SARS-2-CoV (COVID-19)

[Oh Shoot]

Daily TN deaths average still trending well down from peak in Jan (88.4). "Well" being relative term, of course.

Feb   1-7   819    117.0/day
Feb  8-14   464    66.2/day
Feb 15-21   200    28.5/day       
overall      1483    70.6/day

- OS

[deerslayer]

44 minutes ago, Oh Shoot said:

Daily TN deaths average still trending well down from peak in Jan (88.4). "Well" being relative term, of course.

Feb   1-7   819    117.0/day
Feb  8-14   464    66.2/day
Feb 15-21   200    28.5/day       
overall      1483    70.6/day

- OS

Strange numbers when folks would have us believe that vaccinations are not happening nearly quickly enough and the sky is falling.  Wonder if the drop could be due to herd immunity beginning.  

[Oh Shoot]

1 minute ago, deerslayer said:

Strange numbers when folks would have us believe that vaccinations are not happening nearly quickly enough and the sky is falling.  Wonder if the drop could be due to herd immunity beginning.  

All perspective.  Most of us were pretty spooked when only 5 people/day here were croaking back in the very beginning.

Natural herd immunity isn't gonna happen short of  ~70% or higher infection saturation. Which using available stats of deaths per infection means millions of deaths.

- OS

 

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[deerslayer]

42 minutes ago, Oh Shoot said:

Natural herd immunity isn't gonna happen short of  ~70% or higher infection saturation. Which using available stats of deaths per infection means millions of deaths.

- OS

 

-

...if you believe the advertised death rate.  

[MacGyver]

We've dropped below 2000 deaths per day (7 day moving average) for the first time in 78 days.

There are generally 5 things that the drop is attributed to - these are cumulative (they all work together):

1. By far the biggest - hospitalizations have been reduced to the point where there is better capacity to keep you alive.  It sounds crazy when you make this a supply chain issue - but fewer available beds and taxed staff will result in more deaths.  All other things equal - you're a lot more likely to leave the hospital alive right now than you were in December.

2. Warming temperatures leading to lower infections.  People being able to spend more time outside is a good thing. Sunlight and heat are good at destroying the lipid layer that surrounds the virus. As humidity goes up - those water vapor droplets will attract virus particles and drop to the ground faster.  It's easy to get complacent right now - but if you're going to be in a group of people - you can be a lot more comfortable outside.

3. Vaccinations are up - we're way behind the curve in Tennessee at large - but a decent number of our highest risk people have been vaccinated.  Nursing homes are almost done.  Since that made up for a lot of deaths - getting those folks vaccinated helps a lot.

4. A smaller pool of available hosts - Almost 12% of Tennessee has tested positive at this point.  There are simply fewer people who can come in contact with it, get infected, and as such pass it on.

5. We don't know but we'll take it - I know this one makes a lot of folks mad - but the surest way to know whether or not you can trust a scientist is to ask them about what they still don't know.  There are still a lot of unknowns.  5 years from now, I hope we have a lot of those answered once we can catch our breath and look back at this pandemic from a forensic perspective.  But, for now, there's still some stuff we don't know.

And since cases are going down - we'll take any help we can get.

[Quavodus]

What does it tell you when a lot of health care workers say they will not take the vaccine?  

[jgradyc]

In late December, the CDC COVID tracker showed a 7-day moving average of 9,300 cases in Tennessee. Today, it's 1,075 cases... an 89% decline. 

The anticipated jump after Christmas travel and holiday parties never happened, or at least not to a great extent. The decline has been steep and steady since early January.

It can't be vaccines. The most likely explanation is a combination of natural immunity and herd immunity. 

 

[Oh Shoot]

1 hour ago, jgradyc said:

The anticipated jump after Christmas travel and holiday parties never happened, or at least not to a great extent. The decline has been steep and steady since early January.

I'll not debate "cases" as that's a moving target, and always suspect period, not to mention that many if not most go unreported altogether.  But deaths are another matter, and while not likely a "perfect" stat, plenty close enough.

As per that, January was the worst month in the entire saga, both nationwide and in TN.

Hell, first week of Feb was TN's highest death count yet, including highest single day death count.

- OS

Edited February 24, 2021 by Oh Shoot

[deerslayer]

4 hours ago, MacGyver said:

 

1. By far the biggest - hospitalizations have been reduced to the point where there is better capacity to keep you alive.  It sounds crazy when you make this a supply chain issue - but fewer available beds and taxed staff will result in more deaths.  All other things equal - you're a lot more likely to leave the hospital alive right now than you were in December.

2. Warming temperatures leading to lower infections.  People being able to spend more time outside is a good thing. Sunlight and heat are good at destroying the lipid layer that surrounds the virus. As humidity goes up - those water vapor droplets will attract virus particles and drop to the ground faster.  It's easy to get complacent right now - but if you're going to be in a group of people - you can be a lot more comfortable outside

I don’t buy the lack-of-ICU-beds-due-to-covid argument, at least around here.  We a had a famous DJ recently suffer a heart attack and had to go to AR because the ER was full here.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it.  I don’t doubt they are full of gunshot victims, but not covid patients.  
 

Not sure where you are, but it hasn’t been warming up around here until yesterday.  

[MacGyver]

5 minutes ago, deerslayer said:

I don’t buy the lack-of-ICU-beds-due-to-covid argument, at least around here.  We a had a famous DJ recently suffer a heart attack and had to go to AR because the ER was full here.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it.  I don’t doubt they are full of gunshot victims, but not covid patients.  
 

Not sure where you are, but it hasn’t been warming up around here until yesterday.  

The warming trend (last week notwithstanding) was more of a macro observation than a local one.  If you look at some of the big hotspots nationally - Florida, California, etc. that we’re driving big numbers - those places are starting to get warmer.

I don’t know what to tell you about ICU and bed metrics. Those numbers are public and generally a lagging indicator.  
But, for example here in Nashville these were in the red all of December and January but are starting to go down now:

https://www.asafenashville.org/reopening-key-metrics/

 

 

[deerslayer]

34 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

The warming trend (last week notwithstanding) was more of a macro observation than a local one.  If you look at some of the big hotspots nationally - Florida, California, etc. that we’re driving big numbers - those places are starting to get warmer.

I don’t know what to tell you about ICU and bed metrics. Those numbers are public and generally a lagging indicator.  
But, for example here in Nashville these were in the red all of December and January but are starting to go down now:

https://www.asafenashville.org/reopening-key-metrics/

 

 

Right, but we were talking about TN after OhShoot posted about TN trending downward.  

My point about beds was that Memphis crime of all sorts over the past few months has been completely off the charts.  If ER and ICU beds are full of covid patients, where are all these daily gunshot victims going?

 

ETA:  Four people shot in Memphis in the last four hours.  

Edited February 24, 2021 by deerslayer

[GlockSpock]

13 hours ago, deerslayer said:

I don’t buy the lack-of-ICU-beds-due-to-covid argument, at least around here.  We a had a famous DJ recently suffer a heart attack and had to go to AR because the ER was full here.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it.  I don’t doubt they are full of gunshot victims, but not covid patients.  
 

Not sure where you are, but it hasn’t been warming up around here until yesterday.  

[Grayfox54]

I just checked Shelby County stats for the first time in a week or two. Active cases are down to  1531. That's the lowest I've seen in many months. However, deaths are up to 1460. 

I saw on the news a couple of days ago that sometime today they're supposed to lower vaccination age to people 65 and up.  That makes me eligible.  Now I'm wondering if I should sign up right away or give it a little time for the rush to pass. I don't want to be sitting in a line for 5-6 hours. Thoughts? 

[Oh Shoot]

1 hour ago, Grayfox54 said:

..Now I'm wondering if I should sign up right away or give it a little time for the rush to pass. I don't want to be sitting in a line for 5-6 hours. Thoughts? 

How have they handled distribution so far there? Not like here,  with appointments?

- OS

Edited February 24, 2021 by Oh Shoot

[MacGyver]

 

1 hour ago, Grayfox54 said:

I just checked Shelby County stats for the first time in a week or two. Active cases are down to  1531. That's the lowest I've seen in many months. However, deaths are up to 1460. 

I saw on the news a couple of days ago that sometime today they're supposed to lower vaccination age to people 65 and up.  That makes me eligible.  Now I'm wondering if I should sign up right away or give it a little time for the rush to pass. I don't want to be sitting in a line for 5-6 hours. Thoughts? 

Not apples to apples - but here in Nashville my wife got her first shot on Sunday through Vanderbilt Health. From the time she got out of the car to the time she got back in the car was just over 21 minutes.  

[E4 No More]

I had my first round at the Murfreesboro VA on the 13th. There were a lot of vets there, but they got me in and out in under 30 minutes, and that's with some paperwork. Second shot on the 15th will be much faster.

[Chucktshoes]

I keep reading the stories of new strains that are appearing on a seemingly daily basis that are believed to be either resistant to the vaccine or are not showing up on the tests. I think folks should really start preparing themselves mentally for this never going away. 

[Oh Shoot]

42 minutes ago, Chucktshoes said:

I keep reading the stories of new strains that are appearing on a seemingly daily basis that are believed to be either resistant to the vaccine or are not showing up on the tests. I think folks should really start preparing themselves mentally for this never going away. 

As often opined from various sources early on, there remains a good chance that it will require a yearly vaccine like the one for flu, formulated for the likeliest strains for each year.

Even if so, lots of questions currently pend, such as the relative lethality of Covid compared with influenza, whether it can be contained at roughly the same level as influenza, etc. One big diff right off the bat was that Covid spread didn't seem much fazed by seasonal change, unlike influenza.

And of course, there's always the chance a prevalent strain may mutate into something much more (or less) lethal than what we've seen. Or change so that people of all ages face roughly the same risks as we geezers. Now that would likely be the game changer.

- OS

Edited February 24, 2021 by Oh Shoot

[E4 No More]

33 minutes ago, Chucktshoes said:

I keep reading the stories of new strains that are appearing on a seemingly daily basis that are believed to be either resistant to the vaccine or are not showing up on the tests. I think folks should really start preparing themselves mentally for this never going away. 

Yes, it mutates like the flu and cold viruses do. The advantage of any vaccine that you take is that, although you may contract a different strain than what you were vaccinated for, the vaccine will lesson the severity of the new strain on your body. Example: the flue vaccine did not cover the H1N1 but those who did receive the vaccine had no serious problems when they got the H1N1. This seems to be more the case with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that's coming out. This is not ever going away with today's medical technology.

[MacGyver]

29 minutes ago, Oh Shoot said:

And of course, there's always the chance a prevalent strain may mutate into something much more (or less) lethal than what we've seen. Or change so that people of all ages face roughly the same risks as we geezers. Now that would likely be the game changer.

I was listening to some geneticists that I know the other day talk about mutation possibilities amongst themselves and some other biologists.  One thing that at least gave me a little comfort was their comments that mutations generally get less deadly over time.  

Basically, it's bad form - and bad for the virus's long term evolutionary prospects to kill its host.  

[Grayfox54]

2 hours ago, Oh Shoot said:

How have they handled distribution so far there? Not like here,  with appointments?

They do make appointments, but remember we're dealing with Memphis here. There have been stories in the local news of very long waits and sometimes running out of vaccine with many people still in line. 

I just tried to sign up. But the actual registration page won't load. Overloaded I guess. They just started round 1B today. I'll keep trying.  

Just tried again. Calendar now shows all available slots are full.  

Edited February 24, 2021 by Grayfox54

[Oh Shoot]

3 hours ago, Grayfox54 said:

....

Just tried again. Calendar now shows all available slots are full.  

No waiting list signup, like in Knox?

- OS

[Oh Shoot]

3 hours ago, MacGyver said:

I was listening to some geneticists that I know the other day talk about mutation possibilities amongst themselves and some other biologists.  One thing that at least gave me a little comfort was their comments that mutations generally get less deadly over time.  

Basically, it's bad form - and bad for the virus's long term evolutionary prospects to kill its host.  

Yeah, I've heard that rule of thumb through the years, yet there remain any number of virii that haven't followed that cycle. 

- OS

[Grayfox54]

1 hour ago, Oh Shoot said:

No waiting list signup, like in Knox?

- OS

Not that I can find. It also appears that they only schedule one week at a time. If I'm wrong, somebody please set me straight. 

[Shorty]

Try going by a Vax location in the last hour or so of them being open.  If they have doses left and no patients scheduled, you may be able to get a shot.  I've heard this worked at one of the locations in Bartlett recently.