The calm before the storm? That’s what I wondered when I saw the daily information dump from the WA Dept of Health, showing only a modest increase of 189 new cases and 3 deaths, to 1,389 total cases and 74 total deaths. For reference 4 days ago WA State was at 769 cases and 42 deaths. I am still looking for a good running data set, but what I’m hoping to locate is daily case and death rate graphs that can show comparisons across geographies. I’ll try to use such information in future posts. This one at provided by the Snohomish County Health District is a good example:
The graph to the right shows all daily reported WA Covid-19 cases in Snohomish County. Please note that this includes actual new cases AND newly detected existing cases, so a lot of the increase comes from more tests instead of more cases, and testing has really only ramped up in the last week or so. However, the information is really important in understanding rate of growth and scale of the problem. This shows a community where social distancing is making a difference. The daily increase in number of cases, even with increased testing, is stabilizing into a flatter vs more exponentail growth pattern. So far. And that’s good news, because of the 348 reported cases in Snohomish County, we only have 6 deaths, and only 38 new cases in the last day. With the caveat that huge differences in testing availability skew some ability to truly compare, the trends in my own county look a lot different than.. say.. the state of Lousiana. Today, Lousisana has 392 cases, but 10 deaths and 112 cases in the last 24 hours.
As communities across the nation start running up against the hard ceilings of medical staff, hospital beds, medical equipment, and protective gear, information like this will be critical to helping determine risk. Mortality will be determined by the ability to care for the sick, and by communities staying ahead of the growth curves as they skyrocket towards the limit of local medical resources. Each and every community and medical center in the US will have difficult to impossible decisions to make before it’s all said and done. It’s just that the ones who best understand the problem and mitigate the risk areas are going to have many more of their citizens’ lives saved by the time COVID-19 runs it’s course.
Data will help communities target resources where they’re going to be needed most. The people studying impacts of COVID-19 locally are prioritizing 3 areas. Social distancing to minimize spread, resources to expand medical capacity, and policy decision to minimize the economic risk of the peole in the community. Remember those real-time pictures of hospitals being built in days in China? I remember thinking that the US could never pull anything like that off, but as the picture above shows, there are pockets of hope out there. Unfortunately, not all communities have the money, will, or foresight to do such planning, and those communities will be the ones that suffer the most.
Hopefully, communities across the county can fill the void of planning so last in the chaos of the National response. If these lessons can be modeled and learned quickly, literally millions of lives will be saved.
Be well, my friends.