dan11295

Increase in hospitalization have really slowed. I see a hospital peak with next 1-2 weeks, followed by decline. I think deaths fall below epidemic threshold (~250/day) by April at latest due to combo of vaccine/existing pop. exposure. Some sense of normalcy returns by Summer. Next few weeks in particular are going to be brutal though, unfortunately.

From reading Trevor Bedford's twitter, sequencing done, while limited, shows the UK/SA variants have not been detected here yet and are likely not currently circulating in large enough quantities so be responsible for any of the surge in the US. This includes places like LA County in particular. Not that they can't become a major factor before mass vaccination of the general population occurs in few months, but that window would be limited it appears. I would be more worried about actual evidence of mutations showing evidence of vaccine evasion, which hasn't happened yet (or been confirmed at least).

California Hospitalizations: 20,642 (+573) LA County 7,513 (+296)

It is looking like the Christmas holiday did depress the hospital reporting in multiple states NY was up almost 400 to 7559 today. Florida +600 to over 6000. AZ was up 200 today as well.

for sure. Even hospitalizations numbers are a bit unreliable for this weekend. the California numbers are missing 9% of beds in LA County, for example.

Wind starting to pick up here a bit. 58 mph gust at Bridgeport, CT last hour.

California Hospitalizations: 19,771 (+410) ICU 4,069 (+124) LA County Hospitalizations: 7,000 (+180) ICU 1,364 (+38)

Tomorrow should be fairly normal reporting wise, of course then Christmas and then New Years messes with a lot of the numbers. EDIT: Already see some states (I.E. MI) aren't reporting tomorrow. Comparing summer cases/hospital peak to now, in summer 7-day cases average peaked 2-3 days before 7-day hospitalized average. Right now hospital numbers are still rising steadily despite an apparent case peak 5 days ago. 7-day hospitalization changes: 12/23 (+6,185) 12/16 (+6,573) 12/9 (+5,950). Our 7 day case average is now the same as 12/11. with an apparent 12/18 peak. Nationwide positivity has been basically flat per John's Hopkins. Would have expected hospital numbers to really plateau by now

There are about as many hospitalized now in LA County as NY State by the way.

I think California has hit their peak case level, which should allow for hospitalizations to stabilize in 7-10 days. I mentioned before per capita it was about the same level where Wisconsin peaked. Unfortunately we going to see some ugly numbers there for a while due to the large size of the population. The combination of the current wave ebbing combined with vaccinations ramping up should result in declining CFR after January and steadily declining cases. Unfortunately given the high caseload across the country combined with reporting delays another 100k+ deaths are probably baked in. Not that alarmist over this "new strain" it may already be here as we doing do much genomic testing compared to the UK (May very well be why they found it first).

Fist sign California's case numbers may be stabilizing: Today's cases came in less than last Tuesday (a number which was artificially low due to delays in lab reporting). If there is no big dump of cases like last week they may close to peaking in cases. Note that in cases per capita, they are now about where Wisconsin was at peak. Obviously tracking cases is not going to be very reliable shortly with Christmas and New Years next two Fridays. Better to watching the hospital numbers.

A few other states showed big jumps w/hospital numbers today, NY +300, NC +100. California - Hospital 18,961 (+602) ICU 3,861 (+105) - Surpasses NY State April hospital peak (obviously still less per capita though). LA County - Hospital 6,460 (+236) ICU 1,258 (+35)

Cases and hospitalization across the Midwest and OH Valley are falling rapidly now. No question we are over the hump case wise nationally. Hospitalizations should peak this week, deaths first week in January. I do not expect Christmas holiday to effect these declines much as Thanksgiving did not in states that were declining at the time. IL 2500 below last Monday, IN -900, MN -1000 today case wise.

Nationally, more states are now falling in hospitalizations as opposed to rising. The only reason the national numbers are still up is California. As soon as their case growth/hospitalizations start to stabilize US numbers should start falling noticeably. As far as California, was looking at the LA County dashboard, their 7-day average tests have been flat for past week, despite rising positivity (now almost 15%). Am guessing they may have hit a wall on testing capacity.

Reading some stuff on Twitter from Trevor Bedford referencing new work showing "antigenic drift" in common cold coronavirus allowing for reinfection after a few years, basically evolving to escape neutralizing immunity. In some ways like influenza. If that is true at some point the strain used in the vaccine may have to be updated. Even if that is the case one would hope the vaccines already given would provide some partial immunity and limit severe disease.

With Flash being removed by web browsers at the end of the year NWS obviously needed to replace the existing radar. But I agree the new radar is slow to load, map isn't as clear and don't care for the color schemes used for precip either.

Lot of countries now banning travel to UK, unfortunately the horse is a bit out of the barn already, as the variant has now been found in Belgium, Netherlands and Italy, and that's just where they have specifically looked for it so far. Whether this is responsible at all for the new spikes in some EU countries (Netherlands, Spain, Germany, etc.) is still unknown. Vaccines should still work it appears,

Some of the week to week case numbers are really starting to come down in many states. IL down 1000 from last Sunday, PA down 3000 (big drop). More evidence IMHO national numbers have about peaked. Not that some areas of the country don't have major issues of course(CA being the biggie). Not really worried about another holiday surge that much, as in person holiday gathers will be offset by more people being off work/school being out. Interesting about the large number of tests in IN today. Wonder if more test results are getting backlogged due to lab demand and/or issues with states processing them (the latter happened in TN yesterday). Covid Tracking Project shows a drop off in total tests past few days.

Nationwide cases were down 20-25k+ compared to last Saturday. Positivity is also down slightly from last week.(Note: TN didn't report due to reprocessing large volume of tests, but I expect ~197k for today once they are added). Might finally be a sign nationwide numbers are peaking .Regardless, deaths won't peak until early January.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/530966-fda-investigating-allergic-reactions-to-pfizer-vaccine-reported-in-multiple Apparently the reaction has been reported is other states besides Alaska, as well as the UK. "Marks said the FDA was not certain what caused the reactions but indicated a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which is present in the vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNTech as well as by Moderna “could be the culprit." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6706272/ The amount of reactions so far with the limited amount of vaccinations is certainly a bit concerning. At the very least it may scare more people away from getting it.

https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-anthony-fauci-coronavirus-pandemic-los-angeles-california-5aa5ee763e7c32a76735a61c5d923baa Good report on the situation in California. Given the continued upward spike in the case numbers this past week along with positivity rate this situation is only going to get worse.

California: 49K cases, 16,400 LA County. Hospital: 16,965 (+549) ICU: 3,553 (+161) LA County Hospital: 5,763 (+297) ICU: 1,144 (+73)

Unfortunately is likely just a data blip. Cases and hospitalizations are continuing to rise. Numbers are going to be messy again with Christmas and New Years next two Fridays. Would expect following Tuesday/Wednesday after each to have some really bad dumps.

Numbers in the Upper Midwest continue to fall a bit, but Southeast is really starting to spike now. 8400 in NC, 5300 AL, 13000 FL for example. Looking at California hospitalizations, 17,000 now. At current rate of increases they will pass NY April peak in 4-5 days. Obviously CA has more population, but that doesn't diminish the seriousness of the situation there.

7-day moving case average in California is now higher than the recent peak in Illinois, even when adjusted for population. Read there is a 4-day waiting time to get tested in LA County.