Daviewolf83 said:

---

I think it was also not pushed, due to the limited supply of masks at the time. I really believe they shifted guidance as supply began to improve.

---

True. I think they didn't want healthy people buying up all the N95's.

packgrad said:

---

WHO said healthy people don't need to wear face masks.

https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-people-to-wear-face-masks-2020-4

---

They've updated their guidance several times since then and now recommend masks in most environments (if you're sick, if you're high-risk, if you're in a clinical setting, if you're around those that are high-risk, if you're in an area with a bunch of cases, etc.)

The obvious problem with saying healthy people don't need to wear masks is the issue of contagious asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic carriers.

They think they're healthy but are actually infected and potentially contagious.

wilmwolf80 said:

---

Well, while wearing a mask, particularly a homemade one doesn't make you significantly safer, you're right it mostly doesn't hurt. The reason why some scientists and health professionals have been against wearing masks is because people relax their social distancing when wearing a mask because of a false sense of security. It's a behavior that's very easy to observe in most any grocery store with people talking in the aisles. So while your cheap or homemade mask may stop a certain percentage of particles, that benefit gets negated if you closely interact with someone for an extended period of time. That's not political, it's just science. But, when an expert explains that, the headline is "expert says no need to wear a mask", and then that person is either championed or attacked depending on the leanings of the mob that day.

---

Not a lab environment but interestingly I read last night that as of right now, no virus transmission has been recorded from the two COVID-stricken hairdressers up in the midwest that exposed ~100 clients to the virus.

They were in very close, rather prolonged contact with their clients but were wearing masks and required all their clients to wear masks too.

Yes. (This is why I shouldn't post from the car in between stops as I can't make my entire point.) Just meant it to post the WHO contradicted the CDC after the cdc said to wear masks. Not debating the merits of masks in this post. The "science" changes based on the agenda.

It also depends on what you are doing in that close contact. Talking, shouting, coughing, sneezing, etc. is obviously different than just standing/breathing next to someone. Now based on hair dressers I know, you may infer that there was plenty of heavy conversation going on in the case you referenced, but who knows. I'm just not putting a ton of faith in a mask not designed to stop microscopic particles to keep me from getting infected. Marginally less likely. Maybe. It's that enough reason to wear one? Probably. But that's not a political opinion, that's just common sense, and I understand the varying and evolving viewpoints of the professionals on that issue.

wilmwolf80 said:

---

I have a problem when so much of the scientific advice seems to be subject to change based on social pressures, particularly since the whim of the public opinion changes with the weather. I don't much care who it is coming from. If you have hard scientific evidence of something, put it out there, whether people want to hear it or not.

---

My biggest issue with the "scientific advice" is that they should have just said "we don't know enough about this virus to say anything definitively." Instead they changed their minds so many times and have said so many conflicting things throughout that they lost credibility with the public. The WHO in particular has just been dreadful.

AMC Theaters announces that they're opening theaters globally in July. I'm pumped because I'm a huge movie fan and Tenet opens on my birthday, if it sticks to its planned opening date.

To be fair, many experts said just that, but people don't want to hear it. We needed a projection, a timeline, even though that's not what people who study these kinds of things really do. So we ended up with all kinds of crazy stuff put out there, and policies were made based on those wacky predictions.

good point Wilm

Check this out.

Some hospital data. Looks like Charlotte driving hospitalizations. One day over 100 admits in their area hospitals. We need this type of census data daily.

Need to digest this. Not sure why this stuff isn't more public. I bet this is what the State gets every day. The 739 total in the admits chart matches the total reported on 6/8 in DHHS dashboard. This is what we need.

Are the red "suspected" covid included in the hospital numbers from what you can tell?

wilmwolf80 said:

---

To be fair, many experts said just that, but people don't want to hear it. We needed a projection, a timeline, even though that's not what people who study these kinds of things really do. So we ended up with all kinds of crazy stuff put out there, and policies were made based on those wacky predictions.

---

Yeah I remember a lot of scientists basically saying "There are too many unknowns about this virus, but based on what we are seeing in other countries we should be concerned. Here are some models with multiple projections based on various inputs and assumptions we can't fully validate right now."
But reporters look at these models, immediately go to the worst case projection and run headlines like "2 million Americans could Die!"

statefan91 said:

---

Are the red "suspected" covid included in the hospital numbers from what you can tell?

---

The number of hospitalizations are just what is on that second provided slide. Slide 11 from the deck I believe.

I don't how they can have 115 admits and still be at that total? That is either an accidental entry or all those people were admitted and immediately booted (as to not get included in the count).

I am not sure whoever is filling out that Confirmed/Suspected slide for MHPC is interpreting whatever that field is supposed to mean the same way everyone else is. It is such a bizarre outlier.

Side note. I expect a big case count tomorrow. 350-400 coming out of Wake(100ish) and Meck (250-300ish), I think. But we are due for another 1000+ case day, to replace the three from last week.

Almost 150 case coming out of Burke County. Outbreak or backlog for sure.

Here's where we last stood as a State based on what the Governor said...

10-person limit indoors; 25-person limit outdoors

How in the world can he "guarantee" the Republican convention that they will be able to conduct these "business" meetings in Charlotte in August? How irresponsible of him.

See how easy that is.

I was going through some of the numbers and just to give an actual idea of what COVID ICU cases are based on the 6/8 data.

Since DHHS doesn't report this on their dashboard.

As of the June 8th report. 275 of the 739 reported hospitalizations on 6/8 were ICU.

To pick a random state that is on the tail of their curve.

Mass on their June 10 report had 319 ICU and 1345 hospitalizations.

We need to be concerned, but also to keep it in context.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article243453696.html

Quote:

---

NC releases details of 3 plans for how schools could operate this fall amid pandemic

CORONAVIRUS SCHOOL REOPENING PLAN A
If statewide COVID-19 metrics stabilize and improve, schools would reopen under Plan A with minimal social distancing and all students would be on campus at the same time. Social distancing would only be required where individuals may congregate, such as hallways, reception areas, cafeterias, restrooms and lockers.
In Plan A, schools would be required to do daily symptom screening and temperature checks of all students, staff and visitors who enter schools and buses. The guidance says the symptom checks for buses can be skipped if a child's parent says the child is OK.


Normal instruction would be offered in Plan A, but schools would also be expected to prepare for some use of remote learning if conditions worsen.

OPTIONS UNDER SCHOOL REOPENING PLAN B
If the COVID-19 metrics don't improve, more stringent requirements would be used in Plan B. Schools and buses would be required to operate at 50% capacity.
DPI suggests various options that school districts and charter schools could use under Plan B to change scheduling, including:
In option A, split the students up so some are on campus all the time and others are taking classes at home all the time. Variations include having elementary and middle school students use the much larger high school campuses, while high school students take classes online.

In option B, use alternating days when students go to school.
In option C, use alternating weeks when students go to school.
In option D, students spend half the day on campus and half the day learning at home.
In option E, teachers video stream all day for live remote learning. Schools would decide which students and staff are at home and who are on campus.

In option F, schools use a hybrid of the different scheduling options.

PLAN C WOULD BE ALL REMOTE LEARNING
If the COVID-19 metrics significantly worsen, public schools would operate under Plan C, where only remote learning is used. Schools have been using remote learning since buildings were closed in mid-March to try to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Gov. Roy Cooper will decide by July 1 which plan level should be used by schools. School districts will be able to use a more restrictive plan but not a less restrictive one.
Susan Perry, chief deputy secretary of DHHS, said the decision on which plan to use will be based on metrics such as the number of COVID-19 cases, percent of cases testing positive and hospitalizations.

---

This is for Arizona where all the panic is. It goes back to what I saw for NC (except NC did for a period increase their non critical admits and haven't been able to back off of it).

But AZ has decreasing new admits but increased hospital totals because people are staying in the hospital longer, not due to a surge of new cases.















(@EthicalSkeptic).

Some potential good news on the horizon. Fingers crossed...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/health/regeneron-covid-19-antibody-trial-starts/index.html

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

Wayland said:

---

6/1/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 11:00am)

NC Cases*
29,263
NC Deaths**
898
Currently Hospitalized
650
Completed Tests
421,908

559 Deaths are now Congregate (+7)
72 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+12 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

267 Deaths assumed General Population (+4)
631 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+8)

162 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+2)

WRAL is at 923 (+2) and NandO is at 944 deaths

674 positive cases over 5619 new tests. 12.0% positive rate.

3 of the deaths reported by DHHS today are over 10 days old. Expect a spike in hospitalizations tomorrow, hospitals have been slack in reporting on the weekends.

---

6/2/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases*
29,889
NC Deaths**
921
Currently Hospitalized
716
Completed Tests
434,921

574 Deaths are now Congregate (+15)
76 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+4)
+23 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

271 Deaths assumed General Population (+4)
650 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+19)

163 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+1)

WRAL is at 933 (+2) and NandO is at 961 deaths

626 positive cases over 13,013 new tests. 4.8% positive rate.

DHHS is now releasing updates at noon instead of 11am. Apparently they need an extra hour to process increased testing data. Tough decisions on what data to release on what day to support narratives.

There is that jump back in hospitalizations I called yesterday now that most of them are reporting again.

5 of the deaths reported today occurred over a week ago. The remaining 17 all fall between 5/27-6/1.

---

6/3/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases*
30,777
NC Deaths**
939
Currently Hospitalized
684
Completed Tests
449,263

585 Deaths are now Congregate (+11)
80 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+4)
+18 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

274 Deaths assumed General Population (+3)
665 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+15)

163 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+0)

WRAL is at 952 (+2) and NandO is at 980 deaths

888 positive cases over 14342 new tests. 6.2% positive rate.

Every day for the last 8 days contains at least 1 death reported in today's total.

26 of the deaths reported by the media but not reported by DHHS are coming from three counties.
Carteret - DHHS 3, NandO 9, County - 3
Robeson - DHHS 14, NandO 26, County - 22
Alamance - DHHS 20, NandO 28, County - 23

Media reporting that unfortunately, NC has had its first death of a minor due to COVID-19 complications.

---

6/4/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases*
31,966
NC Deaths**
960
Currently Hospitalized
659
Completed Tests
468,302

598 Deaths are now Congregate (+13)
79 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (-1)
+21 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

283 Deaths assumed General Population (+9)
677 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+12)

167 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+4)

WRAL is at 963 (+2) and NandO is at 997 deaths

1189 positive cases over 19039 new tests. 6.2% positive rate.

Big case day, massive number of tests. Hospitalizations down (85% reporting vs 88% yesterday). Most of the cases are from Monday, maybe they are getting a little quicker at reporting.

Based on my daily tracking of deaths by date starting 5/7. Three of the death reported today either were not added to the DHHS graph or occurred greater than a month ago. 1 is from 5/21 and the remainder are from within the last week.

---

6/5/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases*
33,255
NC Deaths**
966
Currently Hospitalized
717
Completed Tests
482,147

602 Deaths are now Congregate (+4)
78 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (-1)
+6 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

286 Deaths assumed General Population (+3)
680 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+3)

171 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+4)

WRAL is at 1004 (+2) and NandO is at 1006 deaths

1289 positive cases over 13845 new tests. 9.3% positive rate.

More high case day. Maybe this will be the weekend dump early. Still wondering about the 40 gap in deaths. I wonder if there is something to probably vs confirmed cases. Whatever. Will get there eventually.

---

6/6/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

34,625
NC Deaths**
992
Currently Hospitalized
708
Completed Tests
497,350

621 Deaths are now Congregate (+19)
79 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+26 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

292 Deaths assumed General Population (+6)
700 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+20)

176 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+5)

WRAL is at 1032 (+2) and NandO is at 1028 deaths

1370 positive cases over 15203 new tests. 9.0% positive rate.

Biggest day of positive 'reported' cases. Deaths continue to be driven by congregate facilities.

---

6/7/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
35,546
NC Deaths
996
Currently Hospitalized
696 <- only 76% hospitals reporting
Completed Tests
511,226

623 Deaths are now Congregate (+2)
80 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+4 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

293 Deaths assumed General Population (+1)
703 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+3)

171 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (-5)

WRAL is at 1038 (+2) and NandO is at 1028 deaths

921 positive cases over 13876 new tests.6.6% positive rate.

---

6/8/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
36,484
NC Deaths
1006
Currently Hospitalized
739 <- new high. still only 77% reporting. Need to watch.
Completed Tests
520,113

634 Deaths are now Congregate (+11)
78 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (-2)
+10 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

294 Deaths assumed General Population (+1)
712 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+9)

171 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+0)

WRAL is at 1053 (+2) and NandO is at 1041 deaths

938 positive cases over 8887 new tests. 10.6% positive rate.

5 of the deaths added today to the Death by Date chart at DHHS were from over 2 weeks ago. It did make the single highest fatality date to be 5/25 with 27 deaths.

7 of the additional death added to the daily total today appear to have come out of Chatham County. Looks like they had some paperwork reconciliation.

---

6/9/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
37,160
NC Deaths
1029
Currently Hospitalized
774 <- new high. still only 84% reporting. Expected increase with higher reporting. Stable from ystday
Completed Tests
535,711

647 Deaths are now Congregate (+13)
79 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+23 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

303 Deaths assumed General Population (+9)
726 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+14)

177 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+6)

WRAL is at 1068 (+2) and NandO is at 1068 deaths

676 positive cases over 15,598 new tests. 4.3% positive rate.

Congregate spread continues.

Side note of the day: NY has stopped reporting deaths in their daily briefing because the number is not "significant anymore" since most of the deaths are things like "covid and heart disease". NY reported 74 COVID deaths yesterday. 3 times NC's worst day, but now their daily deaths don't matter. Has to be nice to kill so many that it doesn't matter anymore.

---

6/10/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
38,171
NC Deaths
1053
Currently Hospitalized
780 <- new high. but higher reporting %. stable
Completed Tests
553,650

661 Deaths are now Congregate (+14)
83 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+4)
+24 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

309 Deaths assumed General Population (+6)
744 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+18)

182 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+5)

WRAL is at 1079 (+2) and NandO is at 1089 deaths

1011 positive cases over 17939 new tests. 5.6% positive rate.

As of yesterday ~36 Congregate Facilities were out of the outbreak stage. They are not included in the active outbreak count.

22 of today's reported death are from June. 1 reported death is from 5/8. 1 reported death is either prior to 5/7 or not reflected on the DHHS graph.

Testing % positive has been trending back down.

---

6/11/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
39,481
NC Deaths
1064
Currently Hospitalized
812 <- new high.
Completed Tests
572,677

666 Deaths are now Congregate (+5)
86 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+3)
+11 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

312 Deaths assumed General Population (+3)
752 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+8)

181 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (-1)

WRAL is at 1108 (+2) and NandO is at 1106 deaths

1310 positive cases over 19027 new tests. 6.9% positive rate.

New high in hospitalizations. WE NEED DAILY CENSUS DATA

Strangest Day on for Day of Deaths. 2 deaths were REMOVED from the total from 6/3 and 6/5. 16 other deaths were added from between 5/28-6/9 which means 1 other death which wasn't previously accounted for on the day of death chart has been added. Odd.

I'm getting an antibody test today in Durham from Labcorp.

packgrad said:

---

I'm getting an antibody test today in Durham from Labcorp.

---

Me too! I'm donating blood and they're offering free antibody testing with it.

statefan91 said:

---

packgrad said:

---

I'm getting an antibody test today in Durham from Labcorp.

---

Me too! I'm donating blood and they're offering free antibody testing with it.

---

Haha! Red Cross drained me last week. Brilliant minds...

Piece of cake. In and out in 15 minutes. Lady said initially she was doing 30 a day. Now only doing around 7.

I agree with Wayland. We need daily census data from NCDHHS and for some reason, they are unwilling to provide this information. I suspect it is a lot like Arizona and there are a lot of long-term cases in the hospital. New patients are being added to the ones that have been there for a long time.

One thing I thought people might be interested in seeing is the days to the doubling of cases. This is a metric that shows what the spread looks like and as you can see from the graph below, the spread is actually decreasing. In the early days of the virus, we were doubling cases every 2-3 days. As of this week, case doubling is taking an average of 23 days.

The other chart below shows logarithmic plots (helps to show rate of change from day to day) of Daily New Cases and Daily Total Tests. I have included linear trend lines for both to more accurately show the relationship between the two curves. This chart clearly shows the growth in Daily New Cases is matching the growth in Daily Total Tests conducted. So as you would expect, if you want to get more cases in a day, just run more tests.

Total Cases and Days to Required to Double Total Cases:




Daily New Cases and Daily New Tests (logarithmic plot):

Love those graphs. I wish they got the attention they deserved.

And that days to double is with major testing growth. Test more find more. It was always just a fraction of the cases anyways. Which is why I shake my head at the shock when the state ramps up testing week over week and keeps finding more cases.

We are still relatively stable and need to keep testing to identify hot spots and put out fires and just keep moving forward.

Honestly. Worst case is Sweden, and I don't think we get there because of moderate social distancing and at least attempting some protection of nursing homes (plus we don't have near the public transit or density of Stockholm anywhere in NC). The more the connecting bridges burn and we catch outbreaks, the lower the overall toll will be. But at this point those bridges will go eventually.

Remember, by the state's own metric, a non-hospitalized COVID case is considered recovered 14 days after specimen collection and 28 days for hospitalizations. So while the graph of cases only goes up, it actually reaches an equilibrium.

This is what NC's active 'identified' cases really look like.

packgrad said:

---

Piece of cake. In and out in 15 minutes. Lady said initially she was doing 30 a day. Now only doing around 7.

---

Packgrad, did the Red Cross not do an antibody test for you?

The graphs are great, but unfortunately most people don't know how to read a graph. Any graph that increases along the x-axis, most people assume things are getting worse. The media is terrible about showing a graph, and not actually explaining what the lines on the graph actually mean. Just "look, it's going up!!".

No ma'am. They did not.

packgrad said:

---

No ma'am. They did not.

---

Thanks. For some reason I thought they were doing that at all the blood drives now.

PackMom said:

---

packgrad said:

---

No ma'am. They did not.

---

Thanks. For some reason I thought they were doing that at all the blood drives now.

---

I just pulled up my ID card on my phone app. It was actually 2 weeks ago. I misspoke when I said a week ago to statefan91 earlier. If they did the test, they did not let me know. They always do the multiple vials before filling the bags. They definitely could have used one of those. Maybe they did and just forgot to tell me.

In any case, I hope you get good news!

PackMom said:

---

packgrad said:

---

Piece of cake. In and out in 15 minutes. Lady said initially she was doing 30 a day. Now only doing around 7.

---

Packgrad, did the Red Cross not do an antibody test for you?

---

In Charlotte they have a doctor group called Tryon Medical Partners and that's who I did mine through. It looks like they contracted with "The Blood Connection - Community Blood Center" to do the donation + antibody testing.

Get ready for another massive case day tomorrow. Looks like Wake is dumping its all time case number (~200) into DHHS tomorrow and Meck is good for 250-300+ every day now.

We are also due for a death catch up day soon from DHHS. Guilford is reporting 8 additional today, Meck is 7 over their DHHS number. Alamance is 8 over their DHHS number (this appears to be LTC cases for Alamance). I wonder what the disconnect is or if this is going back and pickup up old cases.

Surveillance got posted, one positive is the number of admits over 65 is declining. That means better LTC control. 50 to 64 and 25 to 49 increased.

Wayland said:

---

Surveillance got posted, one positive is the number of admits over 65 is declining. That means better LTC control. 50 to 64 and 25 to 49 increased.

---

Looking at the surveillance data, it appears for the week ending 6/6, hospitalizations changes were as follows:

Admits = 195 (rough number looking at the chart for the week ending 6/6)
Discharges = 125*

* I calculated discharges by subtracting the increase in the number of patients in the hospital for this period (70 patient increase) from the total admitted for the period (195 patients). To have a net increase of 70 patients for the period ending 6/6, 125 patients had to be discharged.

Based on this methodology, the discharges for the past few weeks have been:

Week ending 5/30 = 141
Week ending 5/23 = 72 <== this is lower than normal and might be why there was a jump in hospitalizations
Week ending 5/16 = 187 <== only week where discharges were higher than admits
Week ending 5/9 = 109
Week ending 5/2 = 64