Maps, science, data & statistics tracking of COVID-19

[dragontamer5788]

We faced a similar dilemma in late March, early April so we built a couple of 4000 bed Super Hospitals in 2 weeks within existing large buildings using the military for Logistical support, one a conference centre, the other an exhibition centre but both hardly got used in the end but are now starting to take some elective patients to get Cancer treatments going again but I appreciate we have a very different healthcare system.

Building out temporary capacity is certainly happening:

Dallas convention center will get Texas’ first pop-up hospital for coronavirus

AUSTIN — The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in downtown Dallas will be the site of Texas’ first pop-up hospital to treat coronavirus patients, Gov....

www.dallasnews.com

Some Texas cities revive plans to add hospital bed capacity at convention centers if coronavirus cases climb

“The setting will be similar to a Medical-Surgical Unit with a capability of treating critical care patients," reads a description for a 100-bed site in Austin, according to an email obtained by The Texas Tribune.

www.texastribune.org

Etc. etc. But hospital capacity is only a temporary solution, that at best, buys you only a few weeks of exponential growth.

Case in point: 4000 beds would be filled up in 10-days (Texas is currently getting +400 hospitalizations/day). And if the growth continues (+3% a day or so), we're looking at 500/day hospitalizations next week, and 650/day hospitalizations two weeks from now. Even a 4000-bed temporary super-hospital would fill up almost immediately after getting set up. Policies must be implemented that reverses the growth. This simply isn't a problem that can be solved by building capacity... (although capacity helps... you can see it fills up really quickly).

To "win by building", the community has to build a 4000-bed temporary hospital this week. Then next week they build a 5000-bed temporary hospital. Then a 6500 bed temporary hospital the week after that. (etc. etc.). Then a 8500 temporary hospital the week after that. Exponentially growing hospital capacity is obviously infeasible. As such, any hospital bed increase needs to be seen as a temporary measure, its a losing strategy (but one that buys time for the community to react).

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EDIT: I personally calculated a 3.6% growth rate. But the Texas Medical Center calculated a 6.9% growth rate: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/tmc-daily-new-covid-19-hospitalizations/

So the 400 / day hospitalizations will become 638/day next week, 1018/day the week after that, and then 1624/day if the trend continues. A growth problem is truly scary, its infeasible to keep up with that kind of growth.

 

[HTC]

[...]
Under these conditions, +100% hospital capacity buys 19 days of 3.6% growth. (log(2.0) / log(1.036) == 19 days), just a rough estimate or so. The curve must be controlled. The problem isn't hospital capacity per se... its exponential growth. Under any exponential growth situation, hospital capacity becomes swamped in a matter of weeks or days... no matter how much hospital capacity you have. The effective measures are those that prevent exponential growth (ie: Lockdowns, masks ordinances, social distancing)

But better have it in place and not need it than need it and not have it: the consequences of the latter will be REALLY DIRE, while the consequences of the former are just wasted time and money.

We faced a similar dilemma in late March, early April so we built a couple of 4000 bed Super Hospitals in 2 weeks within existing large buildings using the military for Logistical support, one a conference centre, the other an exhibition centre but both hardly got used in the end but are now starting to take some elective patients to get Cancer treatments going again but I appreciate we have a very different healthcare system.

That's because UK "got their sh1t together".

[...]
Etc. etc. But hospital capacity is only a temporary solution, that at best, buys you only a few weeks of exponential growth.
[...]
EDIT: I personally calculated a 3.6% growth rate. But the Texas Medical Center calculated a 6.9% growth rate: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/tmc-daily-new-covid-19-hospitalizations/
So the 400 / day hospitalizations will become 638/day next week, 1018/day the week after that, and then 1624/day if the trend continues. A growth problem is truly scary, its infeasible to keep up with that kind of growth.

That may be enough time to turn things around, so long as people act responsibly and follow expert guidelines as best they can. Otherwise, you're right and the consequences ...

 

[Tatty_Two]

That seems like a lot of hospitalisations, are hospitals ONLY taking those with the severest of cases that require or are highly likely to require oxygen? Over here only the most severe cases were even allowed near a hospital...… we had a screening system that could be accessed by telephone or online, both had a set of diagnostics that dependent on responses determined if a Doctor initially spoke to you and then arranged if necessary admission. Obviously I don't know the density of hospitals in Texas that obviously determine capacity.

 

[dragontamer5788]

That seems like a lot of hospitalisations, are hospitals ONLY taking those with the severest of cases that require or are highly likely to require oxygen? Over here only the most severe cases were even allowed near a hospital...… we had a screening system that could be accessed by telephone or online, both had a set of diagnostics that dependent on responses determined if a Doctor initially spoke to you and then arranged if necessary admission. Obviously I don't know the density of hospitals in Texas that obviously determine capacity.

I don't live in Texas, those kinds of details would definitely vary between my state and their state. But once again: differences in definitions don't "really" matter in the great scheme of things. What matters is the growth curve. If you think that Texas is admitting say, 50% too many patients, then that's only a difference of log(1.5) / log(1.069) == 6 days of growth.

What matters is having a consistent measurement, so that we can track the disease in each location using their own, internally consistent metrics.

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Washington Post reports that Texas had + 47,546 cases this past week. This correlates to 2,523 hospitalizations (according to https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/tmc-daily-new-covid-19-hospitalizations/), or a hospitalization rate of 5ish%. (I can't really divide the numbers, because they're from two different sources).

So Texas is hospitalizing roughly ~5% of the cases that are currently being detected.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/

EDIT: Ah shoot, I made an error. Lemme rerun the numbers. I'll edit in the correct results in a bit.

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Okay, try#2: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83

Texas seems to link to this page, so I hope their statistics are consistent with the hospitalizations.

+47546 cases this past week. Huh... so it matches Washington Post's data (I guess Washington Post just took it from this website). So yeah, I guess my numbers were correct: ~5% of Texas COVID19 cases (for the week of 6/29 through 7/6) are resulting in hospitalizations. This isn't the best measurement of how sick people get before getting hospitalized... but its the best statistic I could think of with the available data.

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 44416 confirmed infected --- 287 more
- 29445 recovered --- 279 more
- 1629 fatalities --- 9 more
- 394134 suspected cases --- 2483 more
- 1271425 tests taken --- 65832 more
- 1308 waiting for test results --- 126 more
- 33134 under watch from authorities --- 1649 more
- 511 hospitalized --- 2 less
- 76 in ICU --- 2 more

Tests taken number was updated today but, according to the pic below (evolution of daily tests taken), it's actually from 2 days ago ...

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 44859 confirmed infected --- 443 more
- 29714 recovered --- 269 more
- 1631 fatalities --- 2 more
- 396521 suspected cases --- 2387 more
- 1271425 tests taken --- no change
- 1496 waiting for test results --- 188 more
- 33225 under watch from authorities --- 91 more
- 512 hospitalized --- 1 more
- 74 in ICU --- 2 less

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 45277 confirmed infected --- 418 more
- 30049 recovered --- 335 more
- 1644 fatalities --- 13 more
- 398922 suspected cases --- 2471 more
- 1299594 tests taken --- 28099 more - last updated July 7th
- 1480 waiting for test results --- 16 less
- 34102 under watch from authorities --- 877 more
- 487 hospitalized --- 25 less
- 73 in ICU --- 1 less

Several "milestones":
1 - reached 45K cases
2 - reached 30K recovered
3 - highest daily fatality number since June 1st
4 - our Lisbon and Tejo River valley has had it's number of small outbreaks quadruple in the last 2 weeks, and the rest of the country also had it's number of small outbreaks increase, though nowhere near as much

The following is our daily case evolution (click for full picture):



As can be seen, it's "slow growing" but it's growing

 

[Tatty_Two]

The good news for the UK (although I would not have thought of this as good at the time of outbreak) is that we appear to be consistently down to double digits in fatalities and lowering week on week, it seemed like it took the whole of June when we started easing to move from 200 per day to 100 and now below, it's still not great, it also appears that we are now consistently down to around 500 new infections per day which I think is significant considering the population and density.

On a lighter note, forgive the pun (if you read the link) but it seems that crap is not always bad...………...

Work begins on UK system for estimating COVID-19 cases from wastewater | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Scientists will develop a standardised UK-wide system for detecting coronavirus in wastewater, in order to provide an early warning of future outbreaks and reduce reliance on costly testing of large populations.The majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes the COVID-19...

www.ceh.ac.uk

 

[HTC]

The good news for the UK (although I would not have thought of this as good at the time of outbreak) is that we appear to be consistently down to double digits in fatalities and lowering week on week, it seemed like it took the whole of June when we started easing to move from 200 per day to 100 and now below, it's still not great, it also appears that we are now consistently down to around 500 new infections per day which I think is significant considering the population and density.

On a lighter note, forgive the pun (if you read the link) but it seems that crap is not always bad...………...

Work begins on UK system for estimating COVID-19 cases from wastewater | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Scientists will develop a standardised UK-wide system for detecting coronavirus in wastewater, in order to provide an early warning of future outbreaks and reduce reliance on costly testing of large populations.The majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes the COVID-19...

www.ceh.ac.uk

It takes a long time between the hospitalizations spikes and daily death toll spikes and, perhaps longer still, to "go the other way" and reduce the daily death toll numbers, just like it did in Italy and Spain.

 

[dragontamer5788]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/09/coronavirus-live-updates-us/#link-XBYKZ4PAZBGPVPAP7HQP5D4ZPM

TSA screening folks, the ones responsible for checking for weapons (and tubes of toothpaste, and potentially explosive vaping batteries) person-to-person at airports is reporting a huge uptick in TSA COVID19 cases. I'm not really surprised, given that the TSA's job is basically the opposite of social distancing: patdowns and lots of interactions with the public. Just another unfortunate job in these trying times.

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Maryland has reached a plateau.

Our statistics are no longer improving, and haven't for around a week now. With COVID19 growing significantly in other parts of the country, I think a plateau is relatively good news.

The USA has porous boarders. A COVID19 uptick in one part of the country will inevitably spread. Despite the large distance between Florida and Maryland, we're connected by highways (I-95), railroads, family, friends, and business. Its inevitable for Florida's uptick to affect us.

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 45679 confirmed infected --- 402 more
- 30350 recovered --- 301 more
- 1646 fatalities --- 2 more
- 401296 suspected cases --- 2374 more
- 1316425 tests taken --- 16831 more - last updated July 8th
- 1626 waiting for test results --- 146 more
- 34082 under watch from authorities --- 20 less
- 471 hospitalized --- 16 less
- 66 in ICU --- 7 less

Sharp decline in hospitalized for the 2nd day in a row but it's a bit early to call it "a trend".

On a personal note, yesterday i woke up with a sore throat and a bit of a cough. 1st thing i did was check my temperature and it was only 36.2ºC but, out of concern, i called our National Health hotline, explaining my symptoms and was advised to skip work, purchase a medication for the cough and quarantine myself, which i did. Today, i got instructions for taking the COVID-19 test and took it around 4 and a half hours ago: the results should be known in 1 to 3 days.

Hopefully it won't be this virus and i'm just overreacting, but this virus isn't something one can afford to NOT overreact about so, better safe than sorry.

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 46221 confirmed infected --- 542 more
- 30655 recovered --- 305 more
- 1654 fatalities --- 8 more
- 403748 suspected cases --- 2452 more
- 1316425 tests taken --- no change - last updated July 8th
- 1705 waiting for test results --- 79 more
- 34303 under watch from authorities --- 221 m,ore
- 459 hospitalized --- 12 less
- 68 in ICU --- 2 more

A decline in hospitalized for the 3rd day in a row but it's a bit early to call it "a trend". Highest number of daily cases since May 8th, though.

On a personal note, my COVID-19 test result came back negative.

 

[harm9963]

Texas shatters daily record with 10,351 new coronavirus cases!

Texas shatters daily record with 10,351 new coronavirus cases

Texas has surpassed 10,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day for the second time this week.

abc13.com

Personally know two people who were tested here in HOUSTON Texas ,negative results for both, one ended up in the Hospital a month later, she was positive !

 

[the54thvoid]

I've not been as active here, sort of seeing what happens. Looking to use the US info as a barometer for 'relaxed' conditions (a generalisation as I know it varies state to state). The uptick in daily cases might be starting to show in deaths.

The graph has a new tail at the end, and that's working on a 7-day average, not a daily blip. I think this is the roller-coaster we can all expect until there's a vaccine, or, unless we have strict mask rules for all close proximity places.

 

[Space Lynx]

I've not been as active here, sort of seeing what happens. Looking to use the US info as a barometer for 'relaxed' conditions (a generalisation as I know it varies state to state). The uptick in daily cases might be starting to show in deaths.

The graph has a new tail at the end, and that's working on a 7-day average, not a daily blip. I think this is the roller-coaster we can all expect until there's a vaccine, or, unless we have strict mask rules for all close proximity places.

View attachment 161958

I remember getting in argument with my father a few months back when CDC said you don't need masks, I said Dad use basic logic here... Unfortunately, we don't have the top down leadership needed in the USA to enforce masks be worn in busy places, which will result in a whack a mole situation until a good vaccine arrives, emphasis on good. We wasted 4 trillion dollars and are back right where we started, could have all been and could be avoided if we just enforced masks from top down for all 50 states, no one exempt.

 

[the54thvoid]

It's not a US problem alone. In the UK, English mask wearing in stores isn't mandatory. In Scotland, it is (we have a devolved government with limited judicial powers). I've got my skull and crossbones neck-gater ready.

 

[Vayra86]

I remember getting in argument with my father a few months back when CDC said you don't need masks, I said Dad use basic logic here... Unfortunately, we don't have the top down leadership needed in the USA to enforce masks be worn in busy places, which will result in a whack a mole situation until a good vaccine arrives, emphasis on good. We wasted 4 trillion dollars and are back right where we started, could have all been and could be avoided if we just enforced masks from top down for all 50 states, no one exempt.

Yes pandemics are prevented by masks Your dad makes more sense than you realize. The overwhelming evidence is still that mask usage has no measurable effect in the public space. The only measurable effects in killing the outbreaks were lockdowns and social distancing. This wont change either and yes, its a whack a mole situation, what else did you expect? To solve this with 3 dollar masks?

 

[the54thvoid]

Yes pandemics are prevented by masks Your dad makes more sense than you realize. The overwhelming evidence is still that mask usage has no measurable effect in the public space. The only measurable effects in killing the outbreaks were lockdowns and social distancing. This wont change either and yes, its a whack a mole situation, what else did you expect? To solve this with 3 dollar masks?

Masks are to be used as an additional measure - at least here in Scotland, thats been the message. Masks in enclosed areas where social distancing is trickier. But even then, very close proximity transmission will likely occur with a 'face-covering'. But let's not make this about "masks = awesome" again. I don't think anybody's saying that. And again, masks means any face covering.

They vastly reduce the travel distance of expired droplets (the airborne source). Which can minimise risk in public spaces.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1276629360212979712

 

[Space Lynx]

Yes pandemics are prevented by masks Your dad makes more sense than you realize. The overwhelming evidence is still that mask usage has no measurable effect in the public space. The only measurable effects in killing the outbreaks were lockdowns and social distancing. This wont change either and yes, its a whack a mole situation, what else did you expect? To solve this with 3 dollar masks?

Believe what you will. I wish I was in New Zealand personally.

 

[Vayra86]

Masks are to be used as an additional measure - at least here in Scotland, thats been the message. Masks in enclosed areas where social distancing is trickier. But even then, very close proximity transmission will likely occur with a 'face-covering'. But let's not make this about "masks = awesome" again. I don't think anybody's saying that. And again, masks means any face covering.

They vastly reduce the travel distance of expired droplets (the airborne source). Which can minimise risk in public spaces.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1276629360212979712

Minimise, unquantified entirely. Its a case of grasping anything you can that might help, lets please call it that, instead of overinflating what is essentially placebo given all the variables in play.

Factual discussion in this topic. Not some twisted social media fueled madness please.

 

[the54thvoid]

It appears whatever I say you'll disagree. And I'm not grasping at anything. Regardless, I'll not waste my time searching for the various scholarly articles on the efficacy of masks to reduce airborne particles. Which as I clearly stated, is just one vector.

 

[Space Lynx]

It appears whatever I say you'll disagree. And I'm not grasping at anything. Regardless, I'll not waste my time searching for the various scholarly articles on the efficacy of masks to reduce airborne particles. Which as I clearly stated, is just one vector.

It's the main way to keep people safe. Look at the nations that beat the virus, masks enforced from the top down. Vietnam, South Korea, China, most of Asia basically beat it just because masks are so enforced there.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Personally know two people who were tested here in HOUSTON Texas ,negative results for both, one ended up in the Hospital a month later, she was positive !

That's a rare, and unlucky, situation. It should be noted that none of these tests are perfect. There's always a chance of false-positives (testing positive, but not having the virus), and false-negatives (testing negative, but having the virus). Furthermore, its virtually impossible to even measure false-positive and false-negative rates directly.

What is measured instead, is sensitivity and selectivity (aka: true positives and true negatives). This is tested by sending samples to "gold standard" tests (extremely expensive RNA / DNA machines). A random set of tests are "gold standard" tested. In effect, we have a "test for the test" to try and determine the true-positive and true-negative rates. Then we use fancy math and assumptions to get estimates for false-positive and false-negative rates (but that will always be an estimate... a "derived" result with a degree of guesswork).

"Fortunately" (and I say that ironically), the more "true positives" that exist in an area, the more accurate these tests become. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

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This is why we need many, many tests all across the country. A 2nd, or 3rd result, would greatly improve the accuracy of any result we get. "Batched tests", where we throw ~10 people into one test (to make that test 10x cheaper) could provide a 2nd or 3rd result at much cheaper costs.

Yes pandemics are prevented by masks Your dad makes more sense than you realize. The overwhelming evidence is still that mask usage has no measurable effect in the public space. The only measurable effects in killing the outbreaks were lockdowns and social distancing. This wont change either and yes, its a whack a mole situation, what else did you expect? To solve this with 3 dollar masks?

Doctors and nurses use N95 masks to protect themselves (and surgical masks to protect others). Its obvious that masks work, despite only being 95% effective. (N95 only blocks 95% of 0.3um particles). Surgical masks don't even have a rating, they're loose fitting and let lots of air out. But surgical masks are still best sanitization practice.

Masks help. Doctors and nurses still get sick of course, but at much reduced rates. We still need to go to grocery stores, we still need to go to work sometimes (even white-collar jobs need to go into the office when telework stops working. IE: Laptop broke and needs to be diagnosed). Under these conditions where social-distancing is impossible, we use masks to prevent the spread. Blue-collar jobs (ie: Amazon Warehouse workers) must go to work and need protection.

 

[Vayra86]

That's a rare, and unlucky, situation. It should be noted that none of these tests are perfect. There's always a chance of false-positives (testing positive, but not having the virus), and false-negatives (testing negative, but having the virus). Furthermore, its virtually impossible to even measure false-positive and false-negative rates directly.

What is measured instead, is sensitivity and selectivity (aka: true positives and true negatives). This is tested by sending samples to "gold standard" tests (extremely expensive RNA / DNA machines). A random set of tests are "gold standard" tested. In effect, we have a "test for the test" to try and determine the true-positive and true-negative rates. Then we use fancy math and assumptions to get estimates for false-positive and false-negative rates (but that will always be an estimate... a "derived" result with a degree of guesswork).

"Fortunately" (and I say that ironically), the more "true positives" that exist in an area, the more accurate these tests become. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

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This is why we need many, many tests all across the country. A 2nd, or 3rd result, would greatly improve the accuracy of any result we get. "Batched tests", where we throw ~10 people into one test (to make that test 10x cheaper) could provide a 2nd or 3rd result at much cheaper costs.



Doctors and nurses use N95 masks to protect themselves (and surgical masks to protect others). Its obvious that masks work, despite only being 95% effective. (N95 only blocks 95% of 0.3um particles). Surgical masks don't even have a rating, they're loose fitting and let lots of air out. But surgical masks are still best sanitization practice.

Masks help. Doctors and nurses still get sick of course, but at much reduced rates. We still need to go to grocery stores, we still need to go to work sometimes (even white-collar jobs need to go into the office when telework stops working. IE: Laptop broke and needs to be diagnosed). Under these conditions where social-distancing is impossible, we use masks to prevent the spread. Blue-collar jobs (ie: Amazon Warehouse workers) must go to work and need protection.

Nuance applies. Masks MIGHT help and I will not deny that. But there is not a single country in the world where mask usage has had a major or quantifiable (!!!) reduction of spread ot even reduction of the R number. If you can find one Im all ears. Even in all the places where it flares up again (note: SPREAD, not individual infection in high risk areas such as hospitals when working with known cases), the inmeduate and right response that does have evidence of effect, is local lockdown, contact tracing and culling it right then and there.

You might think otherwise but ever since the pandemic begun the numbers simply dont lie. Irrespective of masks, it spreads just as easily as it always has and will keep doing.

So yes. Whack a mole it is and everything else is pretty much irrelevant despite what you might feel or think.

 

[dragontamer5788]

If you can find one Im all ears

We keep going in circles. You claim there's no evidence, I point out the evidence, and then you ignore it.

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The early viral image is confirmed with further details here in the USA.

Here's the infection rate across the most infected states in USA. The states that were lax with mask laws are the ones that have the highest infection rates right now. The states that used masks have had their COVID19 infections drop.

This graph comes from Washington Post, which is updated daily. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_rhp__hp-top-table-main_gfx-virus-tracker:homepage/story-ans . The image is today's (7/12) set of statistics.

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Every measure stacks multiplicatively. Lockdowns are a multiplicative decay in virus reproduction. Masks are a multiplicative decay. Given how cheap, low-effort, and effective masks are, they are a no-brainer. No matter what situation your country is in (be it in the early stages of lockdown, or the late stages where things are opening back up), masks will help out.