RunsWithWolves26 said:

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I have a couple of questions for the smart ones on this board. CDC saying the virus us more airborne then previously thought. Does that make it more contagious or less with it having to travel through air? Also, with the cases going up but deaths going down, does that mean this virus is actually less deadly then originally thought or that it's already killed the most at risk it something else? If deaths over, let's say, the next 3 weeks, continue to trend down and say there are less then 300 deaths per day, what does that mean for the country as a whole as it pertains to doing different activities? I will hang up and look forward to hearing the responses to these because I truly don't know the answers to these questions.

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I am not sure it is any more or less deadly. Cases going up because we are better at finding it (even where cases are increasing). We have already missed 10s of millions of cases that likely existed in NY/NJ/MA etc.

We are also probably a lot better at treating it AND better at not providing treatment that will ultimately fail and kill the patient (hi NY over ventilators).

The aerosol thing. I read it as stay away from indoor places with bad airflow (and COVID positive people).

The problem with the death trends is that we will likely actually see an increase in deaths in CA-AZ-TX-FL in the short term as they deal with their issues (border cases, community transmission from mass gatherings and young people) etc.

Deaths aren't going to show the lows they are actually hitting because right now a bunch of states are throwing backlogged deaths other there. Their current deaths are low but they are adding all sorts of deaths from weeks or months ago and just reporting them now. Like my earlier example of Virginia, who are reporting 30 deaths a day but have't had more than 10 deaths in a death in about a month. When all these states are throwing 10-20 backlogged deaths a day out there, it begins to add up.

Unfortunately. The country as a whole has decide not to do any sort of random population sampling, so we don't know the true penetration anywhere.

Most people are getting the virus at home or at work.

Virus going to virus and going to do it until it is done.

We are past the point where any sort of effective lock down is going to get us too 100% track and trace. Those places that did around the world are starting to deal with outbreaks as they open back up. I'd track Western Europe/Sweden and North East U.S. closely. If they avoid flare-ups, then IMO we know the answer.

I think NC can still walk a fine line and keep the deaths per million under 300. My guess based on Sweden was probably about 250 if we avoid massive flareups and more LTC damage.

We need to cross the bridge, it is all about the balance of getting across now.

Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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Probably more a factor of increased testing. More folks being tested than just those with symptoms.

WolfQuacker said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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Probably more a factor of increased testing. More folks being tested than just those with symptoms.

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Agree, but to me, if we are now testing 6x more then we were a couple months ago, the fact that the death percentage is coming down while recoveries are going up, tends to point, at least to me, in a direction that this thing isn't as deadly or even as harmful as was originally thought. For me, and this is just a personal observation, the majority of decisions being made now by the various government organizations, are based on data(flawed or not) from several months ago and not data that is more recent and relevant for this time now.

RunsWithWolves26 said:

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WolfQuacker said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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Probably more a factor of increased testing. More folks being tested than just those with symptoms.

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Agree, but to me, if we are now testing 6x more then we were a couple months ago, the fact that the death percentage is coming down while recoveries are going up, tends to point, at least to me, in a direction that this thing isn't as deadly or even as harmful as was originally thought. For me, and this is just a personal observation, the majority of decisions being made now by the various government organizations, are based on data(flawed or not) from several months ago and not data that is more recent and relevant for this time now.

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Yeah, I don't disagree. The bottom line is the goalposts keep moving, the data collection strategies keep changing, and the reporting is pure ***** Sad, because this is the information our entire quality of life and health safety is being based upon.

WolfQuacker said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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WolfQuacker said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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Probably more a factor of increased testing. More folks being tested than just those with symptoms.

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Agree, but to me, if we are now testing 6x more then we were a couple months ago, the fact that the death percentage is coming down while recoveries are going up, tends to point, at least to me, in a direction that this thing isn't as deadly or even as harmful as was originally thought. For me, and this is just a personal observation, the majority of decisions being made now by the various government organizations, are based on data(flawed or not) from several months ago and not data that is more recent and relevant for this time now.

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Yeah, I don't disagree. The bottom line is the goalposts keep moving, the data collection strategies keep changing, and the reporting is pure ***** Sad, because this is the information our entire quality of life and health safety is being based upon.

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Totally agree! I stopped caring about a lot of this when it became clear to me that it was being used, for the most part, as a political thing. I realized that they didn't care about what the data actually said but only what would help them politically. Sadly, people like my grandma who are in a nursing homes are still exposed because the government hasn't done near what they should have done for those people. I truly hope that when this is all said and done, people will wake up and see how they are being used. Sadly, I don't see that happening.

Daviewolf83 said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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For NC, I estimate there are approximately 22,000+ active cases right now. This means approximately 59,000 people have recovered from the virus. Currently, the total number of cases is doubling about every 28 days. At this rate, I would project the total number of cases will double by mid to late August to about 160,000 cases. Currently, the total number of deaths are doubling every 48 days. On July 1, the doubling rate was every 43 days, so the rate of deaths is definitely slowing down.

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Good info. Do you happen to know what the doubling rate was on July 1st for new cases like you had for deaths? If not, no worries just would find that interesting. 8 days and an increase from 43-48 is certainly a good sign.

I feel like the doubling rate in NC was locked in at like 22-23 days forever. Maybe I was looking at a chart that wasn't updated, but I feel like it was anchored in the low 20s for seemingly ever.

Daviewolf83 said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Thanks so much for the thorough response my friend. I've noticed on worldometers, the recovered percentage was 88% about a month ago and is now at 91%. 3% may not seem significant but it amounts to thousands and thousands of recoveries. The death percentage went from 12% to 9% for all cases with an outcome. For some reason, I find that to be an extremely positive trend.

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For NC, I estimate there are approximately 22,000+ active cases right now. This means approximately 59,000 people have recovered from the virus. Currently, the total number of cases is doubling about every 28 days. At this rate, I would project the total number of cases will double by mid to late August to about 160,000 cases. Currently, the total number of deaths are doubling every 48 days. On July 1, the doubling rate was every 43 days, so the rate of deaths is definitely slowing down.

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Good info. Do you happen to know what the doubling rate was on July 1st for new cases like you had for deaths? If not, no worries just would find that interesting. 8 days and an increase from 43-48 is certainly a good sign.

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Here are some key dates for the case doubling times:

4/1 = 5 days (1,584 total cases on this date)
5/1 = 15 days (10,923 total cases on this date)
6/1 = 22 days (29,263 total cases on this date)
7/1 = 26 days (64,670 total cases on this date)

I hope this helps.

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Very helpful. Thanks! Basically the doubling rate for both deaths and new cases is moving in the right direction. Good to know

So we all hunkering back in our houses yet or nah?

Does anyone know or can someone point me in the direction to find how many that the USA is doing per day now? I'm thinking it has to be around 600,000/700,000 per day. Maybe I'm way off but just a guess on my part.

Daviewolf83 said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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Does anyone know or can someone point me in the direction to find how many that the USA is doing per day now? I'm thinking it has to be around 600,000/700,000 per day. Maybe I'm way off but just a guess on my part.

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According the the info from the Admiral Giroir, the US is currently doing 600,000-700,000 tests per day. For the month of June, the states had a target to do 12.9 million tests and they did 16.5 million tests.

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Thanks again! Glad they are finally meeting what they wanted to in a month

In PHE Network:

So ICU numbers up a little this week, but still the second lowest number if ICU admits per week since mid-April. But the number of non-ICU admits is off the charts. Cohen mentioned having some concern over Meck hospitals today. I guess we will see when Meck puts out their update tomorrow if the increase there is driving these non-ICU cases.

I was a little concerned what the numbers would look like after the record hospitalizations this week, but at least, ICU seems not be increasing. Would love a little more transparency into these numbers.



The other graph which shows a glimmer of hope is both the percent positive and overall number of positives at PHE facilities was down last week. Good sign maybe a little bit of leveling. Trying to find some hope here.

Still part of that metric is "ED visits for COVID-like illness", they even say it themselves that behavior has changed.

Quote:

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Changes in health care seeking behavior are impacting trends in CLI syndrome and other ED data, making it difficult to draw conclusions at this time. Tracking these systems moving forward will give additional insight into illness related to COVID-19

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All someone has to do is go to the ER and state any of the symptoms that maybe be COVID related and they get included on that chart. So when people have nowhere else to go, no GP, and need a test... they can go to the ED and claim a COVID symptom and get counted. Coupled with the fact, some people may be AVOIDING the ED if they don't have COVID. I don't put a lot of stock in that one, even though it is the ONLY CLI stat they use at briefings.

The number doesn't get filtered out until later. Like the percentage of ED visits for COVID-like illness is way up this week, but the ACTUAL number of patients who tested positive is down.

Again, I don't care if they admit EVERY non-critical COVID case and give them the best care possible, but then don't turn around and use 'number of hospitalizations' as a bogeyman. Just be upfront that things are serious, ICU admits are still at some of the lowest numbers in months but since we have a CRAPTON of hospital space we are giving as much care as possible to non-critical patients.

If we have beds use them.

Cohen was asked again about hospitalization breakdown and you have never seen a faster non-answer deflection before. Which makes me think there is something they don't want public and I can't figure out what.

Steve Williams said:

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To me this sounds like something out of the twilight zone but I'm gonna ask anyway- If a person comes in with stroke or heart attack symptoms and goes into ICU and later tests positive for Covid, let's assume with no symptoms, would they be listed as a Covid patient eating up an ICU bed? I ask because there's info out there that suggest heart attacks and strokes are way down. I just find this unbelievable. People just didn't stop having strokes and heart attacks and it's even harder to believe they'd have these events and just stay home. I mean, who has a stroke and doesn't go to the hospital?

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Yes they would be a COVID ICU.

The CDC just posted a CRAP TON of new stuff on excess deaths and by category. Unfortunately NC is the worst state in the nation with updates to the CDC, so we still don't have info past early May. Tons of fun to play with though, would be great if we could play with NC data.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Scroll down a bit for the charts and data and options to filter. Be careful, the default chart is weighted.

The death type that I thought was kind of sneaky low right now was cancer.

Steve Williams said:

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To me this sounds like something out of the twilight zone but I'm gonna ask anyway- If a person comes in with stroke or heart attack symptoms and goes into ICU and later tests positive for Covid, let's assume with no symptoms, would they be listed as a Covid patient eating up an ICU bed? I ask because there's info out there that suggest heart attacks and strokes are way down. I just find this unbelievable. People just didn't stop having strokes and heart attacks and it's even harder to believe they'd have these events and just stay home. I mean, who has a stroke and doesn't go to the hospital?

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Winner winner, chicken dinner

Steve Williams said:

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To me this sounds like something out of the twilight zone but I'm gonna ask anyway- If a person comes in with stroke or heart attack symptoms and goes into ICU and later tests positive for Covid, let's assume with no symptoms, would they be listed as a Covid patient eating up an ICU bed? I ask because there's info out there that suggest heart attacks and strokes are way down. I just find this unbelievable. People just didn't stop having strokes and heart attacks and it's even harder to believe they'd have these events and just stay home. I mean, who has a stroke and doesn't go to the hospital?

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And then the next question is whether the stroke or cardiac event were caused by covid or independent thereof.

I get emails from my e-subscription to the Atlanta Journal/Constitution.
Yesterday's header
"Hospital beds dwindle as virus cases soar in Ga.; Things to do this weekend in metro ATL"

Covid is a reportable dz, so yes, a patient admitted with an MI and tests positive with Cv19 will be treated as a covid positive patient exactly as they should be, and will go in the data bank as Cv19+. Special precautions will be taken. They'll likely go to a covid ICU. And if the patient dies, they will go in the data bank as a covid death just as they should. No different than an HIV pt who dies of an unrelated cause is still a death of a patient with HIV. Doesn't mean they died directly from Cv19, but because they died with the disease they are reported. That is the correct thing to do from a medical and community health perspective. I'll let you guys deal with the political perspective, but I can't stress enough the people managing this illness and reporting cases and deciding where people are managed aren't puppets of the governor.

Not many people die of HIV anymore, and hep c is curable with a pill. But most of us, even knowing that, do our best to avoid exposure. Just viruses with low death rates. Why the big deal?

Nobody knows exactly why admission and death rates from other diseases went down for a while. That is being studied. There are many theories. But you'd be completely surprised by how many people blow off minor stroke and heart attack symptoms. Admitted a 35 yo who couldn't talk secondary to a huge brain tumor, and she didn't come in at first because they thought she was dehydrated. People go numb or even lose half their visual field and blow it off or don't even notice it. People with minor symptoms or chest pain avoided the ER for fear of covid exposure. Some likely died at home or in the snf.

PackMom's question is a good one, and there will be cases when the answer is known with some confidence, and some when it won't. That's true of many instances of death. Some die with covid, some die of covid. Either way, they're going in the data bank just as they should. Same thing if they had Ebola or any other measured communicable disease. Again, I'm separating the medical from the political.

A small sample of Italian patients were studied after infection with Cv19. Only 12% were completely symptom free at 60 days after infection and 44% reported decreased QOL. Interested to see this data at 1yr.

Some UNC numbers for this morning... Wanted to check after the big jump yesterday, 132 total patients, with 38 in the ICU... Rex and UNC still leading the way in patients and ICU (Rex actually has more of both than UNC-CH). Admissions have been steady in the lower teens all week.

Meck comes out with their bi-weekly report this morning which shows county hospital admits. Like I said, I am really curious to see what it looks like after Cohen's comments the other day (although the Meck report won't take into account surrounding counties).

Guilford County has a total hospitalizations to date chart and that seemed to really level off in late June.

Guilford is up. Today there are 68 admitted, 11 icu, 5 tubed. Just 2 weeks ago we were consistently in the mid 40s.

I get on NC sometimes about their data, but holy crap Virginia is tossing out some serious backlog. In July, Virginia has reported over 190 deaths, but by the date of death chart, you would need to go all the way back to June 5th and count every single death to get that many.

By actual Date of Death, VA is up to 17 deaths in July (although that certainly will be filled in).

Like a lot of other states, things were way under reported early and they are throwing out backlog now.

Compounds things with the states that are actually seeing real increase now.