Wow, it’s getting really scary in Texas - and everywhere else!

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MichaelB said:
Back on topic. The Financial Times reported this morning a senior exec at Quest Diagnostics has confirmed testing capacity will not meet needs by the fall when the new flu season takes off.
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It will be a double issue because a lot of flu tests get run. I presume they use similar or the same labs/techs.
 
MichaelB said:
Back on topic. The Financial Times reported this morning a senior exec at Quest Diagnostics has confirmed testing capacity will not meet needs by the fall when the new flu season takes off.
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Yes, I’ve been wondering. Who is supposed to buy more machines and hire more personnel? Do we expect Quest to do it by themselves?
 
Hospitalization numbers continue to drop as Arizona reports 3,500 new COVID-19 cases

https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news...ths-slight-drops-hospitalizations/5478792002/

Inpatient hospitalizations, ICU beds in use, ventilators in use and emergency department visits by suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients all continued slight decreases from days prior, according to Monday's hospital data reported to the state. Over the past week, the daily number of new cases reported by the state Health Department has started to flatten, one of the first potentially promising signs in Arizona's COVID-19 battle. But public health experts say Arizona is still adding far too many new cases, with an average of around 3,500 new cases each day. Arizona has the second-highest case rate per 100,000 residents in the country, trailing only New York City, per CDC data.

Testing so far has not kept up with the virus' spread, although the state recently announced efforts to expand testing. Turnaround on test results is still slow. Sonora Quest Laboratories, which processes the majority of the state's tests, is reporting results in nine to 12 days. Priority samples from hospitals are processed within 24 hours. The percentage of positive tests out of all tests per week may be plateauing or decreasing, but it remains high. Percent positives were at 18% two weeks ago, compared with 21% three weeks ago, 20% four weeks ago and 18% five weeks ago. It's at 16% so far for tests that have come in last week.

IMO, what is of concern looking forward into a seasonal flu epidemic, is the ongoing stress experienced by health care workers - nurses and therapists in particular. There was little respite for them coming out of the most recent flu season that tailed off here in AZ around early May.
 
audreyh1 said:
Yes, I’ve been wondering. Who is supposed to buy more machines and hire more personnel? Do we expect Quest to do it by themselves?
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This is one area where public health plays a critical role. Just as they are doing with a small group of vaccines under development, the gov’t can step in and guarantee the market - for testing capacity, new tests under development and also treatments. Otherwise there will be chronic shortages across the spectrum.
 
MichaelB said:
This is one area where public health plays a critical role. Just as they are doing with a small group of vaccines under development, the gov’t can step in and guarantee the market - for testing capacity, new tests under development and also treatments. Otherwise there will be chronic shortages across the spectrum.
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Unfortunately this is just what the Feds are not doing, I heard a scientist on the news today talking about an on the spot test (spit in a tube, results in 20 minutes) that is both accurate and cheap. It could be ramped up to provide daily tests for workers, schools,and the rest of us which cold be a game changer. But it would take a multi billion effort through the Defense Production Act and that is not going to happen while we rely on the 50 states to address the pandemic. States can't print money, only the Feds can. This kind of national crisis is precisely where we need a bold Federal response.
 
US reached 4 million cases today. California reached 400,000 cases, and is losing in on New York. Florida looks like it can cross that 400,000 bar in just a few days.

TX reported 131 deaths and 9300 cases today. They are averaging over 120 deaths per day, and just above 10,000 cases per day - 7 day average.
 
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A lot of cases in FLA. They were happy that the daily cases were under 10k today. Feel much better now.
 
The rate of new cases in Florida seems to have leveled off, and the 7 day moving average is tilting a bit down - from 11865 to 11172 new cases per day.

The rate of hospitalizations continues to rise, though, and is now over 400 new per day. The fatality rate also continues to climb and the 7 day moving average is now 114 deaths per day. The fatality rate of hospitalized cases has climbed from 20% a month ago to 27%. Very high considering all the announcements of progress in treatments.

It looks like the surge may have begun among younger people but is now moving back to higher risk groups and taking its toll.
 
What bothers me about the 'counts' each day is they are rarely normalized to population. When a low population state has 100 cases in a day - that may be worse than 1000 cases in a day in a highly populated state (NY, FL, CA for example). California is rising to the top on total cases - but normalized on cases/million it's more in the middle of the pack.

When you look at the normalized data it's clear that the states that were hit early were hit much harder in terms of deaths/million. NY, NJ, CT, MA all have deaths/million over 1000... We've obviously figured out treatment a bit more... or just that deaths are a lagging indicator. (Hope it's the former.)

(All of this is based on looking at worldometer and sorting.)
 
rodi said:
NY, NJ, CT, MA all have deaths/million over 1000... We've obviously figured out treatment a bit more... or just that deaths are a lagging indicator. (Hope it's the former.)
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The nursing homes in the states above were hit hard due to lack of testing in the early stages of the pandemic. 63% of deaths in MA were in nursing homes and long term care facilities.

Treatment has also improved with corticosteroids, remdesivir with less intubation.
 
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rodi said:
What bothers me about the 'counts' each day is they are rarely normalized to population. When a low population state has 100 cases in a day - that may be worse than 1000 cases in a day in a highly populated state (NY, FL, CA for example). California is rising to the top on total cases - but normalized on cases/million it's more in the middle of the pack.

When you look at the normalized data it's clear that the states that were hit early were hit much harder in terms of deaths/million. NY, NJ, CT, MA all have deaths/million over 1000... We've obviously figured out treatment a bit more... or just that deaths are a lagging indicator. (Hope it's the former.)

(All of this is based on looking at worldometer and sorting.)
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Yes, it is not easy to get granular data, so the headline numbers garner all the attention. Scott Gottlieb’s twitter feed regularly shows graphs with per-capita data. https://mobile.twitter.com/scottgottliebmd

So far, I think the biggest factor in the lower death rate is the current effort to keep COVID out of the senior homes and care facilities. It makes an enormous difference.

There have been improvements in treatment, but the recent Florida data looks a bit disappointing, with the fatality rate of hospitalizations growing, so improvements in treatment are not obvious.
 
rodi said:
What bothers me about the 'counts' each day is they are rarely normalized to population. When a low population state has 100 cases in a day - that may be worse than 1000 cases in a day in a highly populated state (NY, FL, CA for example). California is rising to the top on total cases - but normalized on cases/million it's more in the middle of the pack.

When you look at the normalized data it's clear that the states that were hit early were hit much harder in terms of deaths/million. NY, NJ, CT, MA all have deaths/million over 1000... We've obviously figured out treatment a bit more... or just that deaths are a lagging indicator. (Hope it's the former.)

(All of this is based on looking at worldometer and sorting.)
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I believe it’s simply that after the initial nasty outbreak, those hard hit states reopened more slowly and cautiously, individuals took the virus way more seriously and were willing to take precautions, and above all states figured out how to protect the elderly. Outbreaks in elder care facilities is what drove those initial high deaths.
 
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donheff said:
Unfortunately this is just what the Feds are not doing, I heard a scientist on the news today talking about an on the spot test (spit in a tube, results in 20 minutes) that is both accurate and cheap. It could be ramped up to provide daily tests for workers, schools,and the rest of us which cold be a game changer. But it would take a multi billion effort through the Defense Production Act and that is not going to happen while we rely on the 50 states to address the pandemic. States can't print money, only the Feds can. This kind of national crisis is precisely where we need a bold Federal response.
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This style of rapid testing could make all the difference to getting 'back to normal'. There is a 'breathalyzer' style test being developed in the USA, Finland, Israel and Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_breathalyzer
 
Corporateburnout said:
The nursing homes in the states above were hit hard due to lack of testing in the early stages of the pandemic. 63% of deaths in MA were in nursing homes and long term care facilities.

Treatment has also improved with corticosteroids, remdesivir with less intubation.
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Yes and sending sick people back into nursing homes.
 
If folks are interested, NBC has a video today about the sad situation in the Rio Grande Valley counties. For example, Starr County has only one small hospital with 48 beds that serves 65,000 residents, and no ICU. The wealthier, much more populous counties to the East have several hospitals, but are still struggling due to the large outbreak. Edinburg is the county seat for Hidalgo county, McAllen is the largest city.
https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/t...urvive-as-coronavirus-cases-surge-88085573503
 
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I saw on the news today that The Villages in Florida has been hit quite badly lately, no actual numbers were shared but I recall it seemed like a high percentage of overall cases.
 
ShokWaveRider said:
I saw on the news today that The Villages in Florida has been hit quite badly lately, no actual numbers were shared but I recall it seemed like a high percentage of overall cases.
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Not surprised at all.
There seems to some surge in Marion County, but not as much in Sumter and Lake counties, in which the Villages are located.
 
pacergal said:
It will be interesting to observe, IF people wear masks and IF people continue to follow good hand washing, how that will/may effect the flu season?
Hopefully, both SARS CoV2 and Flu will be lower this winter.
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Congratulations. You’ve articulated what Asian countries have known for decades. That wearing a mask will help prevent spreading of infectious diseases. How many times have businesses told employees to stay home if they are sick so they don’t make other employees sick? Isn’t that the same as an individual lockdown?

An infectious disease, any infectious disease, can be stopped by putting barriers between those who have been infected and those that have not been infected. Also by the infected host dying.
 
Yeah Baby! Winner! Give the man a fat cigar!
 
bmcgonig said:
Here is a very interesting video from UCSF discussion about the virus where an epidemiologist makes the case that masks can also protect the wearer. The whole video is interesting, but the part I'm referring to starts at about the 30min marker and runs 10min approx. The guy that runs this discussion every week is the chair of the UCSF dept of medicine.

Fundamentally her thesis is that mask wearing will lessen the viral load in your immediate vicinity, probably lead to a much lighter or asymptomatic infection, and probably confer immunity.

https://youtu.be/Cio3rh6ta3w
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That was very informative. It was fascinating that she could show examples where very high masking corresponded to very high % of asymptomatic infections and far fewer deaths.
 
Statewide things are still going in the wrong direction. Past two weeks was a huge contributor to the totals YTD.
Texas' case total rose from 341,739 to 351,940 -- an increase of 10,201. This is the first 10,000-plus case increase since July 17. Texas has added more than 135,700 cases in the last two weeks, an increase of 63 percent, the Houston Chronicle analysis shows. There have been 1,529 deaths reported during that time period, making up more than one-third of the total deaths.
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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...irus-numbers-for-Houston-rest-of-15424551.php
 
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bmcgonig said:
Here is a very interesting video from UCSF discussion about the virus where an epidemiologist makes the case that masks can also protect the wearer. The whole video is interesting, but the part I'm referring to starts at about the 30min marker and runs 10min approx. The guy that runs this discussion every week is the chair of the UCSF dept of medicine.

Fundamentally her thesis is that mask wearing will lessen the viral load in your immediate vicinity, probably lead to a much lighter or asymptomatic infection, and probably confer immunity.

Nothing in the video is political in any way.


https://youtu.be/Cio3rh6ta3w
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Very good video indeed! Thank you very much for sharing this. I especially enjoyed the second speaker (the woman) who talked about the mask wearers who are asymptomatic most likely due to their low viral load (Ex. Czech Republic).

I am starting to focus more on the hospitalization/death rates than just the mere infection rate after her presentation.
 
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