Mormad said:
Daviewolf83 said:
As to the old adage, "Never let facts get in the way of a good story", I offer the following facts to a ridiculous story.
1. Yes, the average age for those hospitalized for Covid is getting younger and this is NOT a bad thing. We have heavily vaccinated the most at risk population in this state (70+) and the demographic of those hospitalized is younger. I have posted the actual numbers multiple times. We know most of the deaths from Covid have been from those people age 65+, so having a younger population hospitalized is GOOD.
2. Currently, those aged 17 and under are hospitalized at a lower daily rate in the Summer Wave than they were back in the Winter Wave.
3. The percentage of Covid patients in ICU is 25% for the last 14 day average. Historically, for the entire pandemic, the average has been 27%. So no, ICUs are not filling up at unprecedented levels.
Thanks for that info, Davie: to play devil's advocate...
1. It's only good if your outcome measure is death rates.
2. "Currently" is the operative word. Let's keep it that way if we can.
3. Those percentages are calming, but the gross numbers of ICU patients, ventilated patients, and rate of increase over the last 2 weeks is disheartening. At least where i am.
I do not mind you playing devil's advocate. It makes me examine things again to insure I am not missing something. One of my all-time teachers in high school did this all the time. He was so good at it that people believed he was a devoted Marxist, when we did a detailed study of the Communist Manifesto.
Here are my comments to your points:
1. The article I pointed to and others being posted on social media (along with local media reporting), keep pointing to the fact the age groups in the hospitals are younger and completely ignore why this is happening. We know from over a year and a half of data that Covid wreaked the older population. This population in many cases is already on the edge from a health standpoint. This older population has weakened immune systems when compared with the younger population. This older population can live in facilities that make them more prone to becoming infected.
Due to all of these issues, there was (and still is) a focused effort on getting them vaccinated. In this state, 80% of those aged 65-74 are fully vaccinated and almost 85% of those aged 75+ are fully vaccinated. This is outstanding and it is a key reason why the hospitalizations have shifted to a younger population. I would say this is a key success of the vaccination efforts. The more we can keep this age group from having severe infection, the lower the death rate.
For NC, we know that 81% of the Covid deaths in this past year and a half have come from those aged 65+. The age group where we still need more focus is the 50-64 range. This age group made up 15% of the overall Covid deaths and this is now the most heavily hospitalized age group. The 50-59 year old age group has only been fully vaccinated at 60% and I really believe it needs to be at the 70-80% range of full vaccination to see an impact.
I can look at the current statistics and it tells me cases, hospitalizations (particularly those in ICU) have now decoupled. What has caused the decoupling? It is the drive to vaccinate the most at-risk in the population. Will we still see unacceptable deaths? Yes. Is it due to people not getting vaccinated when they had an opportunity to do so? Yes. Is it too late to do anything about it for this current Summer Wave? Yes. Can the situation be improved before the Winter Wave begins to hit in late October? Yes.
It is interesting to me the media's shift on reporting away from deaths and shifting to cases and hospitalizations. Why have they done this? It is due to the decoupling of deaths from cases and hospitalizations. For almost the entirety of the pandemic the media's focus was on deaths and rightfully so. Can people who become infected and get hospitalized still have significant health issues? Yes they can. Could it have been prevented by them? Yes. Do I feel any responsibility for what is happening to them? No, I do not.
2. At this point, I do not expect a significant swing in the age groups contributing to hospitalizations. As I have posted previously, the current statistics to not show that the Delta variant is any more severe than any other variant. It is recognized the Delta variant is more transmittable and this is to be expected. As people got vaccinated, the viral variants that became more prevalent are the ones that could infect people more easily. From my past research on this topic, it seems in most cases that viruses (due how natural selection works) will get more transmittable and less severe. If a virus is more severe and it is attacking a smaller, more easily infected population base, it will not survive long if it is quickly killing its host. It has a better chance of being successful if it is more transmittable and less deadly.
Given what has been learned so far about the Delta variant, I do not expect it to impact the 0-17 age group with any more severity than it will the older age groups. Will a higher number of the 0-17 age group become infected, when compared with past variants and Waves? Yes. Will all other age groups be equally impacted from an infection level? Yes, those who are unvaccinated will be impacted at the same rate. Could the percentage hospitalized increase? Yes it could and it would happen because the 12-17 age group is the least vaccinated of all eligible age groups. Currently, only 10% of those aged 12-17 have been vaccinated. For all of this talk about protecting children and returning schools to normal, why is there not more focus on this number? For this population, there are more likely infection candidates, due to the lower vaccination rates. On the other hand, this age group, at an aggregate level, has he best immune system. This is why the percentage of deaths when compared to all of the other age groups is statistically zero.
3. I can understand the growth in the ICU population and those being ventilated is disheartening. I agree. I wish more people had taken the virus seriously and taken the easy path to get vaccinated. Here's the thing. We knew (at least I did with almost complete certainty) a Summer Wave was coming. I had been positing this as far back as May (may have been even April) and I am not a trained epidemiologist. I do not work in the healthcare industry (I have family members who do), but I do work in an industry and in a particular segment that requires me to look at statistics and make recommendations based on those statistics. Right now I am implementing a multi-million dollar project that will contribute billions of dollars of revenue to my company when it is launched. Every day I run a war room, examining the statistics for a pilot that is now operational. We dig into those statistics, analyze their causes, and are making adjustments in preparation for the larger project's launch.
Given my background, I could look at the past statistics and trends as it relates to this virus and other airborne viruses (RSV as an example) and make a solid prediction that a Summer Wave would hit in July. This was the timing I gave back in May. What I do not understand is this? If I, someone who is not a trained epidemiologist and not in the healthcare industry, could recognize what was coming, why did the healthcare industry, with its expertise in this area not better plan for the increases in hospitalizations that were going to come? I can look at the information put out by NCDHHS and I can tell that there was NO increase on a statewide level in ICU capacity. Ventilator capacity has never been an issue, but ICU capacity did get stretched in the Winter Wave. The levels of hospitalization with the Summer Wave are are
a little more than half of what they were at the peak of the Winter Wave, but our hospitals and ICUs are now at capacity in many areas of the state.
If the number hospitalized is roughly half, why are we almost out of space? It is due to the fact that hospitals did not plan months ago for the increase. I can understand your frustration with the situation. I am frustrated with situation, but the capacity issues should have been anticipated/projected and plans should have been put in place. I do not know the answer, but did Moses Cone re-open their Covid hospital in anticipation of the Summer Wave? Did they begin to ratchet back elective (I use this term loosely) procedures to provide for additional capacity in July and August? Is Moses Cone (and other hospital groups) making similar plans for the Winter Wave that I project to begin in late October?
This virus is not going to go away. It is endemic and it is likely to become even more transmittable before the next wave hits. It is also possible that vaccine protection may grow weaker between now and October. What plans are being put in place now to implement a booster campaign? If we do not have plans going into effect now, by the end of September it will be too late. A booster campaign will take weeks to implement and after vaccination, it will take 2-3 weeks before the antibodies are at a sufficient level to provide protection.
The current Summer Wave is on top of us now and for the next couple of weeks, it will continue to be bad. Having fully vaccinated people wearing masks will have minimal effect on curtailing the current wave. The hospitalizations, as you have pointed out is made up of unvaccinated people. Who is infecting these people? For the vast majority of them it is other unvaccinated people. Will getting them vaccinated now stop the Summer Wave? It might help marginally on the backend of the Wave, but it is really too late for vaccinations to end the current wave. It will end when the virus runs out of the easily infected in the population.
Sorry for the long response, but I wanted to use it to show I am taking what is happening seriously. I have posted this over the past couple of days and I will continue to ask the question. What is the off-ramp to the measures being implemented? What is the off ramp to vast mask mandates? When do kids get to return to a normal school year? When do we stop closing entire schools, when only a small number of kids are infected? I firmly believe the politicians will not stop at mask mandates. It was too easy last time to implement restrictions and I believe they will use them again, if not now, definitely when the Winter Wave hits. As I said before, a mask mandate requiring vaccinate individuals to wear a mask indoors will NOT significantly lead to lower infection. The Summer Wave will end when the virus says it is time to end because the ones it is impacting the most are the unvaccinated.
