Coronavirus All Purpose Thread: The unnecessary Dumb Dumb 4th wave

[GGG]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

The stats show:

- So far in the fourth wave the hospitalizations look linear, but it's too early to conclude this
- Deaths are basically non-existent or negligible
- ICU admissions are climbing, but nowhere near capacity and also seem linear

In other words, vaccines are fundamentally changing the outcomes (death, hospitalizations, ICU), so far.

It is exceedingly unlikely for you to land in the ICU or to die from Covid if you have both vaccines. It's 'merely' highly unlikely that you will end up in the hospital with covid if you have both vaccines.

You know that it’s almost mathematically impossible for case growth to be exponential and hospitalizations to be linear right? The ratio of cases to hospitalizations will change but to have linear Hospital growth while having exponential case growth would imply hospitalization rate is decreasing exponentially.

So that would mean the disease is becoming less virulent or you are vaccination % is changing rapidly. The underlying cohort between now and a month from now is not changing therefore what is actually unknown is the ratio of cases to hospitalizations not whether or not hospitalization growth is exponential.

Effectively each time you doubled cases you would have to double the proportion of sub 30s getting the disease and half the portion of older people. Very quickly you run out of numbers.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

We've been adding similar amounts of patients to the hospitals on a daily basis and to the IC on a daily basis for 3+ weeks.

Weekly admissions have doubled in 3 weeks. Last week we had 89 admissions to the hospital and 19 to the ICU. With 3 days of reporting we had 73 admissions to a hospital and 15 to the ICU.

I'm really questioning if you actually bother to check anything before you post.

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Admissions have been relatively linear so far. It's still a short period of time as I said, but they haven't tipped vertical yet. We've been adding similar amounts of patients to the hospitals on a daily basis and to the IC on a daily basis for 3+ weeks. Mean time to death has been 3 weeks, so it will be interesting to see how that outcome is modified in the current environment. Perhaps we see a lengthening of the mean time to death and/or a small portion of hospitalizations dying.

Admissions have been exponential, they just look linear because of the small sample size.

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

Weekly admissions have doubled in 3 weeks. Last week we had 89 admissions to the hospital and 19 to the ICU. With 3 days of reporting we had 73 admissions to a hospital and 15 to the ICU.

I'm really questioning if you actually bother to check anything before you post.

[Narrator] He doesn't

[curves2000]

I would really like to see the breakdown of people who are partially or full vaxxed in hospital. Some of these stats may get a little more concerning as things continue to go.

If we continue to have 10-20% of the cases who is partially or fully vaxxed ending up in hospital, and with subsequent variant's getting stronger and more transmissible, how long will this continue? How long can staffing levels at health care facilities manage?

We got a long way to go before things even begin to resemble life in 2019 and that thought is getting more and more depressing to be honest.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by stazzy33

Admissions have been exponential, they just look linear because of the small sample size.

I said as much in my post with respect to sample size. Admissions do not look exponential to me.

What makes you say admissions look exponential?

[GGG]

One positive piece of news is that rT has dropped quite a bit in BC and Alberta. 1.07 and 1.14. It’s now at the alpha growth rates of 30% ish per week instead of the weekly doublings. So that shows some promise.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by GGG

You know that it’s almost mathematically impossible for case growth to be exponential and hospitalizations to be linear right? The ratio of cases to hospitalizations will change but to have linear Hospital growth while having exponential case growth would imply hospitalization rate is decreasing exponentially.

So that would mean the disease is becoming less virulent or you are vaccination % is changing rapidly. The underlying cohort between now and a month from now is not changing therefore what is actually unknown is the ratio of cases to hospitalizations not whether or not hospitalization growth is exponential.

Effectively each time you doubled cases you would have to double the proportion of sub 30s getting the disease and half the portion of older people. Very quickly you run out of numbers.

I didn't reference cases at all. Our goal is to minimize deaths and hospital burden. Vaccines and other treatments are effective enough that we are driving the outcomes down. The outcomes are sufficiently low to measure and manage them directly. I believe it is a reasonable prediction that the peak of the fourth wave will have lower hospitalisations and ICU admissions than the previous wave.

[Knut]

Masks Mandatory with CCSD too K-12.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

I didn't reference cases at all. Our goal is to minimize deaths and hospital burden. Vaccines and other treatments are effective enough that we are driving the outcomes down. The outcomes are sufficiently low to measure and manage them directly. I believe it is a reasonable prediction that the peak of the fourth wave will have lower hospitalisations and ICU admissions than the previous wave.

Cases are growing exponentially therefore hospitalizations are growing exponentially.

I agree that it is possible that hospitals won’t be overwhelmed this phase.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Cases are growing exponentially therefore hospitalizations are growing exponentially.
.

I think we can and should asses the nature of hospital growth empirically.

You're making some significant assumptions.

"Sure it works in practice but does it work in theory?" - some economist

[Weitz]

I heard on the news today I think that every new infection today was in an unvaccinated person?

Roll out those passports.

[Amethyst]

Oh, I'm pretty sure we will have a 5th wave, and possibly a 6th. And no, not because covid has become endemic. When covid becomes endemic, we will have a low, ongoing rate of it everywhere, with outbreaks in various locations from time to time. If we're still having waves, we are not at the endemic level yet.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

I think we can and should asses the nature of hospital growth empirically.

You're making some significant assumptions.

"Sure it works in practice but does it work in theory?" - some economist

Show me a model to hold hospitalizations at a linear growth rate and cases at an exponential growth rate.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Here's 2 ~2 week periods for Alberta, orange is hospitalizations, purple is ICU(bottom of image is zero line). Can you tell which one is from which wave of covid(without referring to the Alberta data site to find out), enough to support your claims that they can't be compared?

For those who care, the top one is wave 2, the bottom wave 4.


Here's the full chart:



Note that we didn't get real restrictions until Nov 24th, and hospitalizations almost tripled after that. Our numbers now are what they were Nov 9th. So if this trend is a predictor(I'm not saying it is, but my snippets match very closly) we will match the second wave peak around late October.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Show me a model to hold hospitalizations at a linear growth rate and cases at an exponential growth rate.

To what end?

I wouldn't consider that a useful exercise or use of my time.

[driveway]

Isn't the hope that, not only will vaccinations lower the ultimate peak of the orange line, but they will also increase the ratio of distance between the orange and pink peaks?

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by driveway

Isn't the hope that, not only will vaccinations lower the ultimate peak of the orange line, but they will also increase the ratio of distance between the orange and pink peaks?

If you believe that vaccines work, yes.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

If you believe that vaccines work, yes.

Presumably the vaccines work in Washington State too. But despite having a higher vaccination rate than Alberta, they've hit their highest hospital/ICU numbers of the entire pandemic (which are roughly equivalent to Alberta's peak hospital/ICU numbers). It only took about 6 weeks from their low point to get where they are now.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Presumably the vaccines work in Washington State too. But despite having a higher vaccination rate than Alberta, they've hit their highest hospital/ICU numbers of the entire pandemic (which are roughly equivalent to Alberta's peak hospital/ICU numbers). It only took about 6 weeks from their low point to get where they are now.

Do you think this current wave in alberta will reach a peak in hospitalisations similar to our previous peaks?