What we are seeing today in terms of new cases are infections from last week.
What we are seeing today in new hospitalizations are infections from when Pennsylvania was called.
What we are seeing today in new deaths are infections from Halloween to Election Day.
COVID has significant and serious lags.
What we do today will show up in the hospital data in a few weeks.
What we do today will show up in the death data right before Christmas.
Yesterday we saw 151,000 new cases reported:
Our daily update is published. States reported 1.8 million tests, 151k cases, and 956 deaths. 85,836 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, setting a new record for the 14th consecutive day. pic.twitter.com/t27aVB0FHu
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 24, 2020
I expect today to be the week’s peak as Wednesday tends to be heavy. I expect reported new cases to be low from Thursday until Tuesday. Reported test results has a lag from testing and there is significant day of the week seasonality. I don’t expect many people to get tested on Thursday or Friday this week, and then weekends tend to be light. We won’t have a good sense of what Thanksgiving is doing to our actual numbers until two Fridays from now.
Be careful, be safe, be thankful.
Zzyzx
We were showing a clear sign of plateauing before this week. The question is if enough people behave themselves that the new restrictions more or less cancel out those who don’t. I live in a bubble where exactly one person has traveled this week, so I think I was a tad irrationally hopeful.
SiubhanDuinne
Thank you, David, not just for the timely reminders in this post but for sharing your expertise with us on a near-daily basis. Thinking of you and your family — with special good wishes for Claire — on this Thanksgiving.
PsiFighter37
@Zzyzx: Cases might level off for a week but will resume higher soon. This holiday season is going to be a disaster.
Mathguy
More simply: WASF.
artem1s
I understand there were a lot of people who tried to get tested so they could decide what level of risk they were willing to take over the holiday weekend. It’s the sort of behavior we could have been encouraging all along if we had any kind of coordinated messaging from the WH. I think this is a good sign, even if some people ignore the risks or use a negative test as an excuse to engage in even more risky behavior. The volume of testing this last week will mean a pretty big spike in the reported numbers next week. The best news is this will be viewed as a good thing by the incoming administration even if the media tries to paint it as a failure to immediately cure everyone the minute Joe was declared the winner. Rational people are taking over the testing and tracing and that’s going to start to show up in the numbers too. It will look very, very bad until it starts to get good again.
Buckeye
Last spring our local children’s hospital implemented a plan to take in adult pts if needed. It wasn’t needed. They may have to now:
Dayton Children’s Hospital will begin accepting adult patients up to age 35 that are transferred from adult hospitals that fit healthcare needs that Dayton Children’s staff can treat, the hospital system announced Tuesday.
The move is part of a coronavirus surge plan that News Center 7 first reported on in April.
“Eight months ago, Dayton Children’s began a surge plan in the event that our area hospitals became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and we needed to accept adult patients to support the surge volume,” the hospital said. “COVID cases at that time remained low, and the plan simply sat on a shelf. In recent weeks, COVID cases in our community have dramatically spiked. Weeks ago, our adult partners had roughly two dozen hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Today, those numbers have increased almost ten-fold, and they are nearly at capacity.”
https://www.whio.com/news/local/dayton-childrens-take-adult-patient-transfers-assist-with-covid-19-hospitalization-surge/EWPOUEJX2NAWVO7OE3TKHNOAME/
dmsilev
Apparently quite a few people are traveling this week. Maybe not as many as a normal Thanksgiving week, but still many millions. So, uh, yeah. Gonna be a long couple of months.
My fervent hope is that by the time this wave dies down, which will probably not be until January or February, we’ll have managed to roll out vaccines to ten or fifteen percent of the population. Not much, but it should be a big help in slowing down any further recurrences. And once the various manufacturers ramp up, we’re looking at about another ten or fifteen percent of the population vaccinated every month, so there is an end in sight to this.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s so much easier to learn when the punishment (or reward) follows the action quickly. And the media don’t help. And, of course, the Virus Promoter in Chief. Biden is supposed to make a Thanksgiving speech today. Maybe that will help, along with all the deaths, at Christmas.
Also,
I’ve wondered if Sturgis is the root cause of what we’re seeing now, although there’s plenty else. There have been one or two studies on Sturgis, but they don’t follow them out this far.
CliosFanBoy
@Buckeye: my cousin lives near Dayton. She says they get harrassed if they wear a mask in public. Gad.
Chief Oshkosh
@Cheryl Rofer: That Sturgis study showing the costs in lives and money (I think it was out of a San Diego school?) was amazing. It would be useful if these types of studies should get more press. Similarly, the studies that calculated the percentage of deaths (and attached costs in dollars) caused by Trump’s failure to act (I think it’s locked in at between 90% and 95% of US Covid deaths, regardless of actual count) would be useful to cover, even after the election, so that it’s made clear that a change in course is desperately needed.
Jeffery
I read somewhere the other day to go out as little as possible over the next three months. The tally by the end January should be staggering.
ant
Absolutely.
You can see it in the numbers. ND, SD, IA, WI, MT, MN, IL. All states with bad numbers. Policy very obviously plays a role, verses the cold weather. I can tell by how well MN is doing compared to all the states on the other side of its borders. It’s completely surrounded by raging virus infection.
See here: https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june
bbleh
Well, what *I* want to know is why hasn’t Biden fixed this yet? Why does he hate America so much?
brendancalling
I don’t know a damned soul here in Vermont, where I now live, and haven’t seen family in person since… well, gosh—September? August? Even then it was only 24 hours.
It’s grey and cold and lonesome as can be—we locked down bars and gatherings two weekends ago as a proactive measure before the holidays, from 11/15-12/15, with an extension expected. I’m not complaining though (well, a little). I’m tired of coronavirus, and I’ll do what I have to make it go away. I’m studying to teach and I see what’s it’s doing to our kids.
I will never, EVER forgive the people that did this to us: the GOP and the Trumps. Fuckers really did a number on this ol’ boy.
brendancalling
I don’t know a damned soul here in Vermont, where I now live, and haven’t seen family in person since… well, gosh—September? August? Even then it was only 24 hours.
It’s grey and cold and lonesome as can be—we locked down bars and gatherings two weekends ago as a proactive measure before the holidays, from 11/15-12/15, with an extension expected. I’m not complaining though (well, a little). This is what responsible leaders do, including republicans like our Biden-voting governor Phil Scott. I’m tired of coronavirus, and I’ll do what I have to make it go away. I’m studying to teach and I see what’s it’s doing to our kids.
I will never, EVER forgive the people that did this to us: the GOP and the Trumps. Fuckers really did a number on this ol’ boy.
realbtl
As far as Montana goes I’m not sure about the impact of Sturgis. What I do know is that after almost no tourists in June and most of July we were back to normal for the rest of the summer and way above for Sept.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: We will never really know but the Dakotas have a much higher incidence of infection than any other state, and it generally radiates outward. So yes, almost certainly it was a super duper spreader event that became self-sustainining as people returned home. Death rates are rising rapidly in both states, with ND likely to vie with LA and MS before vaccines become common.
planetjanet
I am not traveling to see my Mom for the holidays as I have almost always done. There is something crazy going on where my Mom lives in the mountains of far southwest Virginia. They had twenty deaths last week. We have never had twenty deaths on one week in my county in Northern Virginia and we have twelve times as many people. There have been eight so far this week and it is only Wednesday. It is terrifying. I am trying to convince her to move up here.
raven
@CliosFanBoy: I just came from physical therapy and there was a guy on an exercise bike with out a mask. I loudly said “what’s the deal with this guy with no mask” and the staff freaked out and kicked into high gear. The dude says “I was only not wearing it while I was on the bike”. Oh, you were only maskless when you were breathing hard!!!
raven
@planetjanet: For some reason the Ga Tech risk tool puts Asheville at 9% for a group of 10 so I got that going for me.
raven
Barbara
@planetjanet: Nursing homes have sustained a serious incursion of the virus. Compliance with social distancing in SW Viginia has been spotty and it is proving impossible to keep it out of vulnerable groups.
gene108
@raven:
Good for you!
Nicole
One of the earlier threads about people’s self-centeredness in the Age of Covid brought up WWII- CNN ran an article last week that, well, actually, people were dicks then about making sacrifices, too, it’s just that when government is functional, you can do more. And when the “sacrifice” is not getting your hand on a particular supply, and the supply is literally not available, it’s easy to be perceived as going along with making sacrifices. Wearing a mask is a positive choice you make for the good of all, rather than the absence of a choice, like purchasing something on the black market, which is part of the challenge today.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/opinions/thanksgiving-covid-19-shared-sacrifice-myth-hemmer/index.html
Though, the thrust of the article is that the Covid disaster is ultimately a failure of government, because it ultimately takes government requiring people to do what’s best for everyone. As it says, in WW2, NYC required an Army order before we’d stop keeping our lights on at night.
Geoduck
In my little corner of Washington state, the numbers continue to creep up, but at least everyone’s wearing masks in the stores. And more and more people just out walking are wearing them as well.
raven
@gene108: I think my therapist got nervous because he knows I don’t fuck around. In actuality I was just going to leave.
Nicole
@raven: Good for you for saying something. When gyms reopened here in the city, I went to cancel my membership since I don’t think I’m going to want to be in a gym again for a long time, and I saw guys (always guys) yanking their masks down the second they were through the temperature-taking line. Not a peep from the staff.
I had to pull my mask down while riding a bike today, but it was outdoors, and it was because I was fogging my glasses so bad I couldn’t see, which is a health hazard unto itself in NYC traffic. On a stationary bike, I’d just have opted to remove my glasses and enjoyed the soft focus. ;)
raven
@Nicole: I had been swimming at the Y but have decided the vaccine is too close and I’m going to wait it out.
Nicole
@raven: I don’t blame you. The end is in sight. Swimming at the Y will be a thing again; we just have to hang in there.
I’ve lately been accruing injuries due to my preference during Covid for getting places via my own steam. I made a Costco run with my granny cart, overloaded it (including a beer Advent calendar for my better half), but felt safer walking home than hailing a taxi. It was after sunset, and the wheels got caught in a sidewalk crack on the way home and both I and the cart went head over teacup. Twice (as in, two sidewalk cracks, two falls). I can see why the elderly can die from falls; I was pretty banged up. The vaccine cannot get here soon enough for me. ;)
Fortunately, the Advent Calendar beers are all in cans, so that survived unscathed.
zzyzx
@raven: that’s what I’m using as my motivation right now. We’re probably in the home stretch. Just need to be smart for a little more!
raven
@Nicole: Dang, Jake Scott. great Bulldog and superbowl mvp just died from a fall at 75.
Scout211
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thank you for posting that chart. California is under 25%, but it still seems too high.
But now that I can see in that graphic that more than 75% of Californians are staying home and safe tomorrow, it makes me feel less like Mr. Scout and I are the only ones who won’t see their kids and grandkids tomorrow (in person).
We will see them on the computer screen, which will be awesome!
Robert Sneddon
TSA numbers for American airports
Read ’em and weep.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: Oh, no, I’m glad you are okay!
CliosFanBoy
@planetjanet: no accident that’s a VERY red area of the state as well….
Buckeye
@CliosFanBoy:
I live in Dayton proper, and mask wearing is definitely adhered to. Yesterday I walked through the Oregon District mid afternoon and was happy to see people mask wearing outside. Which is good, because the district still gets quite a few pedestrians, even with the pandemic.
Even in the southern ‘burbs most people wear them. Though some of them apparently think you don’t have to cover your nose.
And the grocery stores still haven’t done as much as they should in terms of safety, no one-way aisles, not enforcing proper mask wearing, etc.
laura
Bad news on the front page of the SacBee – our positive rate doubled over a week to 1,000 in a single day. And my childhood playmate/serial killer Wayne Ford was identified as one of many prison inmates who successfully filed for unemployment insurance. My anxiety is surging and I’m officially freaked the fuck out.
karen marie
Which time?
rikyrah
@planetjanet:
I have said that I haven’t been this terrified since the beginning of the pandemic. I mean that.
I can’t wait to go home today and be inside for the next 5 days.
planetjanet
@raven: I did not know about that tool. I looked at Wise County for a group of 10 and it was 22%.
planetjanet
@Barbara: Is there any way to find out more about the nursing homes? I check the outbreak statistics on the state website and there have been no new outbreaks at long term care facilities. Of course, there could be extensions of existing ones.
planetjanet
@rikyrah: Thanks, rikyrah. It is good to know I am not the only one.
Nicole
@raven: Oh, that’s very sad to hear. Yeah, a fall is a serious thing, and only gets more serious as you get older. We lost a family member from the consequences of a fall; it was a year from the fall to when he passed, and the last few months were really rough because everything started cascading. I was grateful I didn’t hit my noggin.
@WaterGirl: Thanks; I appreciate it. In addition to all the bruising, I tore the dickens out of both shins. Not to the point where I needed stitches, but man, they look awful. Good thing I’m too short to be a leg model; it’d have been the end of my career. ;)
WaterGirl
@Nicole: oh, no. again.
Barbara
@planetjanet: I am a bit technologically challenged right now, but CMS publishes infection data by provider. Try here or search for alternative presentations.
https://data.cms.gov/Special-Programs-Initiatives-COVID-19-Nursing-Home/Resident-Average-Deaths-per-1-000-Residents/ps29-t4uv
grandmaBear
@Buckeye: dr DIL works at a hospital here in Dayton. She says they’re now full & had 40 new COVID admits this morning. We’re just having our household for turkey day tomorrow.
planetjanet
@Barbara: Thanks, Barbara