Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Note that Maryland calculates its positivity rate as the number of positive tests divided by total testing volume over a seven-day period. On the other hand, instead of the total testing volume, Hopkins uses the number of people tested, or the combination of new cases and people who tested negative.

Isn't the number of people tested the same thing as testing volume?

Anonymous wrote:
Note that Maryland calculates its positivity rate as the number of positive tests divided by total testing volume over a seven-day period. On the other hand, instead of the total testing volume, Hopkins uses the number of people tested, or the combination of new cases and people who tested negative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cases in MD were pretty flat throught late June. They started rising in early July and have been rising more rapidly in late July.

We will see a rise in hospitalizations throughout the end of August, and the rise in deaths will start first week of September and continue to rise through early October.

Is this due to increased testing? What does the percent positive number look like?

That's been staying consistently around 4.5 to 4.6%.

We need to keep testing until the positivity rate gets down to 2% consistently. Then we will be reasonably sure that we are catching most cases and have an accurate number.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that MD's ICU beds have stayed pretty steady as hospitalizatons are increasing overall. The number of deaths have stayed steady too, since the 4th of July.

Younger cases? Better treatments?

Hogan said in his press conference this week that it's younger patients who are sick, but not sick enough for ICU.

That and back in April/May, we don’t have a clear picture of how many people were actually infected because of inadequate testing, so we shouldn’t expect the same proportion of hospitalizations/deaths, because less severe cases are being documented now. During the initial surge, only the really sick were being tested, so of course a lot of them would require hospitalization.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cases in MD were pretty flat throught late June. They started rising in early July and have been rising more rapidly in late July.

We will see a rise in hospitalizations throughout the end of August, and the rise in deaths will start first week of September and continue to rise through early October.

Is this due to increased testing? What does the percent positive number look like?

That's been staying consistently around 4.5 to 4.6%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that MD's ICU beds have stayed pretty steady as hospitalizatons are increasing overall. The number of deaths have stayed steady too, since the 4th of July.

Younger cases? Better treatments?

Hogan said in his press conference this week that it's younger patients who are sick, but not sick enough for ICU.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cases in MD were pretty flat throught late June. They started rising in early July and have been rising more rapidly in late July.

We will see a rise in hospitalizations throughout the end of August, and the rise in deaths will start first week of September and continue to rise through early October.

Is this due to increased testing? What does the percent positive number look like?

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that MD's ICU beds have stayed pretty steady as hospitalizatons are increasing overall. The number of deaths have stayed steady too, since the 4th of July.

Younger cases? Better treatments?

Anonymous wrote:Cases in MD were pretty flat throught late June. They started rising in early July and have been rising more rapidly in late July.

We will see a rise in hospitalizations throughout the end of August, and the rise in deaths will start first week of September and continue to rise through early October.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Right. Cases per 100,000 is one metric but that's why you have to look at ALL of these with this virus, because of the high-ish number of very mild cases (and I mean truly mild, not just "not hopsitalized".) Because even if you have a very high number of people per 100,000 testing positive, if a significant number of those are asymptomatic or truly mild, you do not need to shut down your economy again.

It's looking like the places (countries, states) that are doing best with COVID are those that are getting their numbers down to two things:

- New cases per 100,000 per day of 1 or fewer
- percent positive of tests at 2% or lower
- testing a large number of people each day

All three things work together to validate that there are few cases going around and that things can get back to normal and you can "reopen your economy".

If we try to "reopen the economy" too early (before those low levels have been reached) we won't be able to use contact tracing when we have outbreaks, and this is going to drag on and on and on and on and on.

Getting down to 5% positivity and 4 new cases per 100,000 per day apparently isn't good enough, which is why MD is having trouble now.

What is Maryland having trouble with exactly? Because as far as I can tell, hospitalizations are still low and manageable...

Hospitalizations and deaths are lagging from number of cases. So when you start to see an increase in the number of cases (mid July) 2 - 4 weeks later (ie, just about now or the next week or so) you'll see increase in hospiatlizations, and two weeks or so after that, increase in deaths.
It's so dangerous to ignore increasing cases and increasing positivity rate just beacuse hospitalizations haven't (yet) started increasing.