Hospital capacity.

ORAggieFan said:

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Hospital capacity.

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Hospital capacity is vital and should be strongly considered, but it is variable and flexible. I'm not sure the politicians and media really understand this when trying to set a standard. If we were still actually using hospital capacity as the gauge like we were told back in March we would be open.

We should definitely be using Covid Like Illness (CLI) tracking

NSSP: Percentage of Visits for Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and COVID-19-Like Illness (CLI) to Emergency Departments

CDC webpage for the NSSP CLI tracking

They have done this for years for the flu. From the CDC site

"For surveillance of COVID-19 and its cause, SARS-CoV-2, in the United States, CDC is using multiple surveillance systems run in collaboration with state, local and territorial health departments, public health, commercial and clinical laboratories, vital statistics offices, health care providers, emergency departments and academic partners to monitor COVID-19 disease in the United States."

Texas is in region 6 with AR, LA, NM, OK

The CDC has data going back to Oct 2019. It is easily available and downloadable, although the CDC data is only available by surveillance region. I'm sure it could be found somewhere

CLI % visits for Region 6

Oct2019-Feb2020 averaged at 1.86%
Peaked in early July at 7.3%
Percentage for this region has been in steady downward trend since the peak and It has been 2.2% for the last two reporting periods weeks, 37, 38

We are almost to pre-restrictions levels. I also assume that the reporting is slightly overstated due to higher awareness.

This should be over if we were actually "following the Science/Data"

Nationally on Jan 1 2020 it was 2.4% and it is now 2.6% (posted a correction - looked at chart wrong - original post said 1.7) Whoops, but it doesn't really change the situation. Anyone can click the link and see the graph.

The 99.99% survivability rate for those under 50 years old is the metric that most people have used to re-open their lives. The government will be the last one to figure it out.

Or

ShinerDunk93 said:

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I also assume that the reporting is slightly overstated due to higher awareness.

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This is very true. My 84 year old mother with dementia, diabetes, late stage renal failure, nursing home since last October tested positive for CV about 4 weeks ago. Three positive tests over two weeks with no symptoms. Transferred to another nursing home for those two weeks for isolation care. Ends up in hospital twice. Once in ER for high heart rate and low BP when at dialysis sent back to nursing home same night and one weekend to have her dialysis port unclogged.

She tested negative twice and was returned to original nursing home. The NH requires two weeks in an isolation wing when patients are new or return from being away. She should have completed this Monday but on Saturday while at dialysis her HR went high and BP went low again and she was taken to ER. They tested her for CV and she was negative. She was admitted due to two blood infections. They ran another CV test Monday and it came back positive.

Why run another test when she doesn't have CV symptoms, has already "recovered" from CV in the past two weeks, and was negative for CV on the first test? It seems hospitals want to declare CV every chance they get.

So now, I assume, she's also a CV patient even though she tested negative three times over the three weeks since she last tested positive. There is no way CV is active in her body at this point but the continued testing and the way the test are run is going to detect the traces of residual CV.

So without a doubt the reporting is overstated and as you pointed out, the numbers reflect a normal environment. That is a lot of evidence supporting reopening.

Hang in there a little bit longer guys. I heard we just got to bend the curve.

Even the WHO says the lockdowns need to stop. No science is being followed, it's all politics.

Is common sense even a metric?