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COVID-19 detected in United States

Jacob

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Hospitalization and ICU data from around Houston suggest they may have peaked as well. Would likely put Alabama about 2 weeks away from the peak here.

This is obviously a big assumption by me, but it seems like everywhere this virus goes, there is a pretty consistent amount of time from when hospitalizations start surging to when they peak. Here's some examples

Arizona Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ May 28
Peak Date: ~ July 11
Duration: 45 Days

Texas Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ June 8
Peak Date: ~ July 17
Duration: ~ 40 Days

New York Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ March 15
Peak Date: ~ April 13
Duration: ~ 30 Days
Note: Surge may have actually started before March 15, it was likely just unrecorded/confused with the flu.

Assuming the 40-45 day to peak timetable holds for other areas, here's a guess at possible peak times for other states

Georgia Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ June 19
Estimated Peak: ~July 28 - Aug 1

South Carolina Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ June 16
Estimated Peak: ~July 25 - July 29

Louisiana Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ June 22
Estimated Peak: ~July 31 - Aug 4

Alabama Hospitalization Surge
Start Date: ~ June 29
Estimated Peak: ~Aug 7 - Aug 11

Also of note, this can vary wildly from one region in the state to others. The individual areas may be more like a 30 day surge time, then averaged out across the state to be more like 40-45 days.
 

skelly

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Lot of studies and info coming out of Europe seem to indicate, at least at this stage, it is more prevalent or contagious among adults, teens and less contagious among younger children. If that holds up then the first wave or two would be the worst and it could be statistically gone by late ‘21 or ‘22. Of course you have to dig into the inter web to read the studies they don’t just mention them at 5:00 and 10:00...
 

Jacob

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Hospitalization and ICU data from around Houston suggest they may have peaked as well. Would likely put Alabama about 2 weeks away from the peak here.

Might have ended up being a plateau or temporary plateau for the Houston area, they've seen hospitalizations resume a slow rise the last 2-3 days.
 

Jacob

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Will pray that your symptoms stay mild and go away soon. Take care

Just as an update here, my very mild symptoms lasted in total about 7-8 days. Best way I can describe how I felt was a mild flu, just without fever. Lot of muscle/joint aches and tired a lot.

I never did get a test, but everybody else in the house got sick as well. My wife got sick about 3-4 days after I started showing symptoms, and hers lasted about 7-8 days as well. Both kids developed low grade fevers (right around 100.0ish) and got a little cranky, but otherwise were normal.

If it wasn't COVID, I suppose it could've been a weak flu strain.
 

Evan

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Just as an update here, my very mild symptoms lasted in total about 7-8 days. Best way I can describe how I felt was a mild flu, just without fever. Lot of muscle/joint aches and tired a lot.

I never did get a test, but everybody else in the house got sick as well. My wife got sick about 3-4 days after I started showing symptoms, and hers lasted about 7-8 days as well. Both kids developed low grade fevers (right around 100.0ish) and got a little cranky, but otherwise were normal.

If it wasn't COVID, I suppose it could've been a weak flu strain.

Glad you and your family are feeling better. I'm sure it wasn't fun, but thankfully none of you developed any serious complications.

You could always go and get an antibody test. If COVID, it should show a pretty strong positive since you're just out of the acute phase. Heck, a PCR test might still show a positive.
 

Evan

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As we've seen in recent days, it doesn't quite look like we've plateaued on cases just yet. 7 day average is just a little above flat and the 3 day average is back close to its peak.

Unfortunately, deaths have continued to rise and we're back to levels last seen in late May and early June. Unfortunately, cases were declining or steady in late May/early June, so even with improved medical treatment and better outcomes for COVID patients, I think it's very possible we slide back into 1500-2000+ deaths a day simply due to a higher number of cases and continued growth in daily new cases.

Although it's true that COVID disproportionately impacts those 65+ and people with multiple comorbidities, I think we've all gotten a little too used to seeing large numbers of our fellow citizens die on a daily basis. We lost just shy of 3000 people on 9/11. Right now we're averaging that loss of life every three days. Yes, the majority of those dying are 65+ or have health problems, but there's absolutely no reason to think those people would've otherwise died anytime soon had it not been for COVID. Life expectancy in the United States is 78.5 years.

Even if we just looked at people aged 54 or younger, we've seen at a minimum of 10,000 deaths due to COVID, according to the CDC. Keep in mind, their numbers lag actual death reporting, so that data is only based on about 85% of actual deaths to date. If we add 15% to the 10k I mentioned earlier, we have seen in excess of 11,500 deaths of Americans 54 or younger due to COVID. Obviously, the death cohort we're discussing is less healthy on average than the general population, due to comorbidities, but even taking that into account we should remember that obesity, hypertension, and some of the other known major comorbidities are found in extremely high rates in our general population anyway. In short, little reason to believe that those individuals under 54 who died due to COVID wouldn't have on average seen at least fairly normal life expectancy had they not been infected with COVID.

Even if we adjusted life expectancy down to 75 years, or even 70 years, individuals 54 and under who died due to COVID, missed out on DECADES of life that they would've been expected to have had it not been for COVID.

I still don't believe our government or fellow countrymen are taking this virus as seriously as it should be taken. Losing 11,500 citizens under the age of 54 is equivalent to the City of Leeds being wiped off the map overnight. I don't want to minimize the deaths of those over 54, either. After all, many of those people also should've been looking forward to decades more of an enjoyable life and it was stolen from them.

We will surpass 150,000 deaths (all ages) this weekend. That's equivalent to losing the entire metro area of a moderate size city like Decatur (AL), Santa Fe (NM), Dothan (AL), or Valdosta (GA) in just 4.5 months. If the current daily death rate stays exactly as it is, we'll have deaths equal to the ENTIRE population of the Auburn-Opelika metro area in just 5 months. I refuse to concede that this is in any way normal, and it isn't something we should just gloss over it. Our country sees around 146,000 stroke deaths in a year. We also lose 170,000 people due to an accident of some kind annually. We're going to lose that many people from COVID in just 5-6 months time. Think of the money, resources and time our country has devoted to preventing accidents or strokes. My God, we spend huge sums on road safety, workplace safety, consumer product safety, etc every single year not to mention the uncountable hours devoted to safety training, preventing accidents, etc. And accidents/strokes aren't even contagious!!!

We're a country that will spend millions of dollars to make an intersection safer to save a handful of lives each year, but suddenly we've decided the preventable deaths that are occurring due to COVID don't merit the same concern or consideration. I'm sick of hearing our government, businesses, and population overreacted. No, we didn't! It's the opposite; we underreacted! Unfortunately, it seems our government and most of our population is going to continue to do so irrespective of the lives lost and long-term consequences. No other modern country, particularly one with our resources, power, and technological advantage, is currently seeing anything like our continued daily case growth or our rising death toll. Why can't we get this under control? Why is the United States of America handling this so poorly?
 
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Kory

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No other modern country, particularly one with our resources, power, and technological advantage, is currently seeing anything like our continued daily case growth or our rising death toll. Why can't we get this under control? Why is the United States of America handling this so poorly?
Not saying this is the driver of our poor response to getting COVID spread under control, but I fully believe the American lifestyle this is ONE of the reasons why the U.S. is getting hit harder than many other developed countries. We are one of, if not the unhealthiest, developed nation. 43% of the U.S. adult population is obese...with another 30% overweight (per the CDC). Obesity and heart disease are directly linked and happen to be the top co-morbidity in COVID deaths...second is diabetes (because COVID is a vascular disease not just respiratory like the flu). About 10% of the U.S. population has type 2 diabetes...a largely preventable disease. Another 88 MILLION Americans are prediabetic due to unhealthy lifestyle choices. I hope this is a wake-up call, not only about how poorly our government has handled preventing the spread, PPE shortages, and healthcare inequities, but also address that the American lifestyle choices are hugely detrimental to our health as a country.

At least one underlying medical condition was reported for 8,134 (76.4%) of decedents for whom supplementary data were collected, including 83.1% of decedents aged <65 years. Overall, the most common underlying medical conditions were cardiovascular disease (60.9%), diabetes mellitus (39.5%), chronic kidney disease (20.8%), and chronic lung disease (19.2%) (Table 2). Among decedents aged <65 years, 83.1% had one or more underlying medical conditions. Among decedents aged ≥85 years, 69.5% had one or more underlying medical conditions. Diabetes was more common among decedents aged <65 years (49.6%) than among those aged ≥85 years (25.9%).


 
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KoD

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Today I was once again asked "Is the virus actually real?" And "Have y'all had any positives?"

The disparity in awareness is astounding.
 

Jacob

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Some encouraging signs from hospitalization data that this "southern wave" is possibly peaking all over. Arizona has seen a steady decline in the last two weeks, and now a peak may have formed in South Carolina/Georgia. Florida has seen a decline in hospitalizations in the last week, while Texas and California have been pretty steady for about a week now. Alabama/Mississippi are likely a few days from their peak, and Louisiana may be forming theirs currently.
 

Jacob

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More encouraging signs from Florida, ER visits for ILI and CLI (Influenza or COVID Like Illness) have dropped for two consecutive weeks now

Ed3taOOX0AIhwNw


Considerable drop in Arizona as well

Arizona.png
 

Jacob

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Might have ended up being a plateau or temporary plateau for the Houston area, they've seen hospitalizations resume a slow rise the last 2-3 days.

I must've been looking at the wrong metric, as Houston peaked 10-14 days ago, and had a considerable drop over the weekend.

o-Total-TMC-Covid-19-Positive-Patients-ICU-Med-Surg-In-Hospital-7-26-2020.png
 

StormStalker

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Alabama's 7 day average is starting to improve some. This could be a small glimmer of hope that the masking ordinance may be working. Maybe it will continue to go in that downward trend.
 

skelly

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SEC won’t start football games until Sept. 26 and conference only. One in season bye week and a bye before SEC championship on Dec. 12. (That’s plan for now)
 

Kory

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SEC won’t start football games until Sept. 26 and conference only. One in season bye week and a bye before SEC championship on Dec. 12. (That’s plan for now)
Makes no sense to me, but Greg Sankey is leading the show, so no shock.

One more step toward a cancelled season...especially if the MLB is the litmus test.
 

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If baseball can't even make it work, there's absolutely no way college football can.
 

Jacob

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So far for the southern wave, we have:

Confirmed Peak and Multi-Week Drop
  • Arizona
Likely Peak and Single Week Drop
  • Texas
  • Florida
  • California (at least southern California)
Likely Peak and Beginning to Drop
  • South Carolina
  • Louisiana
Nearing/At Peak, Drop should be imminent
  • Georgia
  • Alabama
  • Tennessee
Nearing Peak, Perhaps this week
  • Mississippi

It looks like the southern areas are following the same patterns that other countries/regions did and are all rolling over. Lockdown/non-lockdown, mask/no-mask, the pattern seems to be the same. None of these southern areas peaked as hard and fast as say NYC did, so you shouldn't expect the resulting tail to collapse quite as fast, but we should see a steady decline in hospitalizations and cases over the next couple months across all these areas.

Next up: Rock Mountain States, Plains States, and Midwest states.
 
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