The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

Curious if there is a stat to show correlation between cases vs. population.  For example: if there are 262 active cases in the region, and assuming a 262K population, that's like one out of every 1000 people.  (using rough numbers for the sake of simplicity).

Per population stats are a bit tricky. They're useful to know whether the virus is everywhere in the community but not a good way to compare how big the outbreak is in different places, because we have basically an infinite population in many places (since there is probably no native immunity, although that may not be completely true).

[panamaniac]

Ontario's new cases starting to creep up again? An this on an (unexplained) lower number of tests. Frustrating in both regards.

[tomh009]

Ontario's new cases starting to creep up again?  An this on an (unexplained) lower number of tests.  Frustrating in both regards.

Four consecutive days of an increase in active cases. An average of 384 new cases (over those four days) which is not terrible, although not great, but it's still more than the number of recoveries.

Hospital capacity looks good, we're down to 155 people in the ICU, but I do worry about the impact of reduced restrictions starting this week on new infections.

[panamaniac]

I wonder what the sustainable number of new infections is in Ontario? I.e. that number that allows the hospital system to cope over the long term without giving rise to burnout? I'm guessing we're slightly below that level at the moment, but not by much.

[tomh009]

I wonder what the sustainable number of new infections is in Ontario?  I.e. that number that allows the hospital system to cope over the long term without giving rise to burnout?  I'm guessing we're slightly below that level at the moment, but not by much.

We're at about 3,700 active (confirmed) cases. 25% of those are hospitalized, and about 4% in the ICU. If we go back up to 5,000 active cases (while managing LTC to prevent further outbreaks there), we might have 1,100-1,200 hospitalized patients and 200-225 ICU patients, which I think would still be manageable, and also allow the hospitals to take care of their "normal" patients. Much above that level, though ...

[embe]

Curious if there is a stat to show correlation between cases vs. population.  For example: if there are 262 active cases in the region, and assuming a 262K population, that's like one out of every 1000 people.  (using rough numbers for the sake of simplicity).

Per population stats are a bit tricky. They're useful to know whether the virus is everywhere in the community but not a good way to compare how big the outbreak is in different places, because we have basically an infinite population in many places (since there is probably no native immunity, although that may not be completely true).

Yeah, I guess I was just looking for a denominator to give it some overall perspective. 

Hypothetical example: but say 99/100 people at a casino bet on black but the ball landed on red...Most people in their right mind wouldn't be lining up at that game, at that particular casino, and betting on black. 

Sure, casino's are closed (and gambling can be argued as unhealthy) ... but reality is people are taking a gamble everyday and it would probably help them understand the risks they are taking on.

[plam]

I wonder what the sustainable number of new infections is in Ontario?  I.e. that number that allows the hospital system to cope over the long term without giving rise to burnout?  I'm guessing we're slightly below that level at the moment, but not by much.

As Angela Merkel said, R > 1 for sufficiently long will get out of control. Exponential growth...

Hypothetical example: but say 99/100 people at a casino bet on black but the ball landed on red...Most people in their right mind wouldn't be lining up at that game, at that particular casino, and betting on black. 

Sure, casino's are closed (and gambling can be argued as unhealthy) ... but reality is people are taking a gamble everyday and it would probably help them understand the risks they are taking on.

Yeah, I mean, you just really don't want this bug if you can at all avoid it.

[jamincan]

I don't know if this is still the case, but I seem to recall that the picture we see now is of the situation two weeks ago. With numbers going up this week, what changed two weeks ago to make cases start to go up again?

[panamaniac]

I don't know if this is still the case, but I seem to recall that the picture we see now is of the situation two weeks ago. With numbers going up this week, what changed two weeks ago to make cases start to go up again?

More testing?

[neonjoe]

I don't know if this is still the case, but I seem to recall that the picture we see now is of the situation two weeks ago. With numbers going up this week, what changed two weeks ago to make cases start to go up again?

Hardware stores?

[panamaniac]

I don't know if this is still the case, but I seem to recall that the picture we see now is of the situation two weeks ago. With numbers going up this week, what changed two weeks ago to make cases start to go up again?

Hardware stores?

Not likely (imo).  From what I've seen, they have been first rate at social distancing.  Far better than supermarkets, in fact.

[tomh009]

OK, I will say first that I am not happy with the current situation. New cases are averaging almost 400 per day. Testing volume is not improving. Active cases are going up. New cases as % of actives are going up. Test positivity % is going up. And yet we are proceeding to increase risk. Sigh.

Anyway, Waterloo Region reported nine new cases; over the past week that's 85 new cases, or approximately 12 per day. Given that the region is about 4% of Ontario population, this is somewhat better than the province at large.

Ontario reported 441 new cases, or an average of 387 over the past week. 258 recoveries and 28 deaths means an increase of 155 active cases (an average increase of 55 for the past week). 11,276 tests for a 3.9% positivity rate (an average of 4.0% over the week). The new cases are 1.8% of the total but 11.5% of the number of active cases (weekly average is 10.8% of active cases).

The positives are the hospital population (961, -23) and the ICU population (153, -2). Those are down 3% and 20% over the last week, respectively. It does not appear that there is likely to be any hospital capacity issue in the near term.

Are we reopening the doors too quickly?

   

[danbrotherston]

OK, I will say first that I am not happy with the current situation. New cases are averaging almost 400 per day. Testing volume is not improving. Active cases are going up. New cases as % of actives are going up. Test positivity % is going up. And yet we are proceeding to increase risk. Sigh.

Anyway, Waterloo Region reported nine new cases; over the past week that's 85 new cases, or approximately 12 per day. Given that the region is about 4% of Ontario population, this is somewhat better than the province at large.

Ontario reported 441 new cases, or an average of 387 over the past week. 258 recoveries and 28 deaths means an increase of 155 active cases (an average increase of 55 for the past week). 11,276 tests for a 3.9% positivity rate (an average of 4.0% over the week). The new cases are 1.8% of the total but 11.5% of the number of active cases (weekly average is 10.8% of active cases).

The positives are the hospital population (961, -23) and the ICU population (153, -2). Those are down 3% and 20% over the last week, respectively. It does not appear that there is likely to be any hospital capacity issue in the near term.

Are we reopening the doors too quickly?

Definitely starting to get concerning that testing continues to be flat, (where do you get the numbers for tests by the way)?

I do think we are opening too early, but this latest spike will be at least a 2 week lag, unless it results from changes to the testing methodology, which did also change (anyone with symptoms)...

More data would definitely help.  Indiana did a state wide statistically significant experient to try to determine what percentage has COVID, this kind of information could be very helpful to us to understand exactly what is happening here (the Indiana data does not extrapolate before anyone starts to speculate).

[tomh009]

Ontario test data is from the Ontario government page, so it's the number of tests, not number of people.

Yes, the opening is unlikely to show in the numbers yet. Next week or the week after. Which is why I am concerned with the current data: it's going in the wrong direction, and we are about to accelerate that trend.

I don't think there are results from Indiana's current antibody testing drive yet. They are using Roche's antibody test which has a specificity of 99.8%, so that's definitely good.

After all the bold predictions about herd immunity in Sweden, it turns out that only 7.3% of Stockholm residents have antibodies.

[danbrotherston]

Ontario test data is from the Ontario government page, so it's the number of tests, not number of people.

Yes, the opening is unlikely to show in the numbers yet. Next week or the week after. Which is why I am concerned with the current data: it's going in the wrong direction, and we are about to accelerate that trend.

I don't think there are results from Indiana's current antibody testing drive yet. They are using Roche's antibody test which has a specificity of 99.8%, so that's definitely good.

After all the bold predictions about herd immunity in Sweden, it turns out that only 7.3% of Stockholm residents have antibodies.

Which website? Does it have historical data?  I was looking yesterday and could not find it. 

At least according to healthcare triage (a YouTube channel) the results are in and about 2.8% have now or previously had COVID. When I say it’s not transferable, our testing and out response has been drastically different. That neither tells us what percentage of people here may have it nor what rate to expect testing to be catching.