Coronavirus

[fluoronium]

Those people were likely infected with both as the coronavirus hit the US during the peak of flu season. Interestingly, flu cases in the southern hemisphere have been WAY down during their winter, which is at least in part due to all the measures taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Assuming we keep covid social distancing measures to some extent going into our usual flu season, we should also see a dramatic decrease as these measures work for the flu as well. There's also an argument to be made that the more contagious virus tends to fill the niche for infectious respiratory illness when it comes to spread, and the 2009 H1N1 flu is evidence to support this.

[Hoosier]

Wisconsin appears to be rising.  It looks like a real increase in spread too, not just more testing.

[CheeselandSkies]

7 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Wisconsin appears to be rising.  It looks like a real increase in spread too, not just more testing.

We can thank UW-Madison for that. But sure, let's play football.

[WestMichigan]

8 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Wisconsin appears to be rising.  It looks like a real increase in spread too, not just more testing.

 

1 hour ago, CheeselandSkies said:

We can thank UW-Madison for that. But sure, let's play football.

Similar things going on around here.  the state run university on our county is responsible for most of the new cases.  I wonder how many of them are requiring treatment beyond stay at home and wait it out?  I guess this is a good thing that most of the cases aren't serious but is it cause for alarm?  Maybe, especially if it spreads in the community.  I haven't seen any statistics on college ages kids in Michigan and how many are in the hospital vs how many have COVID.

[Baum]

If cases and hospitalizations are your thing here is where we stand currently. 

 

[Hoosier]

5 hours ago, CheeselandSkies said:

We can thank UW-Madison for that. But sure, let's play football.

Here is Wisconsin.  Cases are up but hospitalizations have also started to increase.  Not hugely on the latter but still.

[Hoosier]

My county passed 10,000 cases the other day.  The question is what has the undercount been?  Obviously we are not missing as many cases as we were back in March, but we are still missing cases with the amount of asymptomatic carriers and some people with milder symptoms who may not bother getting tested/are attributing it to something else.  If the actual number of cases is 10x higher, then it would mean that 20% of my county has had it.  

[HillsdaleMIWeather]

Considering the massive uptick on college campuses, the fact that they're gonna play football this fall is baffling.

But I guess people whined loudly enough.

[wisconsinwx]

A factor in the uptick as well could be more mass events.  After most of the summer events were canceled (in terms of festivals) staples like Oktoberfest are going on in September, and I can tell you last weekend when I went my sister and I were about the only people wearing masks in the open-air pavilion.

[Stebo]

Almost as if we saw this coming but still stood on the traintracks

 

[Malacka11]

7 hours ago, Stebo said:

Almost as if we saw this coming but still stood on the traintracks

 

We stood in the siding, saw the red light in the distance, and then shifted the rail switch to bring a 5,000 meter long coal train straight into us. 

[mattb65]

10 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

A factor in the uptick as well could be more mass events.  After most of the summer events were canceled (in terms of festivals) staples like Oktoberfest are going on in September, and I can tell you last weekend when I went my sister and I were about the only people wearing masks in the open-air pavilion.

Looking nationwide, according to the covid simulations the declines in cases we have seen over the last couple months appear to be leveling off and cases are predicted to start rising again in the next 1-2 weeks. Deaths should continue a trend of declining for another approximately 5-6 weeks given the 4 week lag between new cases and new deaths.

If things pan out like this, it is a bad sign heading into winter. The number of active circulating cases could portend a third wave larger than all the rest. Having said this, there could be some protection from the existing prevalence of people who have immunity which is estimated at around 15% nationwide.

I'm hopeful that we will have an effective vaccine with good data soon but I believe the timeline from the CDC director of availability more likely after fall/winter and more likely widely available in spring/summer next year.

So whatever happens with this next wave of infections will only be contained with mitigation efforts.

[Cary67]

On 9/19/2020 at 1:24 AM, wisconsinwx said:

A factor in the uptick as well could be more mass events.  After most of the summer events were canceled (in terms of festivals) staples like Oktoberfest are going on in September, and I can tell you last weekend when I went my sister and I were about the only people wearing masks in the open-air pavilion.

Wisconsin trending up in positivity. Another question. IL puts out state positivity rates daily that show rates between 3.5% and 4.2%for the last month. However when you look at the IDPH regional metrics or the county level rates they always come in much higher. The county data lags by at least a week but here in McHenry the positivity rate hovers from 5.7%-7.7% mostly. Region metrics show almost all the regions consistently higher than the state average. Any reasons? Do they calculate the case burden differently?

[WestMichigan]

Nationwide daily deaths are down and have been under 1000 by a significant amount recently.  Haven't seen any talk about that but there sure was a lot of complaining when it was hovering around or above 1000.

[Snownado]

51 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

Nationwide daily deaths are down and have been under 1000 by a significant amount recently.  Haven't seen any talk about that but there sure was a lot of complaining when it was hovering around or above 1000.

Yeah it seems like the news is quick to point things out when things are going bad, but when things are going better they don't mention it as much.

[BuffaloWeather]

1 hour ago, WestMichigan said:

Nationwide daily deaths are down and have been under 1000 by a significant amount recently.  Haven't seen any talk about that but there sure was a lot of complaining when it was hovering around or above 1000.

Negative news sells. I wish there was a dedicated new station with all the positive things going on around the country. 

[MIstorm97]

1 hour ago, Snownado said:

Yeah it seems like the news is quick to point things out when things are going bad, but when things are going better they don't mention it as much.

 

17 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Negative news sells. I wish there was a dedicated new station with all the positive things going on around the country. 

Dirty Laundry sums this up pretty well.

[Hoosier]

A few weeks ago I mentioned that daily deaths were dropping.  You could see it coming when digging into the data.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that we are still averaging 750+ per day, and right now I am skeptical that the number is going to be able to drop a lot more anytime soon.  

We better hope our baseline is low going into the holidays, because that is a looming trouble spot for various reasons.

[Snownado]

2 hours ago, MIstorm97 said:

 

Dirty Laundry sums this up pretty well.

My question is why does negative news sell. Do people not like hearing about positive news ?

[dta1984]

4 hours ago, Snownado said:

My question is why does negative news sell. Do people not like hearing about positive news ?

That's just how the media is with everything going on (political etc).  It's used to fuel a certain feeling one way or another.   It's always good to do your own research. 

[Stebo]

6 hours ago, Hoosier said:

A few weeks ago I mentioned that daily deaths were dropping.  You could see it coming when digging into the data.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that we are still averaging 750+ per day, and right now I am skeptical that the number is going to be able to drop a lot more anytime soon.  

We better hope our baseline is low going into the holidays, because that is a looming trouble spot for various reasons.

This is that cross point like early in the summer where numbers went down so people wanted everything opened and then numbers skyrocketed back up when some things opened up.  Caution still needs to be used, while slowly opening the remaining things up.

[Indystorm]

So we have now exceeded 200,000 deaths in America due to COVID, a figure we weren't expected to reach until Election day.  Now one model says we may hit nearly 400,000 deaths by the start of the new year if we maintain present behavior.  And there are still many who think this is not a problem or will somehow go away on its own.  I was startled to see a quote by Soren Kierkegaard from the early 19th century that seems strangely applicable to today.  "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."  Food for thought in our era of disinformation.

[Hoosier]

3 hours ago, Indystorm said:

So we have now exceeded 200,000 deaths in America due to COVID, a figure we weren't expected to reach until Election day.  Now one model says we may hit nearly 400,000 deaths by the start of the new year if we maintain present behavior.  And there are still many who think this is not a problem or will somehow go away on its own.  I was startled to see a quote by Soren Kierkegaard from the early 19th century that seems strangely applicable to today.  "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."  Food for thought in our era of disinformation.

Things would have to spiral pretty bad to get to 400k that fast.  

[Stebo]

32 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Things would have to spiral pretty bad to get to 400k that fast.  

If we are around 750 a day from here on it will be 75k added, that being said we are going into cold/flu season so maybe the modeling is factoring in a spike. It isn't completely out of the realm especially if schools remain open and in person.

[Hoosier]

18 minutes ago, Stebo said:

If we are around 750 a day from here on it will be 75k added, that being said we are going into cold/flu season so maybe the modeling is factoring in a spike. It isn't completely out of the realm especially if schools remain open and in person.

I'm sure there is a lot that goes into the model, and it's probably trying to account for cold season influence.  I'm wondering if it is so detailed as to factor in more schools eventually reopening for in person learning.  I have not been able to find an answer as to how many kids are doing all virtual learning right now but it must be a fairly large number because a number of the larger districts in the country are not having any in person learning yet.

[Hoosier]

Indiana is "fully" reopening this weekend.  I put that in quotes because I am not sure yet of the scope and if it also means no limits on size of gatherings.  I heard there may still be some kind of limit on gathering size.

Apparently bars/restaurants/clubs will be able to operate at full capacity as long as social distancing is maintained.  This raises an obvious question of how distancing can be maintained if a place is at full capacity.

I don't want to get too far into politics, but I really hope this is a science based decision and that there are not outside factors at play.  Our governor is up for reelection and a poll that came out about 2 weeks ago showed the libertarian candidate pulling a large number of votes away to the point where the governor's lead is barely outside the margin of error.  I assume it is due to people being upset about the restrictions/mask orders that have been in place.  So far the governor has resisted the calls to end the mask order.

Having the bars/restaurants at 50-75% has been working decently well, and having those go to 100% will likely result in increased cases over time. 

[Hoosier]

Here are test numbers, cases and hospitalizations for Indiana courtesy of covid tracking.

Other than a recent spike, which I believe was due to a backlog, daily testing numbers have been either side of 10,000.  Case numbers have been up and down but sort of hanging in a zone.  Hospitalizations have trended down and are at a similar level as mid July.  I guess I'd like to know the logic that went into deciding to move to a full reopening.  If the bars/restaurants couldn't be fully open in July, then why now?  Testing, cases, and hospitalizations are pretty much the same now as they were in most of July.

 

 

 

[Stebo]

There is no reason why they should be open now if they weren't in July. It is just political posturing at this point.

[Baum]

worth the read out of Japan.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1.full.pdf

 

 

[NEOH]

12 hours ago, Baum said:

worth the read out of Japan.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1.full.pdf

 

 

Thanks for sharing. I'm guessing the Japanese population is much healthier overall than in the US -- thus fewer pre-existing conditions. What was the stat that was floating around awhile back... something like 96% of the individuals that died in the US had 2 or more pre-existing conditions.