Corona Status Aug 2021

Lars Poulsen - 2021-08-18

I have not updated this for months and months. First I was waiting to see the effect of vaccinations, and it was great. So I thought we are almost done with this. And then the Delta virus came in and the "herd immunity" from vaccinations went away in the face of the more infectious Delta variant. The case numbers have risen dramatically, both in the US and locally. The two bright thoughts are: (1) It is overwhelmingly the unvaccinated that are getting sick. (2) The numbers of infected people are high, but hospitalizations are still not overwhelming the hospitals except in places with very low overall vaccination rates.

The National Summary

National Graph

New infections per day about 140,000 - which is about 47 per 100,000 population.

Santa Barbara County

Here are local numbers condensed from the county's daily reports.

Week	New Cases	Infectious	In Hosp	In ICU	Dead/Week	New/100K
08/17	112	823	65	12	3	29.4
08/10	86	563	37	7	3	20.9
08/03	52	430	31	5	3	17.0
07/27	53	342	17	3	2	13.7
07/20	32	202	20	6	1	8.1
07/13	16	97	11	3	1	3.8

We were doing so well until mid-July.

For comparison, here are the numbers from last December:

Week New Cases Infectious In Hosp Dead/Week New/100K
12/15 207 1059 78 3 46.0

12/8 125 700 50 2 27.8

12/1 50 394 39 2 15.1

The columns are:

Week	New Cases	Infectious	In Hosp	Dead/Week	New/100K
12/15	207	1059	78	3	46.0
12/8	125	700	50	2	27.8
12/1	50	394	39	2	15.1

The day (Tuesday)
The number of new positive COVID-19 tests reported for the day (slightly ajusted to be representative in case of spikes up or down)
The number of still infectious cases (people tested positive and not yet cleared by a negative test)
The number of people with COVID-19 in our hospitals
The number of people who died from COVID-19 this week
The number of new infections per day per 100,000 population averaged over the last week.

That last column is what I use for comparisons between different places.

The Short Digest

As you can see, we have a rapid rise in COVID-19 here in Santa Barbara County. We still have ICU beds.

While we have more sick people, the number of deaths has not gone up. This will change very quickly, if we do not have ICU beds.

So be very careful, just like last winter. Wear a mask if you are within 6 feet of people who do not live with you.

And a political commentary:

Annotated national curve.

Footnotes

Full data from July 2021 to date

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