10 straight weeks:


Daily Average Deaths

2,143.57 <-------- Week ending Saturday, April 25th
1,884.00
1,799.14
1,384.00
1,224.29
983.00
899.57
775.86
636.14
589.29
518.29 <-------- Week ending Saturday, July 4th

This should be the headline everywhere. But OMG the case counts!

And we're below pandemic status....

This is great news, but doesn't the spike in deaths come a few weeks after the spike in cases? Hopefully since this spike is being driven by younger people it won't be as deadly.

Federale01 said:

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This is great news, but doesn't the spike in deaths come a few weeks after the spike in cases? Hopefully since this spike is being driven by younger people it won't be as deadly.

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Cases in my area started spiking 3 weeks ago. There has been no spike in deaths. I'm interested to see what happens this week...

Federale01 said:

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This is great news, but doesn't the spike in deaths come a few weeks after the spike in cases? Hopefully since this spike is being driven by younger people it won't be as deadly.

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Cases in TX, FL and CA all started around June 15. FL and CA are below 7 day moving average high for deaths. TX is just a little at it's high. Nothing like the growth in total cases that is mostly due to increased testing and contact tracing. The IHME (which has had some issues) suggests we had 3x more cases in March/April than we have now, despite the massive increases in positive tests.

Big Al 1992 said:

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This should be the headline everywhere. But OMG the case counts!

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Both are important stories. You can look at the increase in percentage of COVID in the TMC ICU to see why a steady increase in cases is news worthy and should be taken seriously. 44% of their ICU is COVID19 now, it was in the teens a few weeks ago. (as of 2 days ago, they're pretty delayed on reporting).

stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

EdmondsWay said:

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stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

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Shocking that he would do that ...

EdmondsWay said:

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stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

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Phase 1 is standard ICU capacity, its not misrepresenting facts

ETFan said:

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Big Al 1992 said:

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This should be the headline everywhere. But OMG the case counts!

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Both are important stories. You can look at the increase in percentage of COVID in the TMC ICU to see why a steady increase in cases is news worthy and should be taken seriously. 44% of their ICU is COVID19 now, it was in the teens a few weeks ago. (as of 2 days ago, they're pretty delayed on reporting).

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Yes, but total ICU bed usage for Harris county has only increased about 9% during the spike. 1467 beds we used in the beginning of June and 1600 beds are being used now. They still have over 300 beds available.

During the same time the number of patients with covid in the ICU has gone from 258 to 690. A lot of it is people that would've gone to the ICU anyway and are testing positive. They're not necessarily going there because of covid. That's why the increase in total beds being used is low.

terradactylexpress said:

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EdmondsWay said:

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stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

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Phase 1 is standard ICU capacity, its not misrepresenting facts

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And more than that, even if hospitals have plans to dump patients in unused surgical wards, there's no clear idea whether they'll have doctors and nurses available to take care of them.

Rather than pencil whipping ICU numbers, I'd love to see stats on staffing. Anecdotally on here and from a nurse I know well, they're stretched thin.

ORAggieFan said:

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And we're below pandemic status....

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Those blue line states weren't chosen by accident.

The states selected were those that had policies which forced long term care facilities to accept potentially COVID+ patients.

EdmondsWay said:

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stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

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I'm not misrepresenting facts. "Phase 1" is their standard ICU allotment, it went from being low teens percentage of COVID19 to 44% as of July 5. I pulled that number directly from TMC's slides, if they feel like 44% is how it should be represented then that's how I'm going to represent it too.

How is that a fallacy?

aginlakeway said:

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EdmondsWay said:

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stop misrepresenting facts. 44% of their phase 1 allotment of beds . . . You keep parroting fallacies.

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Shocking that he would do that ...

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I haven't parroted fallacies, only facts. Please return to 16 if that bothers you.

SirLurksALot said:

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ETFan said:

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Big Al 1992 said:

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This should be the headline everywhere. But OMG the case counts!

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Both are important stories. You can look at the increase in percentage of COVID in the TMC ICU to see why a steady increase in cases is news worthy and should be taken seriously. 44% of their ICU is COVID19 now, it was in the teens a few weeks ago. (as of 2 days ago, they're pretty delayed on reporting).

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Yes, but total ICU bed usage for Harris county has only increased about 9% during the spike. 1467 beds we used in the beginning of June and 1600 beds are being used now. They still have over 300 beds available.

During the same time the number of patients with covid in the ICU has gone from 258 to 690. A lot of it is people that would've gone to the ICU anyway and are testing positive. They're not necessarily going there because of covid. That's why the increase in total beds being used is low.

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In case you're wondering if they are keep ICU stat low by using more general beds.....


Both these charts tell a very compelling story. Census is climbing and % of Covid patients is going up. But the backdoor out of the hospital is still working too and the case load is manageable. Things haven't changed that much in the last month.

That's not to say we shouldn't still be careful/mask up. Just the the level of fear and anxiety by many is not supported by facts.

SirLurksALot said:

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ETFan said:

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Big Al 1992 said:

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This should be the headline everywhere. But OMG the case counts!

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Both are important stories. You can look at the increase in percentage of COVID in the TMC ICU to see why a steady increase in cases is news worthy and should be taken seriously. 44% of their ICU is COVID19 now, it was in the teens a few weeks ago. (as of 2 days ago, they're pretty delayed on reporting).

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Yes, but total ICU bed usage for Harris county has only increased about 9% during the spike. 1467 beds we used in the beginning of June and 1600 beds are being used now. They still have over 300 beds available.

During the same time the number of patients with covid in the ICU has gone from 258 to 690. A lot of it is people that would've gone to the ICU anyway and are testing positive. They're not necessarily going there because of covid. That's why the increase in total beds being used is low.

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Correct. They are sitting at 100% of normal ICU usage, 14% of that was COVID-19 3 weeks ago. It's 44% now. That's quite the displacement they are having to deal with because of the surge.

I'm not saying they are about to be overrun, just that the spike is translating into increased ICU usage, it's in the data, and is news worthy.

See my post right above about general beds. It's not displacement.

Coincidentally, TMC just dropped a new slide for stats as of July 6th:



So 45% phase 1 is COVID-19 and they are now using 9% of Phase 2.

I realize now that I've completely derailed PJYoung's thread. Doh!

EDIT: And the "spreading of fear", aka, everyone stop going out, wear your mask, the ICU is being taxed, etc has lead to a decrease in the spread in Houston according to the latest slides on % positive, # new cases, # hospitalized, etc. Only thing that seems to still be going up is ICU utilization.