Coronavirus Cases Are Still Growing In Many U.S. States

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Nate Silver

Filed under Coronavirus

Last week, I wrote about how New York has successfully bent the coronavirus curve after an extended period of social distancing. The evidence this week is even stronger. As of Wednesday, just 27.6 percent of newly reported COVID-19 tests in New York City were positive, still a fairly high rate — but substantially down from a peak of 59.4 percent on March 29. Other states are also seeing a decline in new cases — Louisiana, in particular, has seen a highly encouraging turnaround.

Unfortunately, though, New York and Louisiana aren’t the norm. In fact, there isn’t really any norm. While the situation in many states is improving, in nearly half of all states in the U.S., there are as many COVID-19 cases as ever, and in some cases, even more.

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As I’ve written before, the number of new confirmed cases can be a deceptive indicator of how much the coronavirus is spreading unless you also account for how many tests are conducted. But the stubborn persistence of the novel coronavirus in many parts of the country isn’t just an artifact of rising testing volume.

In fact, the number of tests has been at a plateau for several weeks in the U.S. But that isn’t necessarily the case in individual states. So in this article, I’ll go through some additional calculations to estimate how the share of positive tests has changed in each state over the past several weeks. Before I go into more detail, though, you should know that the conclusions would largely be the same with whatever metric I chose. Newly diagnosed cases, the positive test rate and the number of deaths are all showing progress in some states — but getting worse in plenty of others. In other words, the United States has not yet turned the corner nationwide.

-more-

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-cases-are-still-growing-in-many-u-s-states/

[onecaliberal]

1. California being one of them. Deadliest day in our state ever was yesterday.

[SheltieLover]

2. This is at odds with Vanderbilt Univ's projection for TN to peak may to June

Article published April 10th

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2020/04/09/vanderbilt-coronavirus-modeling-5-000-people-hospitalize-peak-in-june/5119845002/

In Vanderbilt’s most optimistic scenario, Tennessee would continue to make gains toward lowering the transmission rate through April and May. The outbreak would peak in the first half of May and between 2,000 and 3,000 people would be hospitalized at once. Hospitals should be able to handle this scenario with their existing capacity.

snip

Three scenarios are included, all specific to TN.

In a “slightly less optimistic” scenario, Tennessee’s progress on reducing transmission rates would be maintained but not reduced further in May, Graves said. More than 5,000 people would be hospitalized by the peak of the outbreak.

“In this case, the initial wave of the epidemic peaks in June, and our hospitals may be stressed to capacity,” Graves said.

As of Wednesday [presumably 4/8, as article published 4/10], state health officials had counted 4,634 cases of coronavirus, 505 hospitalizations and 93 virus-related deaths. For Nashville and Memphis, where the outbreak has hit hardest, officials have reported 1,231 and 1,006 cases, respectively.

So, since 4/8, cases in TN have risen from 4,634 as stated above, to 8,266 as of today, 4/33, as per WREG.

https://wreg.com/

[SheltieLover]

3. This is at odds with Vanderbilt Univ's projection for TN to peak may to June

Vanderbilt: On current path, coronavirus will hospitalize 5,000 Tennesseans in June

Article published April 10th

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2020/04/09/vanderbilt-coronavirus-modeling-5-000-people-hospitalize-peak-in-june/5119845002/

In Vanderbilt’s most optimistic scenario, Tennessee would continue to make gains toward lowering the transmission rate through April and May. The outbreak would peak in the first half of May and between 2,000 and 3,000 people would be hospitalized at once. Hospitals should be able to handle this scenario with their existing capacity.

snip

Three scenarios are included, all specific to TN.

In a “slightly less optimistic” scenario, Tennessee’s progress on reducing transmission rates would be maintained but not reduced further in May, Graves said. More than 5,000 people would be hospitalized by the peak of the outbreak.

“In this case, the initial wave of the epidemic peaks in June, and our hospitals may be stressed to capacity,” Graves said.

As of Wednesday [presumably 4/8, as article published 4/10], state health officials had counted 4,634 cases of coronavirus, 505 hospitalizations and 93 virus-related deaths. For Nashville and Memphis, where the outbreak has hit hardest, officials have reported 1,231 and 1,006 cases, respectively.

So, since 4/8, cases in TN have risen from 4,634 as stated above, to 8,266 as of today, 4/23, up from 7,842 yesterday, 4/2, as per WREG.

For Memphis and Shelby County specificallly, this article reports on 4/10 there were 1,006 cases
and 1,951 today 4/23.

https://wreg.com/