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COVID-19 detected in United States

gangstonc

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Another day, another new record: 888 new cases today.

The data source I'm using sometimes varies a bit from ADPH. Yesterday I posted we had 859 new cases which was a new record. ADPH says the number was 1040.

Anyway you slice it, are numbers are rapidly rising. Testing is up slightly, but nowhere near enough to account for successive days with 800+ cases considering just a few weeks ago our testing volume was similar and our highs were in the mid-300s.

Of note, Alabama is not the only state seeing these kinds of increases. It's going to be a long summer. A long fall. And a long year.
That’s we get for not taking this seriously
 

Evan

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Another day, another new record: 1014 new cases today.

The data source I'm using sometimes varies a bit from ADPH. Yesterday I posted we had 888 new cases which was a new record. ADPH says the number was 1075.

If my posts seem repetitive, it's because they are. We're setting new records every day. That's a really bad sign in a pandemic -- and usually signals the eventual peak of cases is going to be much higher and won't occur for some time.

At this point, the models that were so wrong really just seemed to be off on timing and/or modeling the impacts that lockdowns and social distancing have on R zero.

Imagine what would be occurring right now if we hadn't locked down and had time to produce PPE and rollout social distancing procedures. This was always going to be the inherent contradiction in doing a lockdown -- if it works, people will then believe it was unnecessary or the virus isn't that serious. Either way, once semi-normal behavior and activity levels return, the virus will begin to accelerate its R zero again. This is why some scientists and epidemiologists warned we might have to have a pattern of "lockdown, scale back to normal, lockdown, scale back to normal" as-nauseam until a vaccine or truly effective therapeutics are available.

At this point, I think the return of college athletics and other sports are in a perilous position.
 

bjdeming

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Per Reuters:

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May...Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

Perhaps more troubling for health officials, many of these states are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing.

We've been lucky in Oregon, probably thanks to geography as much as social measures, but even we have seen a spike and the governor has put a hold on more reopenings.

Part of the spike here, they say, is from localized outbreaks. Wonder if that is the case in other parts of the country.

A couple of recent science articles that caught my eye:

1. Opinion: Can existing live vaccines help?
2. Vaccine research update.
 

Jacob

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Another day, another new record: 1014 new cases today.

The data source I'm using sometimes varies a bit from ADPH. Yesterday I posted we had 888 new cases which was a new record. ADPH says the number was 1075.

If my posts seem repetitive, it's because they are. We're setting new records every day. That's a really bad sign in a pandemic -- and usually signals the eventual peak of cases is going to be much higher and won't occur for some time.

At this point, the models that were so wrong really just seemed to be off on timing and/or modeling the impacts that lockdowns and social distancing have on R zero.

Imagine what would be occurring right now if we hadn't locked down and had time to produce PPE and rollout social distancing procedures. This was always going to be the inherent contradiction in doing a lockdown -- if it works, people will then believe it was unnecessary or the virus isn't that serious. Either way, once semi-normal behavior and activity levels return, the virus will begin to accelerate its R zero again. This is why some scientists and epidemiologists warned we might have to have a pattern of "lockdown, scale back to normal, lockdown, scale back to normal" as-nauseam until a vaccine or truly effective therapeutics are available.

At this point, I think the return of college athletics and other sports are in a perilous position.

Now would be a good time to have reliable data on both hospitalizations and people going to the doctor/ER with COVID/Influenza like symptoms (similar to the daily data that New York City produces for respiratory and Influenza like illnesses). We'd have a much better picture of where things stood than just case counts. Such as, is this jump in cases representative of more people presenting sick at hopsitals/doctors offices/testing sites, or is it more generic testing of certain populations with a high number of asymptomatic cases? (such as prisons, meat processing plants, college sports teams, etc.)
 

Lori

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If I were the leaders in the hotbed of seriously rising numbers (Montgomery AL for example). I’d do a two week shut down. I’ve always thought this should happen at the height of flu season.
Just a two week reset, no crowds gathered ANYWHERE and sanitation galore.
I see so many people pretty much say “it’s just killing the vulnerable” what if the vulnerable is someone you love, would you “GET IT” then?
 

Jacob

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If I were the leaders in the hotbed of seriously rising numbers (Montgomery AL for example). I’d do a two week shut down. I’ve always thought this should happen at the height of flu season.
Just a two week reset, no crowds gathered ANYWHERE and sanitation galore.
I see so many people pretty much say “it’s just killing the vulnerable” what if the vulnerable is someone you love, would you “GET IT” then?

Without a large run on the healthcare system, I'm not sure the public would go for another full-on shutdown.
 

Jacob

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We will be at that point very soon. The best way to stop this is to overreact.

I think anybody trying to implement something right now based on a "in two weeks" type argument would face severe backlash. From what I've seen on the data, the younger demographic is what is driving up the testing numbers right now, which makes sense given that they are the most likely to get back out and at the least danger from it. We will have to wait and see if there is an accompanying surge of hospital patients with this increase in positive cases.
 

Jacob

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UAB has hit their highest amount of COVID19 patients to date, after a steady increase from the past 7-14 days.
 

Evan

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Last two days show 600+ new cases each day which would be a good improvement over the 4 days prior. However, I have to wonder if that's related to testing done on weekends (and results becoming available now) as total tests for today are 2742 which is well below the usual average.

Probably won't really know until we see data from Thursday/Friday/Saturday of this week.
 

bjdeming

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Just found a general-overview data tracker from The Atlantic for states as well as nationally: https://covidtracking.com/data

They welcome volunteers, too (scroll down).

I'm especially interested in recoveries because reportedly an estimated 20 to 40 million Americans are expected to have antibodies by the time a vaccine is rolled out.

Not sure precisely where this data comes from, but for June 17th, 3:16 a.m. Eastern, nationally:

Cases *NegativeTestsPendingTestsRecoveredOutcomesDeathsOutcomesPositive + NegativeTotal Test Results
2,127,04722,322,2601,604583,503110,69524,449,307
 
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ghost

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From a Dr. in Bham on herd immunity

David B Wilhelm
10 hrs ·

Herd Immunity: How do we get there? What will be the cost?
Obviously we want to reach Herd Immunity to stop this pandemic virus, but recently I’ve seen people chirping in favor of naturally occurring Herd Immunity, downplaying social distancing, even some areas hosting COVID parties to increase infections and expedite the process. Unfortunately this is done without a thorough understanding of what may occur along the way. As the old saying goes, be careful what you ask for… because you just might get it.
To begin, let’s define what Herd Immunity actually means. The easy explanation is that Herd Immunity results when the number of immune individuals in a society reaches a point where a disease can no longer exist. Once enough people are immune, the pathogen (SARS-CoV 2 in this case) no longer passes easily from one person to the next, so infections will slow and eventually stop.
Now you’re probably thinking, “If only we had a formula to calculate how many people need to have immunity to accomplish actual Herd Immunity!” And if you were indeed thinking that, then I have good news! There is a formula! If we calculate 1 – 1/R0 we can obtain just such a number!
So what is R0? (Pronounced “R naught”) Well, R0 is a tricky one. Simply stated, R0 represents the number of people who will become infected from 1 person who has the virus. R0 however is not a static measure, it’s constantly changing depending on mitigating factors such as social distancing and wearing face coverings. Measles for example is very contagious and has an R0 of about 15-18, meaning every person who gets the measles will infect 15-18 other people. For SARS-CoV-2 the R0 value, in a non-immune population and without any mitigating factors, is somewhere between 2-3. I’ll simply assign it the average of 2.5 for purposes of our discussion. Now stay with me.
If we plug 2.5 into our Herd Immunity equation of 1-1/R0… through the magic of math we arrive at the value of 60%. This means if we reach the point where 60% of the US population is immune we’ll achieve the goal of Herd Immunity.
So this 60% can be reached by one of 2 ways. One way is through an effective vaccine, and we’re hopeful this happens sooner rather than later. The other way is through infected individuals who survive and produce antibodies… the very scary thing some of you have been quite vocally advocating. You still with me? Good, the punch line is coming.
Now, for the take home point of this discussion. Those of you who are convinced we need to reach immunity the old fashioned way… through infections… well, there’s a problem with your plan. And it’s a big one. You see, the population of the USA is about 330 million. That means we’d need almost 200 million people to become infected and survive the COVID-19 infection to reach Herd Immunity… about 100 times more infections than we have had up to this point. With a conservative death rate of 1% (the actual number may be higher) that means we are going to see 2 million people die of this virus before Herd Immunity is reached in this manner. Current deaths are at about 120 thousand… so 2 million… well, that’s a lot more.
The other option is to work to lower the R0 to below 1 through mitigation efforts of continued social distancing, hand washing, and wearing face coverings until we have an effective vaccine. This will not only reduce the strain on our medical system, it can literally save hundreds of thousands of lives. I know many of you don’t want to hear it, but the science doesn’t change just because you don’t believe it or don’t like it.
Infections, hospitalizations, and ICU bed occupancy are soaring in many states. Increased death rates will follow. To make matters worse, misinformation regarding this infection, social distancing, and mask usage is at an all-time high. If we don’t all pay attention and take the steps we need to take we could see more shut downs of business, schools, sporting events, more exhausting of medical resources, and more death.
So you can continue to stubbornly argue against doing what needs to be done or you can choose to be part of the solution.
Either way be careful what you ask for. Because you just might get it.
David B Wilhelm MD
 

Evan

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Yesterday we only had 390 cases and testing was at its normal level. That's a sharp and considerable approval, and it builds off of lower numbers from the previous day as well.

As I previously mentioned, I think the numbers from the next three days will give us a good look at where our baseline really is.
 

Jacob

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Yesterday we only had 390 cases and testing was at its normal level. That's a sharp and considerable approval, and it builds off of lower numbers from the previous day as well.

As I previously mentioned, I think the numbers from the next three days will give us a good look at where our baseline really is.

Another spike and now fall since you posted this last week. I think you could copy/paste this post and it would apply exactly the same for today.
 

Jacob

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Interesting note on people being treated in the DCH Health System (Tuscaloosa area for those not familiar with the area)

On May 27th, there had been 632 confirmed cases in Tuscaloosa County and DCH was treating 68 COVID cases. It is now June 23rd, the total case count for Tuscaloosa County now stands at 1604, and the amount of people being treated at DCH currently stands at 48.
 

gangstonc

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Interesting note on people being treated in the DCH Health System (Tuscaloosa area for those not familiar with the area)

On May 27th, there had been 632 confirmed cases in Tuscaloosa County and DCH was treating 68 COVID cases. It is now June 23rd, the total case count for Tuscaloosa County now stands at 1604, and the amount of people being treated at DCH currently stands at 48.
I think this fits with the stats that say more younger people are getting it.
 

ghost

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Interesting note on people being treated in the DCH Health System (Tuscaloosa area for those not familiar with the area)

On May 27th, there had been 632 confirmed cases in Tuscaloosa County and DCH was treating 68 COVID cases. It is now June 23rd, the total case count for Tuscaloosa County now stands at 1604, and the amount of people being treated at DCH currently stands at 48.

To get the full picture here we would need to know how many were active cases for both dates
 

KoD

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I don't understand why some news sources are claiming Alabama is one of the few states with declining numbers. Out of the 31000+ confirmed cases, 9000+ (~29% of the total) have occurred over the past 2 weeks.
We've certainly seen an obvious increase at the hospital in Madison County, which is one of the most fortunate counties per population so far. A month ago we'd sometimes go a couple days with no positive cases and lately we've had half a dozen or more in a single shift. Hopefully it's not a long term trend.
 
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