Looking at NY, they had about a 5 week cycle from mid March to late April for their "bell curve" in new cases. If you assume Texas will be similar, we should be a couple of weeks out from going through the full bell curve of new cases. This means we should be trending down over the next couple of weeks. I guess we'll see what happens.

still don't think we're hitting the prevalence here that they hit there

cone said:

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still don't think we're hitting the prevalence here that they hit there

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Most countries saw a 12-14 week bell curve, New York saw a 5-7. Texas is nowhere near the levels required right now.

cone said:

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still don't think we're hitting the prevalence here that they hit there

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Wonder if we need to hit their prevalence level.

P.U.T.U said:

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cone said:

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still don't think we're hitting the prevalence here that they hit there

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Most countries saw a 12-14 week bell curve, New York saw a 5-7. Texas is nowhere near the levels required right now.

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I would say 12-14 week would be right for us, because we are spiking still at a much, much lower rate than NY did.

beerad12man said:

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Cloud said:

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Lester Freamon said:

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Hopefully this trend strengthens quickly. It's obvious it's turning already and I hate the idea that lockdown 2.0 will get credit for it.

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Why?

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Because it would lead to more and longer lockdowns. Wouldn't you rather the 20% burnout theory be the biggest reason places like NY started to trend down rather than having to lockdown and continue to have excess rules/regulations?

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Bert315 said:

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RandyAg98 said:

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This seems like the start of a positive trend hopefully

LINK

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Our hospital system in the TMC is cautiously optimistic with the last week and a half's trends. Hopefully we can maintain this decline this week and going forward.

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Good info. Do you have any idea what the average length of stat is for a covid patient?

dragmagpuff said:

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I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but is it possible that stricter admission criteria due to less available space would result in lower reported TMC hospitalizations?

Does it count as a TMC hospitalization if they get send to a different hospital? Or is that an admit then transfer.

What if they are just getting sent home with O2, when in the past they would have been admitted?

I'm not claiming that the curve hasn't been flattened, just wondering if it is exaggerated due to rationing.

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I seriously doubt it.

But I'm glad you bring it up considering just a few weeks ago, lots of folks were blaming the rise of hospitalizations on the inverse of this concept.

Here is my thinking.

-Texas spiked to 11,400, NY at 11,500
-Texas population 30M, NY 20M

If you assume a similar case / population ratio, we would either top out at ~17,000 cases in a day OR have an extended bell curve that runs 8-9 weeks (50% longer).

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I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but is it possible that stricter admission criteria due to less available space would result in lower reported TMC hospitalizations?

Does it count as a TMC hospitalization if they get send to a different hospital? Or is that an admit then transfer.

What if they are just getting sent home with O2, when in the past they would have been admitted?

I'm not claiming that the curve hasn't been flattened, just wondering if it is exaggerated due to rationing.

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Pretty downer

oglaw said:

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Bert315 said:

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RandyAg98 said:

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This seems like the start of a positive trend hopefully

LINK

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Our hospital system in the TMC is cautiously optimistic with the last week and a half's trends. Hopefully we can maintain this decline this week and going forward.

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Good info. Do you have any idea what the average length of stat is for a covid patient?

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I do not have the number but the last meeting I was in our executive team did state the average LOS has decreased due to the younger demographic. That is not to say we do not have older patients getting sick and being hospitalized, just that we are seeing more young patients and they are discharging much quicker than prior spike.

dragmagpuff said:

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I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but is it possible that stricter admission criteria due to less available space would result in lower reported TMC hospitalizations?

Does it count as a TMC hospitalization if they get send to a different hospital? Or is that an admit then transfer.

What if they are just getting sent home with O2, when in the past they would have been admitted?

I'm not claiming that the curve hasn't been flattened, just wondering if it is exaggerated due to rationing.

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So an admit is an admit. It's important to note that the TMC numbers include all hospitals tied to the big systems. This means all Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, St Lukes, Texas Children's hospitals fall into these numbers. So if a patient is admitted at one of the medical center locations and then for some reason is transferred to an LTAC or other facility they would still show in the numbers.

We are not discharging patients to make more room just to do so. We know much more about the virus compared to 3 months ago and treatments have improved.

My guess is this correlates directly with a reduction in elective surgeries. Which basically means less people through the doors being tested.

This is promising data. There are really only two options here:

1. Extremely restrictive national lockdown for 1 month. Push cases to a minimum then contract tracing could theoretically work. Obviously this is a non-starter in the United States. However, in an ironic way I believe that we would end up destroying more lives in the long term than those we would save in the short term. Perhaps if the IFR was much higher than currently estimated (i.e. if it were 5% instead of 0.5%) then this would be the correct strategy.

2. Maintain social distancing, work from home (if applicable), mask wearing in public (efficacy unclear but worth a shot) and continue about our lives. Luckily this disease appears to spare the very young, not to mention that there is data suggesting herd immunity thresholds may be lower than previously assumed. In my opinion this is the correct approach at the macro level.

I think part of the problem here is messaging and salesmanship. People can see that "opening up" means more people die in the short term. People generally have a poor ability to estimate risk or comprehend statistical analysis and therefore aren't able to parse out their individual risk posed by the virus. No politician wants to stand up a say that the plan is for people to get sick and then get immunity. It is just a difficult sell, but that is effectively what is going on in Texas. In the end I think it is the "least worst" option.

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My guess is this correlates directly with a reduction in elective surgeries. Which basically means less people through the doors being tested.

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Was that a major swing factor in prior numbers?

jeffdjohnson said:

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This is promising data. There are really only two options here:

1. Extremely restrictive national lockdown for 1 month. Push cases to a minimum then contract tracing could theoretically work. Obviously this is a non-starter in the United States. However, in an ironic way I believe that we would end up destroying more lives in the long term than those we would save in the short term. Perhaps if the IFR was much higher than currently estimated (i.e. if it were 5% instead of 0.5%) then this would be the correct strategy.

2. Maintain social distancing, work from home (if applicable), mask wearing in public (efficacy unclear but worth a shot) and continue about our lives. Luckily this disease appears to spare the very young, not to mention that there is data suggesting herd immunity thresholds may be lower than previously assumed. In my opinion this is the correct approach at the macro level.

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I'm pretty sure we have a lot more options than this... and I'm not sure #1 is even a genuine option. Seems like a straw-man argument.

Windy City Ag said:

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My guess is this correlates directly with a reduction in elective surgeries. Which basically means less people through the doors being tested.

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Was that a major swing factor in prior numbers?

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I think it is a major factor in the increase in "hospitalizations"

I know of several people that have gone to the hospital for random things and test positive for COVID without ever having symptoms.