October 5, 2020

NY Update. The numbers in Westchester are still up slightly, but we have not (yet) seen the kind of spike happening in some other places, including the 20500 zip code, where it appears the testing-positive rate is, um, huge.

Over the last two weeks, our testing-positive number in the county has gone up to around 1.12%:

Contrast that with the “hotspot” zip codes in New York, which are seeing high testing-positive numbers, in some cases well over 10%:

The big announcement today was that the state is closing schools in the hotspots, starting tomorrow.

In terms of raw numbers, we’ve gone from averaging less than 40 new cases per day in Westchester, to over 50 per day:

These are still small numbers, and we’ve also been testing more during this period, which is another indication that there are likely more people getting sick (if we were testing more and the % positive was staying the same, it would mean that there was little additional spread):

At the state level, the testing-positive number is also going up, and is now in the 1.3% range (it’s 1.01% if you don’t count the hotspot zip codes):

What’s more telling is the number of hospitalizations, which presumably is mostly linked to the clusters and has risen dramatically since the beginning of September:

The number of deaths in NYS also appears to be rising a bit:

In Westchester, however, we’re still seeing a very low mortality number, about 8 deaths since the beginning of September.

Nationwide, the testing-positive number has flattened at around 5%:

Also, the number of hospitalizations nationwide is back down (assuming the data is good, which remains somewhat in question in some states):

Of course, as discussed in previous posts, the above nationwide overview tends to hide the fact that there are much higher numbers in specific states and localities. And 5% is not a level where we want to be, nationally. If you need any convincing that that the pandemic is still in full force, look at the cumulative numbers nationwide since March 12:

And, worldwide, similar trends:

Right now, we’re losing about 5000 people per week in the United States, and nearly 40,000 per week globally (and THOSE numbers are quite suspect — they are likely to be much higher). If this continues, we might end up exceeding the number of US combat deaths in WWII (we’ve already surpassed WWI and will shortly pass the number in the Civil War (both sides). This is a deadly disease.