COVID-19 hospitalizations rising steadily
In the US, COVID-19 test results spiked ahead of Thanksgiving as a lot of people sought tests before traveling to see their elderly relatives. But the number of positive tests has declined a bit over the past week because instead of getting tested, people were busy with relatives or traveling. Public health officials expect the number of positive test results to start climbing again soon.
The reported number of COVID-19 deaths also declined a bit in the wake of Thanksgiving, because local authorities had a bit of a backlog of corpses with some of their staff on leave -- the number of people dying didn't decline, but the reported number did. This reported number should catch up soon, yesterday's was huge: 2,604 deaths, the most reported in one day since early May.
But people needing to be hospitalized went ahead to the hospital on Thanksgiving -- this hospitalization statistic has been rising the most steadily over the past several weeks -- people needing to go to the hospital don't wait until after the holiday or after the weekend. We've seen record numbers of people in the hospital day after day for weeks, with a steady rise of about 2.5% per day. This rise is exponential -- building upon the previous day's total.
It works out to a doubling of COVID-19 infections during the month of November. And that was mostly before Thanksgiving. It's been estimated that Thanksgiving alone will lead to another doubling during the first half of December. There's every reason to believe we'll soon see record daily death counts in the US, maybe over 5,000 per day by the end of December.
It's probably more dangerous now to interact with people outside of your household in the US than at any time yet during this pandemic. From now through the New Year is the time to double down on your quarantine. Do better than you've done all year long. You may save a life by not transmitting the virus. I'm tired of this also -- but it's objectively more dangerous now than it was before. We're entering the worst part of the pandemic THIS MONTH.
The reported number of COVID-19 deaths also declined a bit in the wake of Thanksgiving, because local authorities had a bit of a backlog of corpses with some of their staff on leave -- the number of people dying didn't decline, but the reported number did. This reported number should catch up soon, yesterday's was huge: 2,604 deaths, the most reported in one day since early May.
But people needing to be hospitalized went ahead to the hospital on Thanksgiving -- this hospitalization statistic has been rising the most steadily over the past several weeks -- people needing to go to the hospital don't wait until after the holiday or after the weekend. We've seen record numbers of people in the hospital day after day for weeks, with a steady rise of about 2.5% per day. This rise is exponential -- building upon the previous day's total.
It works out to a doubling of COVID-19 infections during the month of November. And that was mostly before Thanksgiving. It's been estimated that Thanksgiving alone will lead to another doubling during the first half of December. There's every reason to believe we'll soon see record daily death counts in the US, maybe over 5,000 per day by the end of December.
It's probably more dangerous now to interact with people outside of your household in the US than at any time yet during this pandemic. From now through the New Year is the time to double down on your quarantine. Do better than you've done all year long. You may save a life by not transmitting the virus. I'm tired of this also -- but it's objectively more dangerous now than it was before. We're entering the worst part of the pandemic THIS MONTH.