Surprise, Surprise

[snowybirdie]

CNN just reported Covid infections have gone up 97% since last week! Now when was the July 4th weekend?

[lagomorph777]

1. My only consolation is the silver lining.

MAGATs are lining up to catch COVID.

But we do have to help our side see the necessity of vaccination. Get the FDA approval done. In a survey they showed on TV this morning, 49% of vaccine-hesitant said FDA approval is what's holding them up. These are likely the persuadable people on our side. The rest are likely MAGATs.

[FBaggins]

2. No they didn't

Or if they did... they quickly retracted it

CNN reports that 45 states have new cases at least 10% higher than the average of the week before

On edit - I found the cached line: "The United States is now averaging about 23,346 new cases a day over the past seven days, a 97% increase from the week prior".

The problem is that the prior week was a little over 15,000

[Ms. Toad]

4. NYT was 94% over two weeks ago, as of yesterday.

I have not seen anything higher than 35% for a single week jump.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases-deaths-tracker.html

[FBaggins]

5. And the UK is up 1300% over two months

Yet their death rate has climbed from 10 to 29. It was several hundred per day the last time their infection levels were this high.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Deaths follow a climb in cases by at least 2 weeks

In addition, the nature of exponential growth is that much of that expansion is too soon to be killing patients off. Remember in the early part of an exponential curve, the numbers are still very small - people though it was ludicrous when Dr. Acton - in Ohio was talking about thousands of cases a day, at a time when the number of cases was less than 100. We peaked at around 13,000.

And, FWIW - there are 50 deaths reported today.

[FBaggins]

7. So... subtract two weeks. The results are the same

Some combinations of the vaccines (particularly among older citizens) and prior infections have had a significant impact. My guess is that the "low hanging fruit" is off the table and the new infections are among much younger/healthier patients. I'd further guess that the infection numbers being reported are actually low because fewer people are getting tested and don't even know.

Remember in the early part of an exponential curve, the numbers are still very small

True enough... but I'm comparing infections/deaths at similar points in the curve the last two times that infections were this high. Take a look at the UK for Sept/Oct of last year. There was indeed a delay (closer to 3 weeks I'd say), but there should be closer to 400-500 deaths/day at this point if the impact was consistent.

And, FWIW - there are 50 deaths reported today.

That's partially because it's Tuesday and some of the weekend numbers get delayed. Last Tuesday was 37 although the average was closer to 20.

[Ms. Toad]

8. We'll need to wait until the dust settles -

too many moving parts at this point.

My point was just that you can't compare growth in cases to growth in deaths at the same point in time, dust your hands off, and be done with it.

As to comparing October to now - 288 (7-day average) on October 30 (an similar point in the curve to now) - 29, not 4-500.

My guess is that a lot of the difference in deaths has to do with better understanding how to treat it - and having better tools (proning early summer 2020), steroids (Sept/Oct time frame), monoclonal antibodies (November time frame), etc. In October last year, the UK was just heading into its first major surge - and people were just trying to avoid having to ration medical care.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Cases have been steadily increasing for the last 4 weeks or so.

4th of July had far less to do with it than the fact that everyone (vaccinated or not) has thrown their masks in the trash can - and the Delta variant is now the dominant variant in the US (and it is way more contagious than the orginal).

I have not seen a dramatic 4th of July jump - I have seen the week over week incrase climb steadily from 1-2% up to about 33% last night.

It's just the normal exponential growth of a virus we're (mostly) pretending is in our rear view mirror.