But why? Even with the uptick in cases since the first week of June (after the start of the protests and Memorial Day) we are still seeing a plateau (at worst and decline at best) of deaths. Hospitals are NOT overwhelmed. The ones in Houston that are full, that's normal because they are still doing elective surgeries. Just because a hospital is near capacity doesn't mean they are full of Covid folks. A hospital makes approx $0 (may math may be wrong) on an empty room!
https://www.khou.com/article/news/h...read/285-aad0788d-256e-4454-8e3f-87f9c7956680 (not the original source but at 97% cap and normal is 70%, only 27% are covid related and not necessarily long term)
The state of Georgia reported death rate has fallen a full % point in a month. That's massive!! And even the mayor of Miami (Fl) say that the actual number of cases in Florida vs the positive cases may be an increase by a factor of 10!! Which would further push down the death rate.
https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report
The reason for the lockdown, think back now, was to make sure the hospitals were not overwhelmed and they could get supplies. Mission accomplished! There is no need to continue to restrict gatherings or shut down business. We gave an inch and they took a mile.
And if you think that only conference games will be played, that make the 7 independent teams (including ND) SOL. You think they will just roll over and let their entire sports department suffer? Nah.
A close buddy of mine had it. He's obese. About 2 days of mild flu symptoms is all he had. Jimmie Johnson is already back with NASCAR.
https://outkick.com/jimmie-johnsons-quick-return-from-coronavirus-is-a-good-omen-for-sports/
If, I don't have crystal ball, the next 2 weeks continue as the past 6 have, we will have a season with crowds. With a falling death rate (don't forget the concentration of deaths in a certain age bracket and minuscule in others) and a rising infection rate, it will be on par with the seasonal flu.
https://coronavirusbellcurve.com/
First let's talk about the death rate - and I assume what you really mean is the mortality rate. The Gu model currently estimates the mortality rate at 0.3%. That's good as that is down from the previous 0.5%. But, if your cases are increasing then that eventually overwhelms the lower mortality rate. Given those numbers once your case rate increases by 2/3 or more then deaths start increasing again. That is what we are seeing on a national level this week and have been seeing in multiple areas of the country for about 10 days.
Deaths nationally bottomed out last week with a 7 day avg of 527-530 from Tues-Fri. As of yesterday the 7 day avg has increased to 553. Basically, about 160 more people died in the most recent 7 days than the 7 days prior to that.
So if cases (spread of the disesase) continue to rise then the number of deaths will start to increase (which is exactly what a couple of the models have been projecting - that deaths would flatten out at the beginning of July and then start to increase).
Deaths in the SE and SW have been on an increase for more than a week now. The 7 day avg death rate in SE (FL, GA, AL, MS, LA, SC, NC, TN) has increased 12.6% in the last 7 days. 7 day avg deaths in the SW (TX, NM, Utah, AZ, CA) have increased 12.1% in the last 7 days and 24.6% in the last 9 days.
Worse are the cases and hospitalizations. In the SE hospitalizations due to COVID have increased 37.8% in the last week (note that excludes FL since they don't report COVID hospitalizations). in the SW it is 25.8% increase in the last 7 days.
One model suggests the current R for the SW is now closer to 1.2-1.3 instead of 1.3-1.4, but that is still very bad. It means it is still increasing, just at a lower rate. As long as the R factor is above 1 this is going to get worse.
Nationally cases have risen 158% since June 12th while testing has risen 37%. So the vast majority of the increase is due to spread of the disease not increased testing.
(that's why the positive test rate is increasing). On a national level the positive test % has risen to 8.1%, the highest since May 10th and it is increasing while back then it was decreasing. Under 5% is when it is considered safe to open up. 5-10% is generally considered to be hold in place, over 10% and you are recommended to go more restrictive.
The article you posted from TX is old and out of date.
Texas Gov Abbot banned elective surgeries in the 4 largest TX counties on June 25th. So hospitalization numbers are not due to elective surgeries.
Arizona hospitals have also greatly reduced any elective surgeries.
Just because your buddy had a mild case doesn't mean that is the normal experience. My cul-de-sac neighbor who is 25 was in the hospital for 3 days and home for 14. One of my wife's cousins needed 3 weeks to get over it.
Be careful when interpreting the bell curve chart. Just because we have had 2 days at over 60K cases is not a good thing. You also have to wait longer to see if that continues. A plateau at that level would be awful. In terms of time series you want to look at multi-day averages (preferrably 7) as that smoothes out the natural seasonality in the daily reporting. The 7 day avg cases for the US has increased every day since June 9th. On the bell curve site that black line is the line you want to pay attention to. Keep in mind the Tuesday # was an unnaturally high number as the country was playing catchup in reporting due to the Holiday weekend. So if you had normal weekend reporting you would have seen more of a line instead of 2 numbers at the same level given the false impression of a plateau. We will need a good week or so to see if we are flattening or not.
As long as positive test rates are increasing the problem is getting worse. That means as you get further from the most likely to get tests you are finding more cases, not less - which means the spread is greater than you realize so getting it under control is much more difficult.
The infected mortality rate with the 10X increase in cases is the 0.3-0.5% (actual reported deaths / estimated total infections). The confirmed mortality rate is between 4.4-5% right now (actual reported deaths / actual reported cases). Take that 4.4-5% number and divide by 10-12 for the cases we are not finding and that is where you get the 0.3-0.5%. So don't confuse the two. It's not 0.3% and then divide that by 10, the 0.3% is after you divide by 10. Also keep in mind that actual deaths are considered by data scientists to be undercounted so an estimated death number would be higher than the actual death number.
I recommend watching this video from Austin - it puts things in perspective where we are today.
When the 7 day avg case rates (particularly the positive test %) and hospitalization rates start to decline you will know we are then making headway. Until then things are getting worse, not better.
if you are interested in a really good tracking site, this is the best one I have found. Data comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/ckelly2528#!/vizhome/COVIDDashboard-Public/Introduction