Met with the hospital, Health Dept folks, etc and no change to the overall guidance other than masks are (were) coming and somethings were going to be shutdown again (must have got head’s up about DeSantis shuttering the bars again).
Everyone wanted to know about the increase in cases & what it means. Here’s what they said in order of priority on why the numbers are going up:
a. Additional testing, they’ve raised testing by almost 300% in the past 2-3 weeks (That number seemed more like 250% to me but maybe he had non public data)
b. Higher percentage of people are positive #2. Gone from about 6% to 10+%. Need some medical explanation of “lite positive” because I really don’t understand other than it’s asymptomatic people are ringing the bell & they say that type’s “ok”???? These people are often associates of other people that have tested positive & are feeling well with no reason to have been tested otherwise.
c. Hot spots are getting hotter, ie Dade, Broward & Palm Beach & they are spiking the numbers. Better managed areas Hillsborough, Orange, Duval not as bad. They’ve done a poor job “down there” and it is what it is.
d. People that would have stayed at home & avoided the hospital are now coming in for tests because the fear of dying visiting hospitals & clinics for tests are reducing. Those people the disease would have come & gone and never been counted
e. The lack of fear of running out of tests means they can test young, possible “lite positives” where they wouldn’t before.
f. They are testing the nursing homes more but that’s dropping off week over week now as they don’t re-test positives.
g. Warmer weather is sending people in doors and closer quarters is providing an incubator like environment as people are packed in
h. Relaxing of social distancing, particularly in “c” above. The better managed cities have done better.
Now this is counter to the hysteria in the news but the death rate is not quite plummeting but the “lite positives” are not going to die or be hospitalized and they’re the majority of positives so the rate is going to decrease.
Driving towards herd immunity is speeding up, like big time. The thought this was going to die out was a hope. They are no where near being overwhelmed at the hospital so if it keeps going like this they’re fine.
Stay home if you’re old, health poor, etc, others wear masks, wash your hand, etc. Same guidance as before.
Good information. Hospitals tend to be fine until they aren't. You watch the trends and everything goes along ok and then it tends to explode. It will obviously depend upon how much it gets into the older population. I could see the delay being longer since it is starting more in younger populations. But it also helps that treatments in hospitals are much better now - saw a chart this evening from England where the death rate in hospitals has dropped over 75% from what is was back in March.
here is the FL specific chart for COVID information on deaths, cases, testing, testing % with 7 day averages (you may have to pick Florida)
https://public.tableau.com/profile/ckelly2528#!/vizhome/COVIDDashboard-Public/Introduction
Testing has increased recently, though if you use a 7-day rolling avg its only gone up about 13% in the last 3 weeks. (33,716 Jume 26 vs 29,793 for June 9). if you use just the raw number of the current day and the day 3 weeks ago the increase is about 200%, but that is not considered a good statistical way to measure the change. Too much day to day variation in totals and potential data dumps mean you need to use a multi-day avg to help smooth all that out.
Cases have risen to a 7 day avg of 4,745 from 1,222 (388% increase)
The positive test percentage has risen from 4.1% to 14.1%.
Fortunately deaths are still relatively flat going from an avg of 34 on 6/9 to 38 today.
FL is also tough because they don't publicly make their hospitalizations available, though this tableau workbook has that info from the state. Keep in mind the FL changed how they count ICU beds middle of this week. If a person is in an ICU bed but not using ICU services than they are not counting that bed as utilized.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/ckelly2528#!/vizhome/COVIDDashboard-Public/Introduction
Note that while Miami-Dade and Broward are getting hit harder in terms of cases, in terms of hospital beds Orange County is in a worse position currently. That will probably change if the cases continue to look as they do.
Orange Co has 17.72% of ICU beds still available (56), while Miami-Dade has 26.08% available (256) and Broward has 16.81% (79) and Palm Beach has 23.72% (97). At a state level FL is showing 21.32% of ICU beds still available. (1,290). Pinellas and Hillsborough around Tamps are both showing about 15-16% of ICU beds available.
I agree that the guidance remains the same. Key is for hopsitalizations not to spike like they did in TX and AZ. If it does that then hospitals will fill quick, if not then they should be ok.
The issue is that what happens in the next 10-14 days they basically have no control over, that is going to be due to whatever happened the last 2-3 weeks. What we do now will impact what things look like 2-3 maybe 4 weeks from now, not the next 7-10 days.
