57 COVID deaths in GA today: Post-opening spike starting?

We've been over this. The biggest misconception is that the spikes in Continental Europe are even remotely close to the USA's current scenario OR Sweden's from a few months back. Germany's 7-day average is 7 deaths. Germany is eight times bigger than Sweden. France's 7-day average is 10 deaths. Its population is nearly seven times larger.

and yet in the UK we are struggling to keep out daily deaths below 100 with a case rate of under 1000 daily. Protect the NHS!!! Let the patients look after themselves!!!

7,598 new cases and 306 new fatalities reported in Texas today. Governor was at a flu roundtable discussion and warned that the flu season combined with COVID 19 could overwhelm hospitals. Urges Texans to keep doing what no one is really doing (wear masks, social distance) and leaves it up to local school boards whether to have in person school (while the Texas Education Agency tells local schools they will not get state funding if they are not open for face to face schooling). Lots of schools returning to in person classes in the next few weeks.

Precious Roy wrote:

7,598 new cases and 306 new fatalities reported in Texas today. Governor was at a flu roundtable discussion and warned that the flu season combined with COVID 19 could overwhelm hospitals.

The thing is, behaviors that limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2--hand washing, wearing masks, social distancing--should also considerably inhibit the spread of the flu virus(es). It'll be interesting to see how the Northeast is affected by flu this winter--IF people in those states actually continue with those behaviors (a subject for a different rant).

Back here in Georgia, Mercer University has its own med school and testing lab. They are planning to open up in two weeks for full on-campus instruction with the capacity to test 1000 students and staff per day.

But it's not looking good so far. They have been testing athletes and other students who have already arrived on campus. Over 10% tested positive. And remember, these are not self-selected people who think they might be infected. This was just for screening purposes. So 10% is a huge number.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/35-mercer-university-students-test-positive-for-covid-19/93-cc1ef738-03d1-406c-a133-1d66e205a4f2

08/06 Data

*all based on 7 day rolling average of deaths*

Good couple of days of news.

The world has stopped getting worse, for now. The 7 day average is down a bit, after hitting cyclical highs for many consecutive days. Now it's the 3rd highest day of this cycle.

The US dropped more than the world and is now around the 8th worst of the cycle.

BZ continues its long plateau

India and CA are sore spots - new all time highs for those places.

But TX, FL, AZ improved. FL improved a suspicious amount...we'll see if that state has a catch-up day.

The speed of improvement in the US is strange and not normal. For example:

In FL TX AZ CA. The percent growth in the 7 day average over a week before:

August 1: +30%

August 2: 29%

August 3: 31%

August 4: 32%

August 5: 22%

August 6: 7%

This disease doesn't generally make giant moves like that. A rise, then a plateau then a slow fall is more typical. I don't know what to make of this but I do wonder if we will have catch-up days soon.

agip wrote:

This disease doesn't generally make giant moves like that. A rise, then a plateau then a slow fall is more typical. I don't know what to make of this but I do wonder if we will have catch-up days soon.

... or whether there's been political meddling in the reporting. With an election coming, who would benefit from the disease "just disappearing"???

Fat hurts wrote:

Back here in Georgia, Mercer University has its own med school and testing lab. They are planning to open up in two weeks for full on-campus instruction with the capacity to test 1000 students and staff per day.

But it's not looking good so far. They have been testing athletes and other students who have already arrived on campus. Over 10% tested positive. And remember, these are not self-selected people who think they might be infected. This was just for screening purposes. So 10% is a huge number.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/35-mercer-university-students-test-positive-for-covid-19/93-cc1ef738-03d1-406c-a133-1d66e205a4f2

There is clearly not enough info in this article to make any sense of it.

Why were they tested? Random or targetted? Presumably not due to symptoms since many asymptomatic.

What test?

etc

Because clearly, without some sensible causal factors, if you pcr test a random sample and find 10% actually with active infection.....well......draw your own conclusions. In UK, less than 1% of targetted and symptomatic tests are positive for cov2. again a 'not much help' statistic since it combines tests with actual symptoms with tests of ordinary people to prove they dont have the virus (such as myself)- so its almost meaningless.

Fat hurts wrote:

Back here in Georgia, Mercer University has its own med school and testing lab. They are planning to open up in two weeks for full on-campus instruction with the capacity to test 1000 students and staff per day.

But it's not looking good so far. They have been testing athletes and other students who have already arrived on campus. Over 10% tested positive. And remember, these are not self-selected people who think they might be infected. This was just for screening purposes. So 10% is a huge number.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/35-mercer-university-students-test-positive-for-covid-19/93-cc1ef738-03d1-406c-a133-1d66e205a4f2

People can test positive several weeks after getting the disease and no longer be infectious.

180 deaths in Florida added. Not a terrible number, and this week looks like it will be below last week's. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that it's much better than a plateau, which is what is being projected:

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/08/06/more-than-19000-floridians-projected-to-die-from-covid-19-by-december-experts-say/

Also, noting that Florida won't double-count positive tests for the same person (fine), but apparently they do double-count negatives for the same people. Seems like a bit of a clever way to keep their positive rate % down (at just over 10 today). Your mileage may vary, whether that is misleading or acceptable. It jumps 3+% if you include repeat positives:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-florida-coronavirus-friday-august-7-20200807-qa6fynrcvbeefgtz32p6dsr5o4-story.html

7-day average for positivity at 12.3% (down 22% from 2 weeks ago)

Rt at 0.92 (lowest since May28)

Wear a mask

Social distance

Wash your hands

GET TESTED

Current hospitalizations lowest since Jul18 (

7-day average for newly reported hospitalizations at lowest level since Jul20

Wear a mask

Social distance

Wash your hands

GET TESTED

agip wrote:

08/06 Data

But TX, FL, AZ improved. FL improved a suspicious amount...we'll see if that state has a catch-up day.

The speed of improvement in the US is strange and not normal. For example:

In FL TX AZ CA. The percent growth in the 7 day average over a week before:

August 1: +30%

August 2: 29%

August 3: 31%

August 4: 32%

August 5: 22%

August 6: 7%

This disease doesn't generally make giant moves like that. A rise, then a plateau then a slow fall is more typical. I don't know what to make of this but I do wonder if we will have catch-up days soon.

My kid's friend's dad is a cop in Houston. He got a call from his supervisor on the first day of his vacation telling him that he was exposed to a positive during an arrest. He had to leave his family and go quarantine at home for 14 days. He went for a nasal test and did not get the results for a week. He was negative. Ten days into his quarantine, his supervisor called him and told him he had to report back to work because they were shorthanded.

The data we are seeing today is a mish mash of what happened anywhere from 2 to 14 days ago due to lags between infection, testing and getting results. And there also has been a lot of ups and downs in testing rate. In the Houston area, testing went from about 12k a day to 8k a day at the end of July. But health officials just put in surge testing facilities and are now up to 19k a day. So, we are seeing a high number of positives compared to July. But hospitalizations are going down fairly consistently since the mid July spike. There is still a long way to go. Total COVID hospital population is at about 1,500 right now in the Houston area. It was at about 400 before the reopening surge. So, all you can really get from the daily numbers are some canary in the coal mine warnings to keep an eye on where things are going.

Sorry, I tried to make it clear. Every student is required to undergo a PCR test as a condition of returning to campus. So it is equivalent to a random test. They are able to do this because they have their own private lab.

That's why I say 10% is a huge number.

On the Georgia COVID website why are Georgia’s new positive tests and new cases so different? Today it says there are 4117 new cases and 3234 new positive tests. I would think they would at least be close but they are usually pretty far apart. Thoughts?

That is odd. High-death day in Georgia - 92.

Theros wrote:

On the Georgia COVID website why are Georgia’s new positive tests and new cases so different? Today it says there are 4117 new cases and 3234 new positive tests. I would think they would at least be close but they are usually pretty far apart. Thoughts?

Note on the web site:

Note: these data only include lab tests reported to DPH by electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) and do not represent all tests performed in Georgia. The number of positive tests in this chart will not match the number of confirmed cases because the case numbers include all reporting sources, not just ELR. People with a positive test often get retested and may test positive multiple times. These repeat positive tests will be counted as new positive tests, but they will not be reported as new cases.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

That is odd. High-death day in Georgia - 92.

I get 91. But why is that odd?

I was referring to the discrepancy.

Just noting on Georgia

https://twitter.com/covid19tracking/status/1291867999259906049?s=21