packgrad said:

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This is the 3% I'm referencing

Of course there's never a non zero death rate. Woolf et al published a study showing 87001 excess deaths in the us between March 1 thru April 25 over what was expected. They felt 59000 were due to covid directly. So the death rate is always a non zero rate as you say, but it's not linear either and it had risen per that study for that time period. Causes of death don't just simply replace one another. My point was really simple. Dude said 250 people were dying of covid every day, and he said 7500 people die of all causes. I think that's significant. He didn't, but based that on his overall perception from the media. I didn't mean to make more of it than that.

packgrad said:

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I don't think 250 people in a country of 328 million is significant enough to shut down the country indefinitely (or if we're being honest, until an election is over). I also don't think 250 of 7500 is significant either.

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Biden's probably getting elected.

Assuming he does (and the dems therefore "get their way") but there is no vaccine and confirmed case counts are still orders of magnitude higher than southeast asia and Europe, when do you think the country magically reopens?

JasonNCSU said:

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Some numbers for the UNC System of Hospitals... 8 Hospitals... 125 total Covid Patients, 34 in the ICU, 88 Non ICU, and 3 in the ED (Rex (9) and UNC-CH (11) with a majority of the ICU patients)... they have had 1130 hospitalizations total with 120 deaths, and the average length of stay is 7.9 days... They have tested 37,892 people with a 6.04% positive rate.

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Thanks for the small peak into the window. Really interesting to see the average length.

Of the 1130 hospitalized, 547 stayed 7 days or less...

packgrad said:

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Case counts will be irrelevant. Deaths will be what's important. The shift will be as quick as they need it to be. They have a complicit media to help them with their message, as evidenced by reopen protests being terrible but BLM protests being just fine.

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You can say that now, with confirmed cases increasing and deaths continuing to decrease. We'll see if confirmed cases and deaths continue to appear disconnected over the next 2-3 weeks.

Even if so, increasing case counts may not be as bad as the MSM is making it out to be, but it's not 'good' no matter how you slice it.

A correction, the number of hospitals in the UNC System is 12, not 8.. and ICU length of stay is 12.8 days, while Non-ICU is 5.1 days...

Herd immunity is a good slice.

Mormad said:

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packgrad said:

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This is the 3% I'm referencing

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Guess it's hard to know for sure, but how many of those Covid deaths were from people who were already sick and would have died in the same time frame anyway?
But Covid just stepped in over the flu and pneumonia, etc, and "stole the kill" as gamers say?

I believe the gov't shut down the Flu tracking site until the fall and is concentrating on Covid.

I'm wondering how many deaths that were from "flu like symptoms" and would have been simply attributed to the flu or pneumonia are now attributed to Covid instead?
Just like everyone that "died from the flu" wasn't always positive for it, I believe that everyone that "died from Covid" hasn't been positive for it, either.

But are flu deaths still the same as they normally are?

JasonNCSU said:

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Some numbers for the UNC System of Hospitals... 8 Hospitals... 125 total Covid Patients, 34 in the ICU, 88 Non ICU, and 3 in the ED (Rex (9) and UNC-CH (11) with a majority of the ICU patients)... they have had 1130 hospitalizations total with 120 deaths, and the average length of stay is 7.9 days... They have tested 37,892 people with a 6.04% positive rate.

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Is this all-time numbers, or just a certain time frame?

The # of tests are all time, the # of patients are as of the time of the post...

Between 7/2 and 7/3 there was a jump in hospitalization in NC from 912 to 951. Looks like that mostly came out of Meck with a jump of almost 30 current COVID admits in one day.

Wayland said:

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Wayland said:

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Wayland said:

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Quote:

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6/30/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
63,484
NC Deaths
1343
Currently Hospitalized
908 <- 90% reporting (was 843 at 75% yesterday) Higher#, Higher%. Still stable
Completed Tests
910,033

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
804 Deaths are now Congregate (+8)
146 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+18 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

393 Deaths assumed General Population (+9)
950 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+9)

216 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+6)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1366* deaths

1186 positive cases over 23,728 new tests. 5.0% positive rate.

DHHS says they only added 18,676 completed tests, but the actual delta is 23,728 since yesterday.

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7/1/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
66,513
NC Deaths
1373
Currently Hospitalized
901 <- 86% reporting (was 908 at 90% yesterday) Lower#, Lower%. Still stable
Completed Tests
942,238

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
819 Deaths are now Congregate (+15)
147 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+30 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

407 Deaths assumed General Population (+14)
966 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+16)

212 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (-4)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1376* deaths

1843 positive cases over 32,205 new tests. 5.7% positive rate.

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7/2/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
68,142
NC Deaths
1391
Currently Hospitalized
912 <- 93% reporting (was 901 at 86% yesterday) Higher#, Higher%. Still stable
Completed Tests
971,120

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826 Deaths are now Congregate (+7)
149 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+2)
+18 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

416 Deaths assumed General Population (+9)
975 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+9)

220 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+8)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1400* deaths

1629 positive cases over 28,882 new tests. 5.6% positive rate.

After what Cohen said last night I was worried about hospitalizations, but still pretty stable. One of the highest reporting percent EVER and still staying stable!

Date of Death for today's adds: 6/30(10), 6/28, 6/26, 6/19, 6/15, 6/13, 6/5(2) and one missing.

Hopefully all these outbreaks are just catching staff and before they get bad.

Nothing out of the ordinary in the location data. Just happened to be a day where all the major players had deaths reported the same day (Meck, Wake, Durham, Guilford, Forsyth). Have to make sure to get it in before the weekend.

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7/3/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
70,241
NC Deaths
1392
Currently Hospitalized
951 <- 89% reporting (was 912 at 93% yesterday) Higher#, Lower# Big jump
Completed Tests
999,293


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821 Deaths are now Congregate (-5)
152 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+3)
+1 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

419 Deaths assumed General Population (+3)
973 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (-2)

220 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+8)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1417* deaths

2099 positive cases over 28,173 new tests. 7.5% positive rate.

Huge jump in cases and hospitalizations. Would love to have more details on this since surveillance is showing less admits last week. Longer stays?

I can't make sense out of today's deaths. -5 Congregate and +1 overall. Really should identify a data correction.

All kinds of oddness in this holiday data dump. I think I found one of the issues with data. Buncombe lost 9 deaths from their count from yesterday. That should be addressed if you are going to make a change like that. I expect that was user error and those 9 plus at least 1 more will get added back in soon.

Some of the case highlights.
Durham had its first day of over 100 reported cases at 110.
Johnston 71
Gaston 82 cases
Meck 430
New Hanover 81
Wake 198

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7/4/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
71,654
NC Deaths
1395
Currently Hospitalized
945 <- 86% reporting (was 951 at 89% yesterday)
Completed Tests
1,018,296


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822 Deaths are now Congregate (+1)
154 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+2)
+3 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

419 Deaths assumed General Population (+0)
976 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+3)

230 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+10)
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WRAL is at 1420* deaths

1413 positive cases over 19003 new tests. 7.4% positive rate.

So 18 congregate outbreaks the last 2 days. That number is skyrocketing. Not bad if they are catching staff early, let's hope.

Another weird day with deaths.

Deaths were DELETED on 7/4:
5/31, 6/19, 6/30

Deaths were ADDED on 7/4:
6/28, 6/29, 7/2(4)

County downloadable data hasn't been added yet, so I can't find the deltas.

On a fun because media likes to spout random day stats. This is actually the lowest number of reported cases on a Saturday in a month! (Not that it is helpful)

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7/5/2020 Morning DHHS update (as of 12:00pm)

NC Cases
72,983
NC Deaths
1396
Currently Hospitalized
949 <- 78% reporting (was 945 at 86% yesterday) Expect a jump early next week.
Completed Tests
1,036,838


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822 Deaths are now Congregate (+0)
155 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+1)
+1 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

419 Deaths assumed General Population (+0)
977 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+1)

231 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+1)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1425* deaths

1329 positive cases over 18542 new tests. 7.2% positive rate.

County level data download never posted yesterday, so will have to pick that back up as it gets cleaned up next week.

Not much to look at today. Hospitalizations up a little with a lower reporting percent. Something to keep an eye on.

I expect a huge case dump early next week. It looks like the state is almost a full week behind on most of its case reporting. So remember as the case data starts to come out the next few days that it is a week lagged.

I also expect a death correction next week to get us back in line with the ~15 deaths a day we have been running on.

County data posted. Deaths removed yesterday were from Guilford, Robeson, and Wilson.

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

NC Cases
74,529
NC Deaths
1398
Currently Hospitalized
982 <- 81% reporting (was 949 at 78% yesterday) New High.
Completed Tests
1,051,846


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822 Deaths are now Congregate (+0)
155 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+0)
+2 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

421 Deaths assumed General Population (+2)
977 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+0)

233 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+2)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1426* deaths

1546 positive cases over 15,008 new tests. 10.3% positive rate.

Expect a bit of a death correction the next 2 days.

Hospitalizations new high. WE NEED MORE INFO HERE.

Positive rate is high, this is likely because of which tests are being reported. Been trending high on the post weekend low reporting days, will dip again when all the tests come in.

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

NC Cases
75,875
NC Deaths
1420
Currently Hospitalized
989 <- 89% reporting (was 982 at 81% yesterday) New high, but higher percent reported.
Completed Tests
1,071,290


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
828 Deaths are now Congregate (+6)
161 Deaths are now Unknown Setting (+6)
+22 Deaths Overall since yesterday.

431 Deaths assumed General Population (+10)
989 Congregate and Unknown Setting. (+12)

239 Congregate Facilities now have an outbreak. (+6)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WRAL is at 1438* deaths

1346 positive cases over 19444 new tests. 6.9% positive rate.

I still feel like case data is really lagging at this point and we are a week behind on a lot, maybe Davie has more insight into this.

Dates of Deaths reported today.
6/7, 6/11, 6/17, 6/20, 6/23. 6/25, 6/26, 6/30, 7/1(2), 7/3(4), 7/4(5), 7/5(2), 7/6.

Most likely sources of lagged deaths Robeson 4, Wilson 4, Wake 3.

I expect tomorrow's catch up day, to give us a much clearer picture as to where we are on this.

At some point there is going to be some sort of massive backlog clearing day.

Side note. Cohen just admitted in the briefing that ICU numbers are NOT increasing despite the increased hospitalizations.

Also new order requiring negative reporting of C19 diagnostic tests.

https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/guidance/healthcare/SHD-Temporary-Order-Reporting-Requirements.pdf

Wayland said:

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Side note. Cohen just admitted in the briefing that ICU numbers are NOT increasing despite the increased hospitalizations.

Also new order requiring negative reporting of C19 diagnostic tests.

https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/guidance/healthcare/SHD-Temporary-Order-Reporting-Requirements.pdf

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What is the implication of the order?

Is it generally understood that negative tests were being underreported?

Civilized said:

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Wayland said:

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Side note. Cohen just admitted in the briefing that ICU numbers are NOT increasing despite the increased hospitalizations.

Also new order requiring negative reporting of C19 diagnostic tests.

https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/guidance/healthcare/SHD-Temporary-Order-Reporting-Requirements.pdf

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What is the implication of the order?

Is it generally understood that negative tests were being underreported?

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I think maybe it will give better clarity to the percent positive rate? Since NC DHHS doesn't use all tests to calculate the rate they post daily, only a subset.

Bowling is safer than bars and gyms.

Wayland said:

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Civilized said:

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Wayland said:

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Side note. Cohen just admitted in the briefing that ICU numbers are NOT increasing despite the increased hospitalizations.

Also new order requiring negative reporting of C19 diagnostic tests.

https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/guidance/healthcare/SHD-Temporary-Order-Reporting-Requirements.pdf

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What is the implication of the order?

Is it generally understood that negative tests were being underreported?

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I think maybe it will give better clarity to the percent positive rate? Since NC DHHS doesn't use all tests to calculate the rate they post daily, only a subset.

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Definitely. Seems crazy it took an order to require this; the epidemiological implications of not reporting all negative tests are obvious.

Bad data in, bad data out.

Wayland said:

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Side note. Cohen just admitted in the briefing that ICU numbers are NOT increasing despite the increased hospitalizations.

Also new order requiring negative reporting of C19 diagnostic tests.

https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/guidance/healthcare/SHD-Temporary-Order-Reporting-Requirements.pdf

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Thanks for the update. Did Dr Cohen speculate on why the ICU numbers are not increasing?

Last week, I almost asked if there was a chance that this virus is weakening, but thought better of it. I didn't want to be labeled anti-science.

As far as testing, I saw where someone was tested for the virus using the nasal test to determine current infection and then also tested for possible antibodies. This was repeated every week for four to five weeks.
If positive, please tell me that only goes on record as one positive test and not a possible eight to ten positive tests. Just curious how that works.

Back to hospitalizations, are they testing every patient that is admitted? Any chance we are seeing rising covid cases in hospitals as more people return to hospitals after avoiding them the last three months. For months, we were basically only admitting covid patients. Any other potential patient was told to stay home or made that decision on their own based on fear. Has anyone checked the percentage of hospitalizations with covid compared to the increase in patients overall.

Looking forward to seeing the update on covid death totals today to see if they have a huge increase from a slow holiday reporting weekend. I keep seeing media talk about the deaths that are coming behind the increase in cases, but that hasn't materialized just yet. I know, we have to wait for the lag of deaths to catch up with increased cases. Hopefully the media is wrong.

A lower and lower mortality rate would be great. If that were to be the direction that we're heading towards it would be a great thing for our country.

Has anyone adjusted the mortality rate for the virus minus the nursing home deaths if the elderly population had been better protected. Just think how different the perception of this pandemic would be if we hadn't had so many incompetent and/or sadistic governors pushing the virus into so many vulnerable nursing homes. Of all the many mistakes that have been made, the nursing home policies of certain governors has to be one of the worst. Right up there with governors deciding which business owners were essential and worthy of maintaining their livelihood and ability to provide for their families. That is a lot of power to yield for one elected official.

Finally, we could see a big case dump soon. I heard they were going to test for covid at a
NC women's prison. To quote Cosmo Kramer, "that's caged heat".

No she didn't speculate, but it was obvious the numbers of ICU admits have been decreasing for weeks in DHHS's own CLI Surveillance (we will see if that continues for another week this week).

I don't know what it looks like inside the hospitals, but I assume they are testing everybody. CDC's on COVIDnet tracking has a significant number of Lab Confirmed Hospitalizations with COVID as having pregnancy as an underlying condition.

It is hard to get a read on what COVID hospitalizations mean since everyone who tests positive and is admitted for whatever reason is a COVID hospitalizations. But the fact that COVID ICU is stable, is a good thing.

Again, here was last week's CLI surveillance on admits by level of care. We will see how it changes this week, I am going to guess more non-ICU and level to lower ICU.

Thanks. That's great news on the decreasing ICU numbers. That, along with decreasing death totals would be great news for the country. Well, assuming the media reports the declining numbers if they occur so the people will know about them.

Comprehensive prison testing is also already ongoing. They announced that initiative a few weeks ago.