Hoosier

Hate when it transpires like that, but can't deny there are concerning signs.

Almost at the crossover point now of having more covid ICU than non-covid ICU. That has not occurred at any point in the pandemic in Indiana.

That's why it will be important to montior how many tests are performed each day and not just focusing on case numbers. Also important to monitor hospitalization numbers of course, but I wonder if even that could start to become a bit of an unreliable metric in areas that are out of space... like would borderline hospital cases start getting turned away?

Go to bed dude

First off, there's way too much politics/election talk in here. Really not supposed to be discussing that, whether or not it's civil. Regarding covid, there's a real, growing problem in the hospitals right now just about everywhere outside of the coastal states. You see it in the news stories and I hear it from my cousin here in Indiana who has a high ranking position at an area hospital. Because of the typical lag time between a confirmed case and needing to go to the hospital, a lot of areas are in trouble even if the spread stopped right now (which it won't, of course).

A neighbor, who used to live across the street from my dad when he was growing up, died from covid. Didn't really know her and only met her one time -- when she came to my dad's funeral several years ago. Still, it's the first person taken by this virus that is not a completely unknown name to me.

Nationally we are heading for the most deaths in a day since the first week or two of May. And to think of how much worse it will get before it gets better.

I read the summaries or even occasionally watch the weekly covid briefings by the governor and health officials, and I gotta say the tone of today's briefing sounded like the ones back in spring. The health commissioner used the words exponential growth. There's a lot of concern about hospitals being able to handle the increasing numbers and increasing fatigue and illnesses among hospital workers. Testing is also becoming an issue with supply and long wait times, and in some areas you can now only get tested if you have symptoms. They also encouraged students returning home from college to stay home as much as possible and wear a mask inside, even at home.

You talking about the warm weather earlier this month? That is an interesting point and something that was brought up in this thread back then. This would be about the time when you would expect to see some stabilization or at least a slowdown in case growth... if that is playing a role. The other Midwest states are not slowing down to the extent that Illinois has in the last few days though, and it's not like Illinois had a monopoly on the warm days. So there may be multiple factors at work.

Going to take a magic act to avoid hitting 200k, imo. Even if the stabilization places like IL is real, others will probably start picking up the slack so to speak. I am keeping an eye on testing numbers though. We still have not had 2 million tests in a day and have had very few days over 1.5. As long as that is the case, then the documented case numbers will have some sort of cap.

Hopefully people don't take it as "yay, I'll have my big Thanksgiving gathering now"

(dry) ice ice baby. But yes, it is a challenge, probably in more rural areas especially.

More counties in the red in Indiana, which signifies worst level of spread. Also hospitalizations have surpassed 3000.

One thing mentioned in there is the breakdown of severe covid-19 illnesses, which was something I was wondering. You would think that if you receive the vaccine and still develop covid-19, it would be milder, but it's not necessarily clear yet based on that data. In the placebo group, 9/162 developed severe covid-19 (5.6%) while the vaccinated group was 1/8 (12.5%). The vaccine appears to be great at reducing the raw numbers/burden of disease, but I guess we need more time to determine whether it makes a person less likely to become severely ill should they contract covid-19.

Has anyone been able to find any information about how much protection may occur after just the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine?

Has to go through FDA. I'm not sure how long the process takes but it is only 2 weeks until December, so it may be a stretch.

IN governor under quarantine after several security members tested positive. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/gov-eric-holcomb-and-first-lady-under-quarantine/531-11932a36-1537-4a2f-91ee-9924b76cd6ee

More mitigation measures going into effect in Illinois later this week.

The two questions with that would be 1) has anything changed with their testing rates and 2) how do the restrictions imposed there compare to the US

Was inside my sister's house today for the first time in 8 months. Spent 3 hours there and never took off the mask. I actually wore 2 masks... a disposable and my other one that I wear regularly lol. As I've mentioned before, she is not great with being careful. She will wear a mask in public when she has to but frequently dines in at restaurants and occasionally goes to bars.

Very hard to protect the elderly when there's widespread community spread. Obviously we're not doing a great job with that, because if we were, there would be a lot less deaths than what we're seeing.

Covid Tracking had about 149k yesterday and 155k today. That site typically runs lower than worldometers. Worldometers had 162k yesterday and 156k and growing so far today.

The scale on this graph reflects the upward trend in deaths better. Bottomed out around 700 per day earlier in Fall and now about 1200 per day. If you check some of the individual states especially in the Plains and Midwest, deaths have really increased lately... to April numbers or worse in some cases. It's coming for other regions too unless things tighten up. Knowledge and treatments have gotten better since April, but not sure how many additional strides have been made since, say, August/September.

Certainly the potential to get even worse with Christmas and New Years, but let's see what happens in the next month. There may be enough people who are scared to leave home by then, especially in areas where the pandemic is really raging right now.

Fort Wayne area is adding restrictions. https://wpta21.com/2020/11/17/new-allen-county-covid-19-restrictions-to-impact-bars-restaurants-and-events/