hospitalizations for Covid, the available number of beds is now less than 14% of total statewide capacity. Does it matter if someone comes in with Covid or not if all of the ICU beds are eventually filled?? My concern is that as the total number of cases climbs, the number of hospitalizations and ICU bed usage for Covid-19 will increase to the point where no ICU beds are available for anyone, regardless of why they need these beds.

Finally, here are the deaths by date of death (not date reported to the state). Knowing that all of the data from the past 10 days is not been fully reported yet, I do not see the # of deaths per day decreasing? I could be reading this wrong, but my eye is drawing a pretty steady mean-line through the bar graph.

 

Appreciate the response. I have said that this data can be read honestly multiple ways.

There are only 739 TOTAL covid patients in the hospital according the States official site this AM. I struggle to believe 710 of them are in ICU...but I could be wrong.

Of those a huge number are from the current outbreaks in Nursing homes. (I linked that info above. I am in no way discounting those lives, but workers in those facilities need to take extra caution in their activities. (Shopping, dining etc) The average healthy day to day citizen in NC is doing very well with the reopening.

A steady mean line is basically what I have been saying. A steady mean line 4 weeks into reopening is much better than many predicted.

As for ventilators, I mention them because it was all we heard about early on and all the big sites still refer to them.

I see many more people wearing masks here. I think Wilmington was slow to adopt masks because in a city with 400k in our metro, we have had 5 deaths. 3 travel related and two that were very I'll to start with. Since our organization opened back up we see an overwhelming majority of the public taking that precaution. Our largest churches are waiting until July to open and the smaller ones that I am aware of are being very strict on social distancing and occupancy.

I have praised Cooper for the most part, but the other day he took his mask off and went on his 100 yard little photo opp march with the protesters. I wonder why he hasn't been attacked by the media in Raleigh? But I digress.

We shall see my friend. We are in different stratosphere in regard to demographics. Your western area is much more resistant to change than my coastal region.

We are likely seeing different things.

 

Texas reports a record number of hospitalized coronavirus patients after state reopened early

 

Odd. Florida has twice the population of Georgia but the same amount of active cases, Florida must be doing something right.
Georgia has very few recovered cases. That doesn't seem accurate.

 

FLORIDA just had it's lowest Tuesday report of new hospitalizations since March (not counting the Tuesday following Memorial Day). 7-day total of new hospitalizations down to 773 from a high of over 1200 in late April. 14-day total of new hospitalizations at 1703 down from a high of 2360 in late April.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Don't worry, someone will poo-poo that news and say "it a lagging indicator".

 

It would be nice to know the average time between the time a case gets counted and the time a new hospitalization occurs. The shorter that time, the better the numbers show:

For example, looking at comparing new hospitalizations vs. new cases by week...

No differentiation (current week's new hospitalizations vs. current week's new cases):

3 weeks ago: .219
2 weeks ago: .191
1 week ago: .155
current week: .107

1-week differentiation (current week's new hospitalizations vs. previous week's new cases):

3 weeks ago: .251
2 weeks ago: .201
1 week ago: .180
current week: .129

2-weeks differentiation (current week's new hospitalizations vs. 2-weeks prior new cases):

3 weeks ago: .225
2 weeks ago: .230
1 week ago: .189
current week: .150

Either way, the numbers *may* suggest that the detections are picking up a lot of folks that might not otherwise have noticed that they have it, or the virus that is going around in FLORIDA may be weakening. I'm open to other possibilities as well.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

And the most new cases in any 7 day period so far. We will see a rise in hospitalizations in the next week or so.

 

atta boy, keep up the negativity.

 

We will? It's certainly a possibility, but the new hospitalizations trend has not at all been following the new cases trend.

Looking at the 10-day average of new case counts:

April 11th: ~1115
May 11th: ~605 (lowest since March)

Looking at the 10-day average of new hospitalizations:

April 11th: ~960
May 11th: ~1125

Maybe it takes a little while for that drop to take effect...

May 25th: ~1115

Hoping for the best!

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

It's just the reality. This is the result of ending social distancing. You need to understand that.

 

Arizona has enacted it's emergency plan, which expands the number of ICU beds, including re-opening a hospital in Phoenix that was retrofitted to handle extra cases back in March. Hospital has been closed for over two years, but in late Feb the Governor ordered it outfitted to take COVID-19 patients just in case the demand was there. Though the hospital is still closed today, it's status is available, which significantly raises the number of ICU beds available in Arizona.

And Arizona isn't just experiencing a rise in cases because there is a rise in testing. This past week saw the highest percentage of COVID-19 positive tests in Arizona. So more tests, and more positive tests, which is why the curve is bending upwards, and hospitals are quickly getting close to capacity.

The state has been open in Phase I for two weeks, but for many people, Phase I could mean completely open. Outside of places like Costco or Trader Joes that require mask wearing, every other place it's optional, which means maybe 25% of the people wear masks. If that.

It's also likely going to get worse before it gets better, especially with the two weeks or protests. We've had a "cooling" period this past few days with highs only in the mid 90s, but even in the dry heat, it makes mask wearing difficult outside. It's supposed to climb back up over 100 and close to 110 in a couple of days, and the hottest part of the day is 4:00 PM. It will still be at or close to 100 when the protests start.

 

so, we were suppose to self isolate for how long, in your learned opinion, 3, 6, 9 months, longer?sooner or later you cannot live your life in fear, and if people do not want to believe that they can isolate themselves from the world for as long as they want.