Covid Update: 23 August

Last week I mentioned how there was some initial evidence showing the rapid, near-exponential spread of the virus was beginning to slow down. One week later, where are we?

The good news is that those initial signals do appear to be true, i.e. not noise. You can see it if you look at the very end of the charts for all but Virginia.

New case curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

We can see the slowing spread rate most easily in Illinois and New Jersey. The shape of the curve now resembles more like the top of a hill rather than the beginning of a roller coaster. To be clear, this doesn’t mean Covid-19 is no longer spread—that is not the case at all. Rather, just the speed at which people are spreading the virus has slowed from that initial rapid acceleration.

In the last week, however, despite the good news for Illinois, we can also see that this fourth wave, driven by the Delta variant, has now exceeded the third wave we saw earlier this spring. Virginia still remains the only other state joining Illinois in that auspicious category, but Delaware is edging ever closer.

However, Delaware as well as Pennsylvania can both join Illinois and New Jersey in seeing slowing rates, though it’s not nearly as evident as in the other two states. Delaware continues to approach its third wave peak.

Virginia is the one state where we might just now be seeing the beginning of a slowdown. Though it’s probably the hardest state in which to see it. Yesterday, after a weekend of no data updates, the state reported over 7,000 new cases. That’s bad. But jumping from 5,900 new cases last Monday to yesterday’s 7,100 is comparatively good. Compare Monday to Monday, four weeks ago the increase was 91%. Three weeks ago it was 88.8%. Three weeks ago it fell to 30.9%. And then two weeks ago it was 26.8%. Yesterday’s increase was only 20%. Again, not great, but that’s a slowdown.

The hope in all five states is that we can begin to actually peak perhaps in early- to mid-September before the seven-day average begins to decline. The question then will be what do things look like as begin to head into flu season, which is when last winter’s deadly surge began in earnest.

What about deaths though?

Death curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

Last week I discussed how we were seeing death rates hold fairly steady with only small increases to the seven-day averages. Unfortunately this past week we saw more significant increases. Nothing too dramatic, to be clear, but increases all the same.

Take Pennsylvania, for example. Two weeks ago we went from an average of 7 deaths per day due to Covid-19 to just 9 last week. But yesterday that number jumped up to 16. Illinois, which had went from 12 to 13, climbed from 13 to 20 as of yesterday.

This is also not terribly surprising. As we are now several weeks into this wave, we would expect to see hospitalisations increase, which we had been seeing, before, sadly, deaths followed suit. We may now be entering that phase where deaths, again, a lagging indicator, begin to rise.

I do not think, however, that we will see numbers near to the extremes we saw this past winter. Even to reach levels we saw this past spring will be difficult. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Illinois has reached nearly half its third wave peak number of deaths.

We will need to continue observing these death rates over the coming week to see if they continue to increase. I suspect they will before, like new cases, they begin to slow down before then peaking.

Credit for the piece is mine.

Author: Brendan Barry

I am a graphic designer who focuses on information design. My day job? Well, they asked me not to say. But to be clear, this blog is my something I do on my own time and does not represent the views of…my employers. I think what I can say is that given my interest in information design—be it in the shape of clear charts, maps, diagrams, or wayfinding systems—I am fortunate that my day job focuses on data visualisation. Outside of work, I try to stay busy with personal design work. Away from the world of design, I have become an amateur genealogist and family historian. You will sometimes see that area of work bleed into my posts.

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