Hoosier

Indiana opened vaccine eligibility to 30+ yesterday. Interesting timing for that since it was announced just days ago that everyone 16+ would become eligible on 3/31. I wonder how many people will even realize that age 30+ is eligible a whole 2 days earlier as the bigger headline grabber was what's happening on 3/31. The only way this makes any sense is if it's to try to lessen the number of people trying to schedule an appointment on 3/31.

Yeah I can agree with that. I don't really have a problem with other countries requiring US citizens to be vaccinated before allowing them in, and vice versa, but vaccine "passports" within the United States? We don't do it for any other disease. Like, you don't have to show proof of vaccination to attend a concert or sporting event. The vaccine will soon be available to everyone 16+ and is extraordinarily effective at preventing severe enough covid that requires hospitalization.

Michigan accounts for 6% of the covid hospitalizations in the US, despite making up 3% of the US population.

Seeing the early signs of rising hospitalizations in Indiana. There's a little bouncing around in the dailies but they bottomed out around 575 and are over 600 now. Also, today had the highest number of cases on a Sunday since 2/14

Just a general comment... it seems like severe setups this year (not that there have been very many yet in this region) haven't really struggled in the mid level lapse rate department for the most part. If this continues deeper into spring as moisture return improves with northward extent, then it could raise the stakes in this sub farther down the road.

Indy is going to keep masking/some capacity limits beyond April 6. https://amp.indystar.com/amp/6995464002

If B.1.1.7 is becoming dominant in Michigan, and if that variant is more deadly, then it stands to reason that it would slow down the decline in the CFR as there are still a lot of unvaccinated people out there. The CFR should still trend down with time but perhaps not as quickly as hoped.

Poor Brazil https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/younger-brazilians-are-dying-from-covid-in-an-alarming-new-shift/ar-BB1f0nLa?ocid=uxbndlbing

Tonight I learned of someone who had shot 1 in January, shot 2 in February, and is decently sick with covid right now. Not ill enough to be in the hospital but has a cough and lung issues. There will be more stories like this but the thing to keep in mind is how sick could somebody like that have gotten without having the vaccine.

Over 70k cases today. The regional differences are becoming more apparent as well, with northern states generally plateaued or rising and southern states falling. Hopefully this bit of a rise nationally reverses itself in a few weeks. Will be curious to see what the daily peak gets to. Not sure if we'll see another 100k case day coming up, but 80-90k seems quite plausible at this rate.

The former CDC director came out and threw gas on the fire as the origin of the virus. I mean, anything is possible until it isn't, but it would've been nice to get some compelling evidence behind that theory. No matter what, there was lack of transparency from China early on. That is not debatable.

Your body's response to the 2nd dose sounds like middle of the spectrum -- some have it better and others have it worse. In a vaccum, it's like why would a person want to deal with a day or maybe two of feeling lousy, and not knowing just how crappy it will be, but it is not a vacuum of course as we are trying to contain the virus as much as possible. One thing I am wondering about is long hauler covid. The vaccines cut the risk of that simply because they cut the odds of getting sick with covid. But for the percentage of vaccinated folks who have breakthrough covid infections, do the vaccines prevent long hauler covid in them? Hopefully we get a concrete answer to that sometime in the not too distant future.

19 straight days of cases <1000 in IN ended today.

It is very difficult to get a low 980s surface low in northwest IN. I can probably count on one hand how many times I know of it happening over the course of many decades. Usually it will end up farther north or not deepen quickly enough to get to that. You'd like to think the Euro knows what it's doing at only about 24 hours out, but caution was warranted given the rarity of what was depicted in addition to tepid model support for something that deep.

Was your purpose of signing up here just to try to find any possible way of minimizing the event?

Certainly not anything like what is going on in Dixie, but watching Saturday for some activity. Looks like one of those little remind-you-of-the-coming-season setups.

Maybe things would've been even worse without the mask mandates?

What did the 06z Euro get it down to?

Latest runs have a weaker surface low. Won't be surprised if the 12z Euro is weaker than 00z.

Sorry for the drive-by as I have been focusing on the impacts of this rapidly deepening surface low in my local area, but agree with the consensus here... this setup looks like big problems, and I'll be surprised if we're debating a high risk bust this time.

The surface low drops 11 mb in 6 hours on that run... between 00z and 06z. This map is very impressive to see at 925 mb. As mentioned, likely to be a shallow mixing environment north of the surface low, but one thing I am wondering is if some of that depicted heavier precip could try to mix it down. If it does, look out.

I'd be curious to know how much less mask wearing is occurring in those states after the mandates were lifted. If it's almost at the same level as before, then you wouldn't necessarily expect a big surge. If it's much less than before, then perhaps a combo of vaccinations and changing seasons is helping them out. Indiana will be an interesting test coming up to see what happens when you end the mask mandate in a northern state.

00z NAM/HRRR came in deeper than before. The NAM actually has a band of 65-70 kt winds at 925 mb around Lake Michigan, but mixing looks fairly poor at that time and even 925 mb would probably have some trouble mixing down. Along/south of the surface low track, mixing looks better for a time to potentially tap into freakishly strong wind fields. Not sure yet what the magnitude of this will turn out to be, but there is potential for it to be more than your run of the mill 55-60 mph high wind event.

Our Indy friend seems a bit excited.

They are definitely one of the lowlights in the country right now. I have been keeping a close eye on their numbers, and now the hospitalizations are almost double of what they were about a month ago. The number of people on a ventilator has been going up too, but at a slower pace. Even assuming that the average age of a hospitalized patient is younger now, I think it is going to be hard to avoid a bit of an increase in deaths there in the coming days/weeks. Obviously we share a border with them, and although we have been pretty much plateaued here, I'm not sure how much longer that can last. At least we are buying some time. With increasing vaccinations, it will be hard to get as big of a rise here as what it occurring in Michigan. A caveat is what happens when the statewide mask mandate ends in a couple weeks, but I don't think it's suddenly going to be no masks, everything back to normal. I imagine a lot of businesses will keep a mask policy beyond early April, but the lifting of the statewide mandate may make those harder to enforce.