200k+ New Cases, 2k+ Deaths Daily in US

[canyonwalker]

Today the US passed yet-another milestone in the Coronavirus pandemic. There are now over 15 million confirmed cases in the US. A few weeks ago I predicted that our caseload would reach a growth rate of a million in just five days. It took a week longer than I predicted... partly, it seems, because testing was reduced around Thanksgiving as many clinics were closed. This 15th million comes 5 days after 14 million. Over the past week there have been 5 days with more than 200,000 new cases reported per day. See, e.g., New York Times Coronavirus in the U.S. (retrieved 8 Dec 2020).

Deaths per day also touched a new record recently. On Dec 2 there were 2,885. Several days this past week have seen counts over 2,500. The daily average over the past week is 2,260 (source: NYT, ibid).

A few weeks ago I noted that US Coronavirus deaths are like a 9-11 tragedy every two days. With this week's numbers we're getting close to 9-11 every day. Experts like Dr. Fauci warn the worst of the disease surge from Thanksgiving travel and gatherings is yet to come.

UPDATE: Less than 24 hours later it happened (more Coronavirus death in one day than the 9/11 terrorist attacks). 😞

Comments

[rimrunner]

Something from the WA state governor's briefing today: the restrictions in place here are being extended into January, which isn't surprising, but what was chilling was the reason he gave. They're trying to increase our hospital capacity here, specifically ICUs. They're expecting a surge in hospitalizations in the next few weeks.

[jnovak]

Illinois set up, then shut down a massive field hospital during the first lockdown. I suspect we're quietly looking up those plans again, because Illinois is down to 1/3 its ICU capacity and the Chicago area is down to maybe 1/5 or 1/6. And a lot-- not a majority, yet, but a lot-- of those ICU beds are Covid-19 patients.

Staffing is going to be a nightmare until the second wave of vaccines hits, because the initial Illinois allotment is simply not enough to immunize the whole population of medical workers.

[canyonwalker]

ICU capacity was the entire reason behind the new, stricter lockdown policies in California announced a week ago. See When Purple's Not Enough. The policy is applied regionally within California when a region drops below 15% remaining capacity in aggregate. In one of the regions aggregate capacity is below 10%, and some entire cities are at 0, per news I read first thing this morning.