Hoosier

We have been running 800,000 to a little over 1 million tests per day in the US in the past 10 days or so, which is a bit better than what it was, but we need more especially heading into fall/winter.

The news conference with the prez's doctors was frustrating. I'm not going to touch the whole timeline thing... but besides that, not being willing to answer simple questions like if he ever received supplemental oxygen. I think no matter who was in office, there would be incentive to be evasive 1 month before an election, but you just can't... or shouldn't be.

Take the high road folks.

Trump going to Walter Reed. That is a significant development since the White House has pretty decent medical capabilities to monitor/treat someone.

Trump has a low grade fever and was given the Regeneron antibody mix, which I believe has shown some benefit when administered early on. https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/trump-treated-with-regeneral-antibody-cocktail-has-low-grade-fever-20201002

While I wouldn't call it a dire situation, we are trending the wrong way in Indiana. Testing has plateaued or even dipped a little, but cases are up, which means the positivity rate has gone up. Hospitalizations are also up around 20% in the past 2 weeks. The context of it only being early October is more concerning.

For sure And it is a good time for a reminder to try to stay as news based as possible in the coming days, without inserting political opinions.

Well, that is true. How does the saying go... shocking but not surprising? The time lag between test and announcement was a red flag. Makes me think that the rapid test was positive and then they followed up with a confirmatory test.

Trump has tested positive. Wow.

There is something curious going on with the president. Someone he was in contact with has the virus. He has access to rapid testing, was tested hours ago, and the results are currently undisclosed. He announces that he is going into quarantine until the results come back. It makes you wonder. Either this will turn out to be nothing or potentially a very huge news story.

Would not at all be surprised if things have to be tightened up again eventually. I think we can avoid the amount of lockdowns that we had in the winter/spring. As evidenced by what happened in the United States and some other countries over the summer, the seasonality component is not as pronounced as the flu, but it still appears to be a factor. With more cases comes a higher likelihood of somebody walking into a restaurant or bar or some other place where masking is difficult, thus causing more spread.

This is fascinating. Sometimes it almost seems like it has a mind of its own https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/23/houston-coronavirus-mutations/?arc404=true

This shouldn't be that difficult. Typing 1 divided by 10 into a calculator results in 0.1 We all know that 1 out of 10 is 10 percent. To convert 0.1 to 10 percent, you move the decimal point 2 places to the right.

So obviously there has been a lot of attention on older people and those with comorbidities being at greater risk of serious illness, but what about an individual's risk profile changing throughout the year? I haven't heard much about that. In particular, for people living in northern climates, is your risk of a more significant case elevated in the colder months when you are more likely to have lower vitamin D levels? After all, D is one thing that is thought to play a key role in immune health.

Pretty big number out of IL today, though it can partially be attributed to testing numbers creeping up. Will have to keep an eye on hospitalizations... there was a pretty big jump in those yesterday but need to see upcoming days to ascertain any trend.

Some positive pieces of info too, like certain populations potentially having longer lasting antibodies (and hopefully immunity). Of course I'm not sure how you figure out who is going to have longer immunity.

Good read on covid-19 reinfections and vaccines https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-covid-19-reinfection-means-for-vaccines/

This is an informative read. Some good and bad news on reinfections and vaccines with covid. The takeaway is that we are probably going to be battling this virus for a long time even after the vaccines come out. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-covid-19-reinfection-means-for-vaccines/

There is a collection of states in the West and the Plains that is on the rise. It's not every state in that area of the country though, which could be because if your state has already been hit very hard, you probably have more restrictions in place with more of the population taking it seriously. I remember reading that exposure to smoke from the wildfires could make a person more susceptible to the virus. I assume that meant a higher likelihood of having a more serious case and not a higher likelihood of contracting the virus itself, but I'm not sure. Those states have had a higher frequency of smoke making it to ground level. Another possibility could be the reopening of K-12 and colleges. It is easier to pick out the spikes in smaller population states since the numbers are not high in an absolute sense. A state that goes from 100 cases one day to 200 cases another day is more noticeable than a state that goes from 1200 to 1300.

Here are test numbers, cases and hospitalizations for Indiana courtesy of covid tracking. Other than a recent spike, which I believe was due to a backlog, daily testing numbers have been either side of 10,000. Case numbers have been up and down but sort of hanging in a zone. Hospitalizations have trended down and are at a similar level as mid July. I guess I'd like to know the logic that went into deciding to move to a full reopening. If the bars/restaurants couldn't be fully open in July, then why now? Testing, cases, and hospitalizations are pretty much the same now as they were in most of July.

Indiana is "fully" reopening this weekend. I put that in quotes because I am not sure yet of the scope and if it also means no limits on size of gatherings. I heard there may still be some kind of limit on gathering size. Apparently bars/restaurants/clubs will be able to operate at full capacity as long as social distancing is maintained. This raises an obvious question of how distancing can be maintained if a place is at full capacity. I don't want to get too far into politics, but I really hope this is a science based decision and that there are not outside factors at play. Our governor is up for reelection and a poll that came out about 2 weeks ago showed the libertarian candidate pulling a large number of votes away to the point where the governor's lead is barely outside the margin of error. I assume it is due to people being upset about the restrictions/mask orders that have been in place. So far the governor has resisted the calls to end the mask order. Having the bars/restaurants at 50-75% has been working decently well, and having those go to 100% will likely result in increased cases over time.

I'm sure there is a lot that goes into the model, and it's probably trying to account for cold season influence. I'm wondering if it is so detailed as to factor in more schools eventually reopening for in person learning. I have not been able to find an answer as to how many kids are doing all virtual learning right now but it must be a fairly large number because a number of the larger districts in the country are not having any in person learning yet.

Things would have to spiral pretty bad to get to 400k that fast.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that daily deaths were dropping. You could see it coming when digging into the data. That is the good news. The bad news is that we are still averaging 750+ per day, and right now I am skeptical that the number is going to be able to drop a lot more anytime soon. We better hope our baseline is low going into the holidays, because that is a looming trouble spot for various reasons.

My county passed 10,000 cases the other day. The question is what has the undercount been? Obviously we are not missing as many cases as we were back in March, but we are still missing cases with the amount of asymptomatic carriers and some people with milder symptoms who may not bother getting tested/are attributing it to something else. If the actual number of cases is 10x higher, then it would mean that 20% of my county has had it.