On the Verge of the Next Surge?
Jan. 5th, 2021 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerBack in November I touted that California was among the states least hard-hit by the Coronavirus. For example, in a Nov 16 blog I noted that California was the 6th safest state in the US. The metric I focused on in that journal and others is the population-adjusted 7-day average of new cases. I've chosen it because it basically it answers the question, "What percentage of people in this area got sick recently?" or "What's the chance that a person you might meet in this state is sick right now?" For quite a while California scored quite a bit below the national average.
In early December that comparison began to shift. Rates in California began climbing, not just relative to its previous rates but also relative to other states (many of which were also getting worse). California adopted a new, stricter lockdown policy in response. In a Dec 18 journal I noted we'd climbed to the 3rd worst state in the US. What was causing the spike?
In hindsight it's obvious what caused the spike. Thanksgiving. Rates of new cases ticked up sharply starting 5 days after Thanksgiving (5 days being a typical incubation time after infection) and continued for a few weeks as more and more people fell sick and sought medical care.
The story told by the data aligns with the stories told by my friends and colleagues. After 8 months of following health guidelines and rules better than most other parts of the country, Californians were basically burned out. Most people I knew in California traveled for Thanksgiving and visited people from other households. Oh, everyone had their reasons. Everyone had their explanation for why what they were doing was safe, even though all of it was contrary to exhortations from public health experts.
California was hardly unique in this regard. Rates all across the US accelerated starting 5 days after Thanksgiving.
It's just that daily new case rates tripled in California while only rising 30% nationwide. California is now the #2 state for highest per-capita recent new cases. Update: An NBC News article (5 Jan 2021) reports California is in 3rd (worst) place by a hair. It and the two states ahead of it are worse off than any country in the world right now. (The worst-off country is Czech Republic.)
Where does all this put us now? Well, it's January 5, just a few days after the Christmas and New Year holidays when a 9-month record number of people traveled. We might be looking at the next upward surge in the sickness rate launching this week.
In early December that comparison began to shift. Rates in California began climbing, not just relative to its previous rates but also relative to other states (many of which were also getting worse). California adopted a new, stricter lockdown policy in response. In a Dec 18 journal I noted we'd climbed to the 3rd worst state in the US. What was causing the spike?
In hindsight it's obvious what caused the spike. Thanksgiving. Rates of new cases ticked up sharply starting 5 days after Thanksgiving (5 days being a typical incubation time after infection) and continued for a few weeks as more and more people fell sick and sought medical care.
The story told by the data aligns with the stories told by my friends and colleagues. After 8 months of following health guidelines and rules better than most other parts of the country, Californians were basically burned out. Most people I knew in California traveled for Thanksgiving and visited people from other households. Oh, everyone had their reasons. Everyone had their explanation for why what they were doing was safe, even though all of it was contrary to exhortations from public health experts.
California was hardly unique in this regard. Rates all across the US accelerated starting 5 days after Thanksgiving.
It's just that daily new case rates tripled in California while only rising 30% nationwide. California is now the #2 state for highest per-capita recent new cases. Update: An NBC News article (5 Jan 2021) reports California is in 3rd (worst) place by a hair. It and the two states ahead of it are worse off than any country in the world right now. (The worst-off country is Czech Republic.)
Where does all this put us now? Well, it's January 5, just a few days after the Christmas and New Year holidays when a 9-month record number of people traveled. We might be looking at the next upward surge in the sickness rate launching this week.
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Date: 2021-01-06 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-06 03:33 pm (UTC)