Including today, the last three days now have been higher than the same days the previous week.

We will see over the next few days whether it's a trend or an aberration.

Yesterday balanced out the July 4th drop, as expected.

New Jersey had a dump today of another ~50 fatalities going back to March.

Oh it seems NJ dropped more than just those 50. It was 137.

Surely there is some unique event, mis-interpreted number, death backlog or otherwise we can blame it on?

Yes, I for one look forward to what the next goal post will be

terradactylexpress said:

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Yes, I for one look forward to what the next goal post will be

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The goal was to avoid overwhelming hospital capacity. That's where the goalpost moving started

GAC06 said:

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terradactylexpress said:

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Yes, I for one look forward to what the next goal post will be

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The goal was to avoid overwhelming hospital capacity. That's where the goalpost moving started

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Yep, if this becomes a discussion about preventing deaths then there has to be an acknowledgement that the only way to do that is to keep restrictions in place until an effective vaccine comes. Which is something that is simply not practical.

Beat40 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Surely there is some unique event, mis-interpreted number, death backlog or otherwise we can blame it on?

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I mean, while it's everything combined, is't it important to know the cause? That's the very purpose of analysis in order to drive good decision making.

It's the reason the experts are saying the largest reason for spread is super spreader events - it's a pinpoint where we can make a decision and say let's avoid the potential for those super spreader events.

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It was more in jest about how there is so much bad information everywhere that it doesn't matter what side you are on an what you believe, there's a dataset that shows you are right, and another dataset that puts it into question.

PJYoung said:

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Yeah we are looking at our first increase in 10 weeks.

Last week Thursday - Saturday averaged 519 deaths per day and I don't see us getting very far under that at all.

Currently averaging 628 deaths per day this week.

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I don't think anyone thought, if they were being completely honest, that the Death rate wouldn't rise with the massive amount of increase in Cases. The important Goal Post to me is, did it rise at the same % rate of Cases, like NYC? I don't think that is remotely going to end up being the case. Which is great news, overall.

Yeah as long as the cases skew younger we aren't getting to NY levels.
The question, as it always is, is what "acceptable" losses are. The last two days have averaged around 935 deaths, over a year that's pushing 350k if that were a constant number. Now weekends are lower, no guarantee it will stay that level etc...but making the point that even slow drips add up to a pretty full bucket after a while.

Keegan99 said:

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The daily totals should be taken with a grain of salt.

The peak was earlier and higher than we knew.

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This is why no one knows WTF is going on anymore.

Every group does whatever the hell they want to push narratives that fit their liking.

So damn frustrating.

You spin the lag in delay of deaths the other way -- we could be experiencing much higher deaths today than what we are reporting and that won't be clear for months. I have been making the case for weeks that people dismissing the case-rise due to the simultaneous decrease in daily deaths are not paying attention to the lag in th data.

We don't really know definitively if deaths are going up or down right now and can't say with any certainty either way. When cases, positive test rate, hospitalizations, ICU usage trend up, you gotta hope enough contra-mitigating factors are driving down the death rate to not eventually see a corresponding trend up in death rate. Namely, younger, healthier infected people and better treatments. I think we are seeing some of that mitigation, not sure what the net effect will be when all is said and done.

The irresponsible thing to do would to ignore the data that makes you uncomfortable and cling to the data that supports your argument. Take all of it as a whole.

oragator said:

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Yeah as long as the cases skew younger we aren't getting to NY levels.
The question, as it always is, is what "acceptable" losses are. The last two days have averaged around 935 deaths, over a year that's pushing 350k if that were a constant number. Now weekends are lower, no guarantee it will stay that level etc...but making the point that even slow drips add up to a pretty full bucket after a while.

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Sometimes in life, there is no right answer. The lockdowns have severe consequences: increases in anxiety, depression, isolation, loss of income, loss of job status, rises in domestic violence, suicide, and addiction. Not to mention ancillary effects such as people putting off health screenings. These will have long term health effects. Finally, the very far term health effects show that economic prosperity is correlated with overall life expectancy. This has to be juxtaposed with the benefits of a lockdown (or other invasive measures) in order to deem it effective. In this case, COVID-19 has an IFR of less than 0.5% that is heavily stratified by age group wherein almost half of all deaths are coming from nursing homes.

At the macro-level (as callous as it may seem) you have to weigh the various options. In a country in which 3,000,000 Americans die per year from all causes, I don't believe that a lockdown is warranted even knowing that COVID-19 remains a deadly disease. Individuals need to take appropriate actions based on their personal risk factors. The rest of society should do their best to support them by maintaining social distancing and wearing a mask if possible. Unfortunately, we will not be in control of this virus until a vaccine is developed or more effective treatments are found, regardless of what we are willing to accept.

Aust Ag said:

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PJYoung said:

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Yeah we are looking at our first increase in 10 weeks.

Last week Thursday - Saturday averaged 519 deaths per day and I don't see us getting very far under that at all.

Currently averaging 628 deaths per day this week.

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I don't think anyone thought, if they were being completely honest, that the Death rate wouldn't rise with the massive amount of increase in Cases. The important Goal Post to me is, did it rise at the same % rate of Cases, like NYC? I don't think that is remotely going to end up being the case. Which is great news, overall.

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We will not see, or at leat are not currently close to seeing, a repeat of NYC anywhere in Texas. I have said this before that I have a friend on my street that is a US Army officer who commands a MASH type unit(thats not exactly what they call it) and was deployed to NYC from Ft Hood.

I spent July 4th with him and after a few drinks he told me some more details that were absolutely terrible. Bodies in hallways kind of terrible. It is hard to overstate just how bad it was in NYC in their darkest hours.

Anyway he got back from NY after 10 weeks and thought we were all crazy not being completely locked down. Then after a few weeks he came to realize that NY was an exception and not a rule. He is now more or less on the open **** up train.

But, and the point of my post, he is convinced that the combination of viral load, age, and pre existing conditions were a perfect storm in NYC. Now that we are better at treating, understand who is in the most danger, and are social distancing, we will not have a repeat performance. That makes more sense than anything else.

6/8. 565 hospitalized in region Q
75000 positives in Texas
1830 deaths in Texas

7/9. 2700 hospitalized in region Q
220564 positives in Texas
2813 deaths in Texas

Region Q is Austin, Colorado, Fort Bend, Harris, Matagorda, Montgomery, Walker, Waller, Wharton Counties

I only pulled this RAC numbers because that's what we track at my facility, limited sample size, but still shows numbers are sky rocketing, deaths are not, but hospitalizations are waaaay up right now

For the last 3 days in a row, including today, Texas death counts are rising and have set a new record each day. That is something that we didn't want to see, but I think was inevitable.