dan11295

There have been reports of it in circulation in Italy and Iran back in December 2019 as well. It seems that the virus was in circulation in some form in many areas even prior to first reports in late December 2019 from Wuhan. Strongly suggests the wet market was just the first major outbreak location as opposed to the source of the virus. Guess for whatever reason those earlier introductions did not trigger major epidemics. Studies have shown that superspreader events are much more important for transmission of Covid compared to influenza. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201211/Data-confirms-early-cases-of-SARS-CoV-2-in-Boston-area.aspx Here locally there were multiple introductions of the virus into the region, including a college student in late January 2020, but those did not result in large amounts of transmission. Of course the Biogen Conference was the major trigger event in this area (and was shown to have have major impacts not just here but nationally and internationally).

Last December?

California Hospitalizations: 13,960 (+550) LA County: 4,203 (+206)

I think Hoosier mentioned this earlier, but the IHME model is running too low. Even Covid Tracking, while has lower numbers than Worldometer, is above the top end of the IHME deaths/day estimate for today. I also think the model is showing impacts from vaccination too soon. Someone exposed today who passes away wont be reported in stats on average 28 days later, so not really viable for vaccination to impact mortality before the end of the year. I agree with their expectation that we can start seeing sharp drops in mortality numbers and CFR once we start getting into February. Am guessing somewhere between April and July normalcy gradually returns. assuming enough people get the vaccines.

Their currently 21-day time lagged CFR is ~1.35% Current 7-day case average of 30k would result in ~400/day. The number might rise a bit further although they are (hopefully) close to heir they peak daily cases which would then start to fall, in line with trends seen in states like Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. Unfortunately the damage has basically already been done and its going to being very ugly there for a while.

Same here visibility maybe a couple hundred feet at best

They are up now, 11,699 cases and 123 deaths

13,800 cases in LA County today, that is....not good

I believe as we get into summer will be start to get some sense of normalcy. Not sure when we get back to the "all mass gatherings allowed again" condition in all states though. Like concert venues reopening, etc.

I agree and plateauing at this level is just awful. People have become a bit numb it at this point and have kind of adapted to this "normalcy" in some ways.

Hospitalizations in PA supposedly fell by 200 today. Feels like a bit of a phony drop with cases +35% in last 7 days.

Would not be surprised to see today come in below last Friday case numbers wise. Last Friday was so high partly from clearing Thanksgiving week backlog. Plus cases from Thanksgiving gathering transmission should be mostly reported out already. Nationally we are very close to peak IMHO.

The entire state's per capita case numbers are now above the national average. When you consider their population size that's frightening. With that huge population they were a ticking time bomb that's now been set off.

True, I don't know how close we are to our testing capacity limits. At a certain point if you can only run so many tests total number of cases wont increase much unless positivity rises noticeably. Just read a story which mentions pool testing (which can help to increase testing capacity) breaks down once you start going above 10% positivity. U.S. is at ~11.4% 7-day average positivity right now.

Wonder if we have passed the the peak of the surge in cases due to Thanksgiving. Total cases today may be below both yesterday (very unusual as cases usually step up until Friday) AND last Thursday. If we are actually peaking now it would be earlier than I expected.

I am guessing most of the cases from Thanksgiving which haven't been reported already will be over the next couple of days.

Some backlog, but still about 14k cases in two days. They are very close to summer hospitalization peak there.

They were in the hospital for an unrelated related reason, but got testing upon admission most likely.

https://coronavirus-response-burlingtonvt.hub.arcgis.com/pages/wastewater-monitoring Wastewater in Burlington VT shows a spike in virus levels following Thanksgiving (and VT has very low transmission rates). Monitoring in Metro Boston shows a similar spike (or worse spike in this case). The wastewater data from the Ohio available from their dashboard is unfortunately too delayed to show anything yet.

Obviously some people will run with this and say the hospitals are fine everywhere and numbers are inflated, etc. ignoring data like dropping available ICU capacity in many states. Also in Mass. in past week Covid ICU is +25% and ventilator use is +26%. While this may indeed cause some inflation of the reported hospital numbers, in reality it is something that is also a marker of increasing community spread ongoing, assuming the criteria for reporting hospitalizations hasn't really changed. The more spread you have the more people getting screened for it while in the hospital for something else will test positive.This would been in line with other metric in the state confirming a spike, like cases, positivity, and wastewater bio data and would be expected IMHO.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Could see 250k if the holiday spike is bad. But its unclear how much of last week was clearing of backlog.

10,400 cases reported in LA County today. I know they have 10 million people, but jeez.

Even on a per capita basis S. Cal is getting very high. San Bernadino County just reported 3k cases with 2 Million pop. LA County is close to OH Valley numbers now with comparable population to states like Ohio.

hospitalizations actually dropped by about 80 today. First day in over a month where that number did not increase. Obviously its the weekend (less reporting) and we know capacity is getting strained in some areas. Also number in ICU went up by 90. Just have to hope any Thanksgiving surge isn't too bad. Will get a good idea on that after this week. Regardless our situation is not good. Another note the 7-day average deaths are about to pass April peak.

Just watching a report on potential risks associated with retail shopping. Very pertinent with the start of holiday shopping season. Places like Big Box stores have already been linked to spread in cities like El Paso. You get stores not enforcing capacity limits and people not wearing masks or wearing them correctly its just a recipe for accelerated spread.