Bacon's Rebellion

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COVID-19 Update: Are We Reaching Peak Epidemic?

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

I don’t want to fan the flames of false hope, but the latest data from the Virginia Department of Health is consistent with the idea that Virginia at long last, is flattening the curve. We may not have reached peak virus spread, but we could be close to it, as seen in John Butcher’s graph above.

The graph below is how I was planning to lead this post before John’s daily update arrived in my inbox. John’s presentation may not have a cute coronavirus kitty wearing a face mask, but it is much more revealing so, sniff, sniff, I had to relegate my graph to second place.

Here’s our daily data summary. At Carol Bova’s suggestion, I have added two new data points: The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association’s latest count of “bed availability” and its count of the total number of COVID-19 patients, either confirmed or being tested.

COVID-19 spread

Total tests: 41,401, up 1,416
Total confirmed cases: 5,747, up 473 from the previous day
% tests positive: 33.4% yesterday
Total hospitalizations: 903, up 31 from the previous day
Total deaths: 148, up seven

Hospital capacity

Available beds: 5,970
Currently hospitalized: 765, up 14
ICUs in use: 428, down 12
Ventilators in use: 303, up eight

Update: The VHHA just added a new data point — total discharges of confirmed COVID-19 patients. The number published this morning is 467.

— JAB

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8 responses to “COVID-19 Update: Are We Reaching Peak Epidemic?”

  1. TBill Avatar
    TBill

    I am not a model expert, but I know there are various COVID models, and it does seem like officials actually have to use multiple models to get the range of possibilities. Above I’d be curious if hospital admissions is a better metric.

    I might add Ffx Co is having a Twitter session tomorrow AM. I might ask why we had a step bump up last week. I am also curious where we are seeing cases. Maryland has started giving some per ZipCode data, which starts to be a little more helpful to understand where the cases locally are.

  2. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    Bacon opines:

    “I don’t want to fan the flames of false hope, but the latest data from Virginia Department of Health is consistent with the idea that Virginia at long last, is flattening the curve.”

    Yes indeed, Pigs Do Fly, on rare occasion.

    Stopped clocks are always right, once a day.

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Twice. Twice per day, which is one more time than you and James about not waiting.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    The danger is in interpreting the down slope on these graphs to believe there is an end point of the pandemic and expecting everything to go back to the way we were before, e.g. restaurants, sports events, dormitories, churches, etc.

    Virtually every single epidemiologist is saying that the virus is not going away and if we go back to social mixing – those that had managed to not get infected before are going to be at high risk to become infected.

    It could be that this is our destiny – that until or unless we get a vaccine, the virus is going to relentlessly infect the population no matter what and our primary mitigation is to try to keep the infections from overwhelming our capacity to care for the infected.

    But also, make no mistake, a LOT of people understand this, and they are going to continue to stay away from places where there are many others, no matter what the Fed or State govt might say.

    ” Nearly 75% of Americans Wouldn’t Attend Games If No COVID-19 Vaccine Is Developed, Poll Says”

    https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2020/04/09/poll-sports-coronavirus-return

    1. TBill Avatar
      TBill

      That’s interesting survey. Sheesh our family just got Nats seasons tickets for the first time. I actually had a premonition
      of something like this, because when we were Phillies fans and Phillies had such a great 1993 season, the next years was the baseball players strike, so we could not cheer the Phillies on for another World Series attempt.

      I am trying to mentally scale that survey up to local July 4 activities and summer concerts in the park, which all are tentatively planned to go ahead as scheduled, at least in Fairfax/NoVA. I am thinking these might have to be scaled back or cancelled. I do not really see how large community music groups (bands choirs etc) with Age 65+ members, can get back together for a while.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I think there is a bit of a misconception on the “over 65” aspect. Many victims are in their 50’s because they have existing conditions like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc.

    Folks with these conditions are actually at higher risk than people over 65 who do not have these conditions.

    So, how would you really “separate”, if you have to add all these other people to the “over 65”? Think things like grocery stores… doctors offices, just about anywhere there are “necessary” services where the young and healthy would mix with the older OR those with health conditions.

    People are frustrated, mad… and losing patience but if we don’t use some discipline – we’re liable to go back towards the worst case scenario… numbers.

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      This stuff should scare the Hell out of everyone. Even if the number of unreported is 10 to 1, we’re still some 350+ million uninflected. If it comes back, why would anyone think that it won’t be exactly as it has been this last 2 months? We could have at least 10 more epidemics EXACTLY like this one before we’ve enough immune to any effect.

      Our best bet is to develop an antibody therapy exactly like the one for Ebola, and PAY ATTENTION to every sneeze in any remote hospital in the most remote corners of the world.

      In respect to infectious disease, we do have a New World Order. Now we need to act like it.

  5. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Looks like in we’ll end up with fewer 2020 COVID-19 deaths in Virginia than from a typical year’s flu / pneumonia …

    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/virginia/virginia.htm

    Time to unravel the lockdown.

    Anybody who wants to continue hiding under their beds should continue to do so.

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