Posted on 08/11/2021 5:28:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Though the comment received little more than a headline from the newswires, the White House acknowledged earlier on Wednesday that it has started to see COVID cases leveling off in the hardest-hit states.
To be sure, the drop in cases, which typically portends a decline in hospitalizations and deaths, has arrived just in the nick of time for some hospital systems in Florida and Texas, which have reported seeing a surge in beds occupied by COVID patients. Still, South Carolina recorded the fourth straight daily decline in new cases, while Florida saw cases decline again after the CDC "adjusted" a supposedly "record-breaking" daily tally which was actually an aggregation of the tally (eventually, the number listed was only 50% of the original figure).
Texas also reported a day-over-day decline on Wednesday (~14K cases vs. nearly 17K the day before). Even Arkansas, supposedly the state hardest hit by the latest delta-driven wave of infections, which at the start of this week reportedly had just 8 ICU beds left in the entire state, saw its daily cases drop by nearly half on Wednesday, from 4,851, to 2,664.
The declines beg the question: was the latest IHME projection about the trajectory of the latest delta wave actually on point?
Because according to the projections, Aug. 11 (ie Wednesday) was identified as the peak of the wave according to the projections' base case.
Meanwhile, the worst case scenario shows the wave cresting later this month. But as the White House acknowledged, it looks like the hardest hit states are already seeing the declines that many experts, including former FDA Director Dr. Scott Gottlieb, had expected.
In his latest tweet, Dr. Gottlieb highlighted the decline in the "R" rate in four of the hardest hit states: Fla., La., Nev. & Ark.
The rate represents the number of patients that each person infected with COVID will pass the virus on to. Once it falls below one, that means the virus is decidedly starting to slow.
There’s clear evidence the delta surge is starting to slow in some of the hardest hit states; but these states still face hard weeks ahead as the burden on stretched healthcare systems will continue to grow despite the declines in new daily case totals. https://t.co/T5HT8GWlNf pic.twitter.com/hjyFyILT57 — Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) August 11, 2021
Covidestim, an academic project frequently cited by Gottlieb, showed the "R" rate for Arkansas has broken decidedly below 1.
Still, even if cases continue their decline, hospital systems in these states might continue to see strain, making it hard for them to quickly recover even as the number of new cases continues to fade.
Hospitalizations lag infections, and the average length of stay for Covid patients is longer than typical admissions, especially in the ICU, making it hard for hospitals to quickly recover even as the surge in new cases begins to decline day over day. — Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) August 11, 2021
Nationwide, data from the CDC shows that the number of new cases has already moved solidly back below 100K/day after news organizations made a big deal about the case numbers breaking back above that milestone.
The big question now, as more states impose draconian mandatory vaccination orders (California being the first to officially require teachers to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing), is whether they'd be just as well off if they simply waited for the latest wave to subside.
RE: Isn’t this what the UK saw when had a Delta surge?
See Post #14 and Google Farr’s Law.
It will NEVER peak
Then it will squared. After that cubed.
Whatever it takes to keep the sheep scared and in conformity.
Thanks.
No worries, they’ll send in more illegals.
They already expected this. You see, when the news came out that Delta was already peaking in Europe, they needed something new. And from a place with less English speakers, and few online sources. So, they came up with the Lambda variant. It came from South America you see, so that we don’t have those pesky English speaking countries reporting that it had peaked. And, just so you know, the Lambda variant is the worst yet! (eyeroll).
Look at the graph with the article. First, the spike of cases is maybe half of the spike in January.
And if you look at a graph of deaths, they haven’t risen anywhere near the percentage rise in cases.
NJ Is averaging 4 deaths a day in a populous state.
you should ask the CDC that question....some how they never thought that number would be important.....lol...
Darned few probably.
And, IIRC, the band wasn’t as good as I thought it was. :)
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