I had planned a different topic for today, but the increase in COVID-19 cases is too important to wait as the number of cases has jumped. The number of deaths has not increased at the same rate, but there are factors beyond number of cases.
- Many COVID-19 cases require that the patient receive the high level of care available only in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). In some places we have already exceeded the number of ICU beds and ICU rooms have become double occupancy. In other cases, patients who have suffered a heart attack are moved out of the Cardiac Care Unit so that those beds can be used for COVID-19 patients.
- Hospital staff is at risk, not only for being infected, but also from physical, mental, or emotional burnout. Dealing with patients who had not taken proper precautions and are now dying is especially hard. Imagine watching someone die as they say, “I wish I would have known,” or, “I wish I had been more careful.”
- Personal Protective Equipment has been adequate, but as demand increases, the supply may not keep up.
My personal fear is that some people will relax because of the good news regarding vaccines. Unfortunately, the logistics of manufacturing 700 million doses, delivering them while frozen, and administering two doses to everyone takes time. Unfortunately, immunity is not instantaneous and the patient remains susceptible during the time between injection and the body producing its own antibodies.
Some people are anti-vaccine. If there are side effects, additional people may be concerned enough to also avoid the vaccine. A significant portion of the population must be willing to be vaccinated; herd immunity after the 19th century has been achieved by a majority of the population being vaccinated, not by a majority surviving the disease.
So where are we?
Daily deaths still vary depending on day of the week, which is probably due to some paperwork not being filed on weekends. However, there is a significant upward trend over the last few weeks and a moderate increase in the trend line. As ICU beds are filled and some patients shunted to normal beds, this bears watching.
Daily new cases show a significant increase since mid-October, which is also reflected in the trend line.
I get my data from Worldometer, so it’s no surprise that their graph is similar.
Anecdotally, there seem to be more superspreader events, for a variety of reasons. People are weary of the isolation and some do not believe the pandemic is real. Now that the election season is over, I suspect that the main events may be family holiday celebrations.
So, the same advice still holds:
- Wash your hands
- Wear a mask
- Stay at home
- Maintain social distancing
- Avoid touching your face
sfnowak 