Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 08-Dec-2021 Edition

Surprise!  The situation in Massachusetts is continuing to get worse and we're on track to mimic the monstrous wave of spread and hospitalizations (and lack of space in hospitals) that we saw last winter (despite having gotten to a much better place in June than we had seen the previous summer).

New hospitalizations ticked up again last week

Time period             - new hospitalizations (not increased headcount, these are newly admitted patients)
June 2021                -  15.0
July 2021                 -  19.0 (last week of the month was 34)
August 2021            -  61.1 (1st week of the month was 42.7 and it increased steadily to 72 the last week)
September 2021       -  72.4
October 2021           -  60.3
Oct 31-Nov 6 2021  -  58.7
Nov 7-13 2021         -  68.1
Nov 14-20 2021       -  88.3
Nov 21-27 2021       -100.1
Nov 28-Dec 4 2021  -122.4

The first three days of the week have tended to have lower new hospitalizations than the average for the week end up having (not surprising since we're increasing), and this week those 3 days average out to 149.3.

Hospitals, unsurprisingly, are filling up.  We now have more patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 than any day going back through February 12, 2021.  We also have more patients in the ICU than any day going back through February 19, 2021 and more people intubated than any day going back through February 24, 2021.  And the rate at which we're seeing hospitals fill up in general as well as the ICU beds filling up has increased for 3 straight weeks.

Last November, cases dipped ever so slightly the week of Thanksgiving, going from 2622.1 cases per day the week before down to 2604.6 the week the week of, but then increasing sharply to 4644 the week after as all those Thanksgiving gatherings caused tremendous spread.... and this year has matched that pattern exactly:

June 2021                 -   91.7 cases per day (  1.33 cases per 100,000 people per day)
July 2021                 -  364.7 cases per day (  5.29 cases per 100,000 people per day)
August 2021            -1258.5 cases per day (18.26 cases per 100,000 people per day)
September 2021      -1591.2 cases per day (23.08 cases per 100,000 people per day)
October 2021          -1207.1 cases per day (17.51 cases per 100,000 people per day)

Oct 24-30 2021       -1136.7 cases per day (16.49 cases per 100,000 people per day)

Oct 31-Nov 6 2021 -1423.6 cases per day (20.65 cases per 100,000 people per day)
Nov 7-13 2021        -1814.6 cases per day (26.32 cases per 100,000 people per day)

Nov 14-20 2021      -2475.4 cases per day (35.81 cases per 100,000 people per day)

Nov 21-28 2021      -2332.4 cases per day (33.84 cases per 100,000 people per day)
Nov 28-Dec 4 2021 -4306.9 cases per day (62.48 cases per 100,000 people per day)

Last week's case count is already known to be higher than all but 6 weeks since the pandemic began, and all the 6 weeks with higher case counts were all in the period from November 29, 2020 through January 16, 2021.  

Oh, and in case our hospitals and ICUs filling up and people being negatively impacted by long term health impacts of COVID-19 or the financial impact the continuing pandemic has had and will be prolonged by continued major spread isn't sufficient to cause a little cancern, last week was also the second week of increasing deaths... and not in an insignificant way.  We'd been hovering between 12 and 14 since the start of October but we reached 18.1 deaths per day last week.

Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay keeping your friends, family, and neighbors safe.