Fun with COVID-19 reporting in MA (and elsewhere)

Latest wastewater numbers from Biobot indicate that covid spread in MA continues to be basically a vertical line going up and reaching higher than it has been since January 22, 2022 (yes, 2 years ago). Why is this exactly as expected? Because as we continue to proclaim that all is fine, people will act as if it is and the annual surge in cases during the winter will increase accordingly. The 7-day average from 27-Dec-2023 suggests a spread level of 280 cases per 100,000 people per day (for comparison, original highest threshold level was 8 cases per 100,000 people per day, which was then relaxed a couple times to try to avoid shutting down every school and business and landed on 25 cases per 100,000 people per day.... so 280 is .... not great)

Most recent Middlesex, MA covid tracking shows just over 2,000 copies per mL, suggesting we were seeing roughly 270 cases per 100,000 people per day (friendly reminder that the red flag for us was initially set to 8 cases per 100,000 people per day, then relaxed to 16, and then to 25 as we tried to avoid closing all schools all the time... so we're over 10 times the most relaxed threshold).

Latest MA wastewater tracking shows that we have, not surprisingly, seen the increase in spread continue after Thanksgiving and now have an amount of shedded virus that we would expect if we were having about 96-112 cases per 100,000 per day... that's... a lot... I used to be super alarmed when any single city/town reached that level. It's also a higher level of spread than any other time since around Feb 2023 (other than a couple of weeks earlier this fall).   Please take any precautions you're able to.

Continuing to see somewhat high COVID-19 spread in MA but maybe we had stopped the increase prior to Barbenheimer opening weekend?

Quick MA COVID update: We've doubled our spread in the last 2 weeks... we're now roughly at 32 cases per 100k people per day equivalency based on wastewater tracking and higher than we've been since May. Remdiner: 16 cases per 100k people per day is the threshold to highest category of spread.

MA COVID-19 update: Well, that was short lived... based on the most recent data from wastewater in MA, we're back to 16 cases per 100,000 or slightly more... we were potentially under that threshold for just 1 week.

Good news: in the last 2 months, Boston's count of adults hospitalized for COVID-19 has been cut in half. Bad news: the number of occupied ICU beds in Boston is static... 88.6% at the start of February, 88.2% today with a low of 85.6% and a high of 90.8% in-between. Also, for comparison, the adults hospitalized for COVID-19 is currently just shy of where it was for June through August last year ... and just under 150% of what it was in Mar 2022 ... and just over 150% of what it was the summer of 2021.

I was going to say something snarky but let's just leave it to simply spreading information:   It looks like we've stopped reducing the spread based on the most real-time indicator we have.   For context, we stopped reducing prior to getting back down to within 50 times what we saw last summer for the Southern region and 40 times what we saw last summer for the Northern region and prior to getting within 5 times the spread we saw at the start of March this year. For further context, long covid impacts roughly 1 in 20 people with Omicron, and roughly twice that for Delta (it's unclear to me whether that number is lower with Omicron in part due to the number of people who were vaccinated or because it's self-reported or if it is indeed that Omicron causes less long covid) so we will see more people with long covid resulting from the spread this summer than we did from last summer as a result of our failure to reduce the spread back down to low levels.

The MA wastewater tracking single-day data point on 12-May (we only have through 13-May being reported as of now) was higher than any data point in our first two waves. Now, of course, there's a reason we use 7-day averages and 14-day averages, but... this is higher than any single day and it's wastewater so it's not like it was people delaying going to the bathroom for a few days. It was higher, in fact, than any day up until Dec 1 2021. Also, the 7-day average based on all data known through 13-May is higher than it has been since January 2022 and higher than it was at any time from the end of January 2021 till the start of December 2021. Also, with cases still coming in, last week is already known to have a higher case count than the preceding week, which was already higher than all but the very last days of November through the end of January each year thus far. We are, in fact, within a wave the likes of which we have only seen in winter months till now.

Um... Monday and Tuesday this week already are known to each have more COVID cases in MA than any day going back all the way to January and more than any day between January 20, 2021 and November 28, 2021..... and more than any day prior to November 29, 2020 (yes, more than any day in the first wave)... So... the new winter wave appears to be happening in May...

We already know that, in MA, last week, we had more COVID-19 cases than the prior week (with days before the we see the number steady out from incoming data). The week-over-week increase currently sits at 12%.

Today, Monday, we already know that last week again had more cases than the week prior.  The count will continue to grow as we have more information come into the state, but it isn't likely to grow exponentially.  Between last Monday and today, we saw the prior week's case count increase by 54 cases per day.  Last week's cases currently sit at 1,065 cases per day or 15.5 cases per 100k per day, in comparison to the prior week's cases of 909 cases per day or 13.2 cases per 100k per day. Wastewater tracking also paints a bad picture with our 7-day average in both the north and south being more than 2.25 times what they were this time a month ago and more than 1.5 times what they were just 7 days ago. Stay safe. Stay informed.

Yesterday I predicted that by this Wednesday we would have seen enough information about last week's cases to know that it was the highest week for cases since the start of the pandemic... it did not take that long.  Today we know that last week, at 6,233 cases per day (90.4 cases per 100,000 people per day) currently and still rising, we've beaten are old high of 6073 cases per day the week of January 3.  Last winter saw a huge increase the weeks of December 27, 2020 and January 3, 2021 as the spread ballooned due to gatherings for Christmas and around New Years... what are the chances we see this again but from a significantly higher starting point (compare the currently known 6,233 cases per day last week to 3,782 cases per day the week of December 20, 2020). We also currently have more COVID-19 patients in hospitals than any time after the first wave except for the period from December 12, 2020 through January 29, 2021.... and that range is shrinking fast.... and the perio...

Last week is already known to be another week of increased spread, already known to have seen 13% more cases than the week prior and already surpassing all but 1 week... and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to see it top that week by this Wednesday. Contributing to my expectation about Wednesday is that we already know that 1 day was above all but 8 days outside of last week from throughout the pandemic and 3 are the highest single-day case counts we've ever seen (prior to last week, the highest single-day case count was 9031... last week we know had single-day case counts of 9101, 9683, and 9820). The first 5 days suggest that deaths continued to climb (we don't have any figures from Friday or Saturday yet but the average from Sunday through Thursday are higher than the prior week's daily average and Thursday's known count will definitely increase tomorrow as the data continues to come in). Stay safe. Stay informed.

This Tuesday is now known to have had a higher case count than all but 4 days from our first wave and and all but 2 days going all the way back through mid-February of this year.  Monday is now known to have had a higher case count than ANY day in our first wave and ANY day going all the way back through February 4 of this year.  Both these counts are likely to have increased on Monday. Stay safe. Stay informed.

We now know that last week had more than 21% more cases than the preceding week and more than 52% more cases than the week 2 weeks prior.... and more cases than any other week going all the way back to the start of April! Also, we knew that last week saw an overall increase in hospital bed usage but today... today saw an 8% increase over yesterday's tally and brought us back to the hospital use we saw at the very start of October. Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay keeping your friends, family, and neighbors safe.

The increasing spread continues... Last week, with increases still coming in, Monday through Thursday each saw greater single-day case counts than any single day going back to September 27  and Monday through Wednesday happen to also fall in line roughly with the weekdays of the first week of November last year when we saw a quick increase throughout November.  Oh, and we already know that last week surpassed the preceding week's spread by at least 12% (expect that number to increase substantially by the report on Wednesday). With next week being Thanksgiving, we're not likely to see a real spread reduction until December. One more thing, with the increases we saw in hospital bed use, I would expect that the daily new hospitalizations ramped up a bit last week. Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay keeping your friends, family, and neighbors safe.

It's been a bit since I've done a Monday post... that should tell you that I've got some bad news.  This is not something that was fully unexpected or anything but we're now firmly back to seeing increasing spread.  Last week, with the numbers still coming in, saw more cases than any of the preceding 3.  It wasn't as high as the same last year but it's higher than the preceding week was last year.  We're back up to 1295.6 cases per day or 18.8 cases per day per 100,000 people known for the week... and I would expect those figures to go up to 1300 and 19 respectively by Wednesday.  The only question is whether this is the start of a continued increase as we saw last fall or if we'll get back to decreasing spread before Thanksgiving... my bet would be on the former.

2 weeks ago (Sep 2), Amherst MA's 2-week average COVID-19 cases per day per 100,000 was just below 6. 1 week ago (Sep 9), it was 12.8. This past week, it was 68. Good times. Stay safe. Stay informed.

On Wednesday I posted that the death rate last week was lower than the preceding week... last night we found out that wasn't the case with the death rate being the highest yet since mid-May and today it inched up again.  It's still in the single digits but, at 9.4 deaths per day, it's getting closer to the low we saw last summer of 12.7.  By the way, August 15-21 saw 5.57 deaths per day and August 22-28 saw 7.42 deaths per day... so 9.4 deaths per day for last week is continuing a problematic trend. Stay safe. Stay informed.