Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 24-Dec-2020

So, I predicted back on Dec 7 that by the end of the year, we would reach 12,000 deaths ... then somehow I forgot that it was predicted for the end of the month and starting thinking I had predicted it for 25-Dec.  Yesterday I was excited to see that we may not reach my prediction by the 25-Dec but I am now doubly sad.... For one thing, the prediction was for the end of the month and the way things are going we are ABSOLUTELY going to reach it.  For another... at 11,963 today, we would only need to see the count increase by 37 tomorrow and seeing as that was a day-over-day overall increase nearly 80 today and the by-date increases not being below 45 in 2 weeks and not below 40 going back to Dec 3.... well, that suggests that we will reach 12,000 tomorrow (even if not reported on till the day after).    

Hospitals also continue to fill up.  ICU saw a 6.7% increase and intubations have increased by 12% in the last 7 days.  Even general hospitalizations saw a 12% increase in the last 7 days!

And in case you were hopeful and thought we might be reducing the case count because back on Monday the average daily cases for the week of Dec 6 was 25 smaller than the average daily cases for the week of Dec 29... that difference has reduced to 10 (and remember, we're talking about 2 numbers that are above 4,600) and the difference shrank by 6.5 just today.  Oh, and the week of Dec 13, every single day of whose cases are still increasing daily, already has a day that is greater than any other and another that only has been surpassed by 2 from days prior to last week.... admittedly Thursday last week seems to be strangely low at 1,543 currently (to keep things in perspective, we didn't see a single day with 1,500 from May 8 through October 25) where was I? oh, right, Thursday is still showing up as super low (though still increasing) the overall average is already at 4,315 even with such a low count for the current pattern... and consider this for a moment: with the counts still increasing dramatically each day for last week, the average daily increase is higher than any single day prior to Nov 30.

But don't worry, Gov Baker has a sure-fire way to stop all this: tell people not to spend time with friends and loved ones over the holidays and reduce allow capacity at businesses to 25% of standard.  Yep, that should do the trick ~rolls eyes~

Look, whatever you were doing back in April at the first peak, do that.  Support restaurants by getting takeout/delivery but DO NOT DINE-IN.  Don't go to museums, gyms, anything indoors that you can avoid.  Space out your shopping trips as much as possible or get it delivered/curbside if that's an options.  I get that we're all tired of this but we're seeing sustained weekly average daily case counts twice as high as the peak in April.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed. Please please please stay as safe as you can.

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