SnowtoRain

Not sure if this was posted yet:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/us/california-deaths-earliest-in-us/index.html 

Not surprising, but helpful to now document, much early community spread and supports some of the new seroprevalence data coming from California.  

Just now, C.A.P.E. said:

Well that whipped through quick. Brief gusty storm. Better part of the line went just to my SW.

Just a tenth of an inch of rain.

Hail in Denton per mdot cameras

2 minutes ago, 40westwx said:

its not a dilemma.. they know the primary cause.. my grandmother died of congestive heart failure last year.. I am sure she had the flu, pneumonia and whatever invaded during the hospice phase.  It is just the way it works.   

It's actually not that easy, especially because Covid can attack many different tissues and organs causing severe reactions and deaths that are easily attributesd to other causes.

Here is a article from science that details what doctors are seeing with Covid patients and how they are trying to better understand how the virus attacks the body:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes#

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

If they take deaths from the beginning of April and add them to the count from today, how is that a "correct interpretation" or "properly accounted for"? It makes it impossible to accurately determine the rate of change of the rate of change which is basically the only value from death counts, if there is one.

I might not have been clear, there are probably (hopefully) official daily tally of deaths for each state that they are certain are from that day, which are used for understanding trends and making decisions.  The dump of additional deaths is most likely for accounting purposes not to be used to understand trends but track overall impacts.  The tracking websites should differentiate these counts, but have not, thus outside interpretation by a lay audience of these raw numbers would of course be meaningless.  I am fairly certain on the daily updates from various states they have made clear of daily deaths vs deaths accounted for that occurred previously without a known date.

12 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

The death stats from the states are becoming even more worthless as they go back and do forensics in places like nursing homes. They are finding deaths from weeks ago, saying they are "probable COVID" without a test, and then adding them to the total from today. That completely muddles any attempt to watch trends in death stats. So, if you are still doing that, you should stop if you want to have any view of reality.

I think your word usage in your first sentence might be imprecise.  What I think you were trying to relay with those words were,  "Death stats from states need to be interpreted correctly to understand the current trends due to additional previously unrecorded deaths being added to daily counts rather than the day in which the death occurred."

This does not make the count more worthless because in the general scheme it provide a better understanding of overall impacts.  There just needs to be correct interpretation, which I am sure is accounted for when each state is tracking day to day deaths.

Interesting read about the Covid outbreak at the Smithfield plant in South Dakota: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52311877

Similar issues (hopefully not as grave) here on Delmarva with poultry processing, Allen-Harim is having growers "depopulate" 2 million birds due to workers out sick at their processing facilities.

https://www.wmdt.com/2020/04/nearly-two-million-delmarva-chickens-being-killed-not-processed-amidst-covid-19-staffing-shortage/

I imagine this is occurring through out rural areas and will be how outbreaks spread rapidly in low pop. states.

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

OK, seems manageable so far.

Yeah, it seems from the few news reports and hospital alerts from MEMA website, only a few PG and MOCO hospitals are being stretched thin.

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Is that 2,451 number the number hospitalized now or total since this all started?

That's a running tally, so it is not indicative of total currently hospitalized 

25 minutes ago, snowfan said:

752 new cases in MD, 43 new deaths.

+220 hospitalized, is that the largest 24 hr increase?  

1 minute ago, mappy said:

thank you! if i'm reading it correctly, doesn't look like many hospitals are at any alert levels?

Nope.  Only three red alerts right now.  Most of the alerts are for emergency room services so those alerts are more transient.  Probably a lot less emergency room stress with less commuters and all social activities being cancelled.

2 minutes ago, mappy said:

can you share the link, please?

https://www.miemssalert.com/chats/Default.aspx?hdRegion=5

4 minutes ago, mappy said:

The Johns Hopkins dashboard now includes county based hospital information, but isn't quite specific enough to get an idea on how strained things are. it lists total numbers, but not what is being used.

Yeah, I think the red alert status for a hospital on CHATTS website is the closest to usage that can be found right now.  Some hospitals in MOCO and PG have been on red alert for days.  Johns Hopkins and Bayview were a few weeks ago, but the BMORE hospitals have not been on red alert much over the past week.  Again this is for ECG and telemetry beds so it indicates all patients being monitored at the hospital irregardless of disease.

You can query data to see how often each hospital has been on red alert, but the website is a bit slow.

1 minute ago, mappy said:

I wish we had a better idea of what hospitals patients are going to and how strained they are. Being the spatial nerd that I am, I would love to see the zip-code data overlaid with hospital locations and the range at which they serve. just to get an idea of how strained they are, or are not.

I think the only data out there is the MIEMSS CHATS system that details emergency room alerts for all MD hospitals and if the hospital has run out of ECG monitored beds, which I assume would be a indication Covid patient hospital strain.

22 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

I imagine the strain on our hospital system must be becoming noticeable now.  That’s a lot of people to add in one day. 

The MIEMSS CHATS system gives some indication of hospital strain, mostly with emergency room availability, but red alert deals with all ECG monitored beds:

www.miemssalert.com/chats/Default.aspx?hdRegion=5

A few hospitals in PG and Moco area have been on red alert for the past week.

18 minutes ago, JakkelWx said:

Strong thunderstorm near easton MD

Some how that storm missed downtown Easton, rained hard for maybe 5 seconds and passed by to the north.

Pea sized hail with a passing thunderstorm, most winter weather I have seen on the eastern shore this year...

One of the positives from the 10 am update is +47 hospitalizations, I think the past few days it was averaging well over 100.

Nasty out,  41 light rain.  Just think a few months ago this would have been an even colder rain.

0.76" total, forgot what heavy rain sounded like... 4.0" for the month.  I'm sure this has been posted before, but this is a nice generalized map to track modeled water availability:

https://labs.waterdata.usgs.gov/estimated-availability/#/

24 minutes ago, HighStakes said:

I was think about this the other day. It seems like every month for the last several years are warmer than average except for March and April.  

March through May have been seemingly damp and cooler, affecting planting and crop growth on Delmarva

38 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

33 and pouring rain. My favorite.

A tradition unlike any other

First thing this morning there was a few scattered snow flakes on all surfaces, so that puts me at 0.50001" for the year

4 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Sun!

Temp up to 32.

Looking forward to a few passing rain showers ahead of the front.

Yeah the sun coming through the thin clouds made temps jump quick.

21.7/13.5 on the midshore

0.41" of wasted potential