COVID-19 (artist formerly known as Wuhan strain novel Corona virus)

Remember not long ago, 5,000 deaths a day seemed ridiculous. The trends still carry it there, easily.

 

Oklahoma just had its first person vaccinated. How? It's been a month.

 

Because some have no interest in acknowledging the pandemic or science, as it does not advance their ideology. We sent people to fight the Taliban and baathists on the other side of the world, but what about the American equivalent taking root in our own hearts and minds?

 

Got another question. Nashville news tonight said 120 something deaths, i believe the number was. Amd no new hospitalizations. So why would icu bed availability not improve? They trying to tell us all the deaths were people isolating at home?
This is why i question numbers often. Some just dont make sense. Yesterday icu bed availability in nashville was at 9%. It wont change with the deaths and no new hospitalizations. Doesnt add up.

 

Several possibilities:

They were basing the no new new hospitalizations off of the fact total hospitalizations didn’t change. But of course people could leave/die and others could come.

120 people dying in the state might not be enough to impact the % ICU bed utilization given others are going into ICU.

In some areas they mig have been waiting on that bed for someone else. Someone dies, they fill the ICU bed.

Data sets all have lags and will have different lags. The 120 something deaths reported today could have occurred anywhere from yesterday to two weeks ago (and some deaths occurring today might not be reported until two days from now or two weeks from now). Reporting lags tend to be due to paperwork but also clinical determination can slow it down.

 

There were new hospitalizations yesterday.

 

Nashville channel 2 news Bob Mueller reported "no new hospitalizations"

 

TN website for hospitalizations shows the numbers in ICU increasing. On the 7th, ICU cases were 782, on the 8th, ICU cases were 802.

 

Moving average now over 3,000 deaths/day - daily peaks in excess of 4,000.

It isn’t done rising but hopefully we don’t see 4,000 as an average.

 

Is there a reason to believe we won't see 4k averages? New cases hasn't flattened yet, and we are at or near ICU capacity in several regions. If it flattened, we would still be building beyond capacity since the time it takes to clear an ICU survivor through is weeks.

 

There are reasons only because we aren’t at the case or hospitalization level yet that would indicate that high of a moving average. So that’s where hope comes in. Cases per day has curved over in some areas of the country but not others. Whether we will get to 4000 average or not depends on whether those areas finally begin flattening off.

 

@Ssmiff

I think your mom can sign up now, go here:

https://www.localmemphis.com/articl...ions/522-fc0769f4-22d6-4b99-8262-6a4c10d57d3d

For folks 75+.

 

Is there a generally accepted multiplier to estimate the actual number of cases in a given area?

 

I don't believe there is anymore. Testing is so easy. When testing was hard, it was estimated that 10x more people were infected than were cases.

Now, I'd say... 10%?

 

They think it was 3x in the summer. Surely we are lower than that now.

But if 30% of cases are asymptomatic then it’s probably closer to a 1.5 multiplier as a lower limit (though some asymptomatic are caught).

 

I think Iceland did one of the best jobs per capital testing and was finding 40+ percent being asymptotic overall.


They’re more metabolically healthy and have way less genetic diversity so that could play into it too

 

40% asymptomatic but still got tested wouldn't go toward figuring out how many infections here are running around unknown.

Our holiday testing was full of people just getting tested, without symptoms, prior to traveling. So in that regard, our highest numbers are also full of likely asymptomatic positives.

 

Anecdotally, two of my coworkers tested positive this way, one developed symptoms later and the other did not.

 

I’m pretty sure Iceland did wide spread national wide testing drives on their population and not just if you want or think you have it come get a test.

thag

 

Which would make it even more useless in trying to determine what percentage of infections wouldn't be caught by normal testing.