Covid-19 in OKC (coronavirus)

[C_M_25]

DID SOMEBODY SAY TRENDS?!??!?!

Cases and deaths (Rolling 7)



Cases only:

Thank your for your posts. I find your charts to be some of the best out there right now.

[Pete]

It’s impossible to know what the back log is going to do. The up-and-down spikes in the data will likely smooth out. Again, it’s impossible to know.

We can only go on historical data and trends, otherwise all data is pointless.


I'm not taking any single data point "at face value".

And there is tons more information on a regional and national scale and it's all headed sharply in the same direction.

[C_M_25]

I will also say that I’m worried about a major spike here in a few weeks. Schools are going to be a disaster with this virus still circulating.

[Pete]

I will also say that I’m worried about a major spike here in a few weeks. Schools are going to be a disaster with this virus still circulating.

Wanted to say I appreciate your posts and I don't mean to be argumentative.

I just worry about so much underestimation throughout the course of this thing, particularly in the U.S. I am far from an alarmist but at the same time I think the current situation is much worse than the large majority want to believe.

I think the financial chickens are really going to come home to roost over the next several months and that we'll be digging ourselves out of a deep hole for years to come. THEN people will care and by that time it will be far too late.

[pw405]

This rapidly increasing death rate. Where are we seeing this?

The Rapidly increasing death rate can be observed in a graph that shows deaths on a Y axis, and the date on an X axis. Such as the graph below. The red arrows point to the rolling, 7-day average of deaths caused by Covid-19.



This number is higher today than it was last week.
This number is higher today than it was two weeks ago.
This number is higher today than it was three weeks ago.
This number is higher today than it was four weeks ago.

[soonerguru]

I certainly understand the frustration with people not wearing masks; however, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that you can’t control other people’s decisions. The goal of the mask mandates are working. The vast majority of people are wearing masks. There are 1-2 outliers everywhere you go. It’s better than 50% or more not wearing masks.

The fact of the matter is that the only way to get 100% compliance with it is to enforce draconian measures. That’s just not going to happen in this country. My suggestion for everybody’s mental health is just to focus on what you can control. Wear your mask. It helps you as well as those around you. If you find yourself in a store where people aren’t wearing masks, just leave the store. Go at a different time like when they open.

Also, there are many posters that swarm like a moth to a flame with the daily numbers. I’m curious in them as well, but we all need to see it for what it is. We’re seeing the effects of tons of back logged tests. We’re seeing more of the rates at which the labs can analyze the tests right now moreso than the actual rate of disease spread. I’m not trying to diminish the situation we’re in. We have measures in place. We have yet gone long enough to see if they work. You can’t control other people. The daily numbers are badly biased with error. Accept those facts. Try to embrace the new normal and get out and enjoy the nice weather!!

1. I don't go to Lowe’s or anywhere in Edmond or places like that for a reason: to protect my sanity. I am thrilled the mask ordinance passed and I worked hard to lobby folks like the mayor and some council members to get it and I agree with you that it is working.

2. It is my right to be frustrated and express my frustration without seeking your approval. Your tone policing here is quite extraordinary.

3. Speaking of which, it is totally reasonable to express any thought or emotion about the record-setting increase in new cases. And, as someone who has experienced this close to home, I assure you that the lag you are claiming in new cases due to a lag in processing is not as great as you imagine. Of the ten people I personally know who were tested in the last month, the longest anyone I know waited for results was like five days. I realize some people out there had to wait longer.

You act like your interpretation of data is settled fact when you have no idea what the data say. Importantly, new cases are rising weekly by more than 50%. Oklahoma is among the top five states in growth of new cases. For you to claim, day after day and week after week, that this stunning and continual increase in new cases does not indicate an increase in community spread is ridiculous on its face. It also puts you in the minimizer category.

[pw405]

Thank your for your posts. I find your charts to be some of the best out there right now.

Thanks! When I saw all these blurry, low-res charts & graphs all over social media, news, etc... I knew it was my call to action. My time to shine. To be the hero that the people deserved!

Lol... I've spent a horribly long time of my career dealing with SQL databases, query writing, data reporting, analytical dashboards, machine data capture etc.

Also... meant to respond to your earlier question about what software I am making these with. It just Open Office, an open source version of Microsoft Office by Apache. However, the title and annotations are added later with an app named Snagit by TechSmith. It isn't free, but I used it at my old job and I liked it so much I bought it for home use ($50). It's a great app for taking screen captures, adding annotations, and then publishing in a variety of file formats. I publish these as .PNG files, as this file format doesn't cause blurry/pixelated compression artifacts like .JPEG does.

https://www.openoffice.org/

https://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.html

I originally started my data set by downloading from Read Frontier's interactive charts. Lately though, I've just been manually updating the fields as the data is published by the state.

https://www.readfrontier.org/stories...ovid19oklahom/

(Great independent journalists by the way, I've been meaning to donate to them!)

[RangersYear]

Using the hospitalization trends can be useful, I suppose. But I don't believe that the hospitalization raw figures are indicative of the pandemic's severity. We are apt to assume that those in the hospital with COVID are sick and those with COVID at home have mild symptoms or have recovered. I think there are a ton of people with severe COVID symptoms who are not admitted to hospital because they are not sick enough, despite being extremely ill. There is an unknown number of people who, if they presented with the same symptoms at a hospital one year ago would have been quickly admitted for treatment, possibly in the ICU.

[Pete]

^

I knew you had to work Snagit in there somehow!

You should be their Chief Marketing Officer.

[soonerguru]

Using the hospitalization trends can be useful, I suppose. But I don't believe that the hospitalization raw figures are indicative of the pandemic's severity. We are apt to assume that those in the hospital with COVID are sick and those with COVID at home have mild symptoms or have recovered. I think there are a ton of people with severe COVID symptoms who are not admitted to hospital because they are not sick enough, despite being extremely ill. There is an unknown number of people who, if they presented with the same symptoms at a hospital one year ago would have been quickly admitted for treatment, possibly in the ICU.

Thank you for this post. My wife’s 42-year-old friend has been denied beds even though her blood oxygen level has dipped into the 70s. She has been to the ER five times over the past two weeks. As sad as this makes me to say, I think she is going to die, probably at home, not in the hospital.

My work colleague has permanent vision problems in her left eye and she has been “recovered” since April. She also struggles to ascend a flight of stairs.

The frightening range of symptoms my family member continues to have may never rise to the level of being hospitalized, but they severely impact her life.

Tired of the minimizers and the minimizing and the “look at that shiny thing over there” torturous scrambling of data. It serves no good purpose and allows the ignorant deniers and spreadnecks all of the justification they need to remain checked out.

[Pete]

Using the hospitalization trends can be useful, I suppose. But I don't believe that the hospitalization raw figures are indicative of the pandemic's severity. We are apt to assume that those in the hospital with COVID are sick and those with COVID at home have mild symptoms or have recovered. I think there are a ton of people with severe COVID symptoms who are not admitted to hospital because they are not sick enough, despite being extremely ill. There is an unknown number of people who, if they presented with the same symptoms at a hospital one year ago would have been quickly admitted for treatment, possibly in the ICU.

There is also the incredible strain that these higher numbers -- even if leveling off and I think it's far too early to make that determination -- have on the staff that works in these facilities.

They go in every day scared to death of catching the disease and have to spend the whole time in masks and gloves and face shields and other protective gear.

That all makes a really hard job even more exhausting and this has already been going on for months.

Our hospitalizations would need to go way down before things start to normalize even a little bit, and the toll this is taking on health care workers is massive.


In other words, the current levels are nowhere close to sustainable, even if we don't completely run out of beds.

[C_M_25]

Tired of the minimizers and the minimizing and the “look at that shiny thing over there” torturous scrambling of data. It serves no good purpose and allows the ignorant deniers and spreadnecks all of the justification they need to remain checked out.

I’m sorry for your friend’s symptoms. However, your last point here is completely invalid. Looking at data in various different ways can sometimes bring about trends that you couldn’t see otherwise. This is extremely common in signal processing. It’s also how science works. Looking at data from one point of view then coming up with your conclusion is a great way to get burned at the end of the day.

One thing that you seem to forget as well is that you lump everyone who doesn’t agree with into this “denier or spreadneck” category (whatever that means). It’s one thing to just blindly say,”eh, this is a bad flu because the guy in the whitehouse says it.” It’s a completely different thing to look at and try to understand all the data to inform and interpretation. Just remember. There’s a lot of slop out there in our current understanding in what’s really happening. This is what happens with a new virus.

[RangersYear]

When overall numbers start to improve (whether next month or next year), it will be interesting to see if the hospitalization trend remains more stationary as the threshold hospitals use for admittance becomes more broad. In other words, if today only those COVID patients with symptoms registering a 10 out of 10 are admitted while the 8's and 9's are treated at home, and down the road hospitals begin to admit the 8's and 9's, the hospitalization raw numbers may reflect more of a plateau as other data points trend downward.

[soonerguru]

The data is imperfect. We have known that from the outset. But to Pete’s point, we have a few data points we follow over time, among them new cases. New cases have been rising every week for two months. If there was a lab or two behind on processing tests, we have had more than enough time to smooth that out.

You cast aspersions to the new cases datapoint almost to the point you completely disregard it. Why?

What are you suggesting here? Are you suggesting that we ignore 50% weekly gains in new cases entirely? Why and how would that be justifiable? I will answer that: no, to ignore that datapoint would be completely insane.

So are you trying to make the argument that community spread is decreasing or leveling off?

Are you suggesting that we have already peaked in new cases this summer and we are now trending down?

I don’t see how you can make that argument.

[chuck5815]

Is there any evidence that the numbers are starting to improve in Norman?

They passed a mask ordinance on July 8th, I believe. Should be seeing some early returnz.

[C_M_25]

The data is imperfect. We have known that from the outset. But to Pete’s point, we have a few data points we follow over time, among them new cases. New cases have been rising every week for two months. If there was a lab or two behind on processing tests, we have had more than enough time to smooth that out.

You cast aspersions to the new cases datapoint almost to the point you completely disregard it. Why?

What are you suggesting here? Are you suggesting that we ignore 50% weekly gains in new cases entirely? Why and how would that be justifiable? I will answer that: no, to ignore that datapoint would be completely insane.

So are you trying to make the argument that community spread is decreasing or leveling off?

Are you suggesting that we have already peaked in new cases this summer and we are now trending down?

I don’t see how you can make that argument.

I’m saying that I’m taking that 50% increase with a grain of salt. Let’s say that half of these 1200 cases were from tests taken 10 days ago. Well, in that scenario, we don’t currently have a 50% increase in cases this week anymore. That number would then affect the daily rate for the day 10 days prior. Therefore, today’s true numbers would effectively be smaller.

I can’t say whether we peaked with this data or not. That’s the entire point. We have to be careful what we interpret from uncorrected daily data. That’s why I like the epidemiology reports. They try to correct the data. Unfortunately, we have to wait a week for that to come out.

[C_M_25]

I think maybe the disconnect between how we’re looking at this data is that you guys are just looking at total numbers. I’m trying to understand what the true trends are in daily rates. That requires time-corrected data. These daily counts need to be properly assigned to the proper day of testing. That ultimately helps with the trend analysis and determining where we are on our cycle (still climbing, plateau, or dropping).

[C_M_25]

Something like this could make all our arguments moot. Immediate results from saliva? That could be a game changer for rapid tests. Especially as this one has a 97% sensitivity to detecting the virus. I’ll take one please!!

https://investors.sorrentotherapeuti...ity-rapid-site

[d-usa]

Something like this could make all our arguments moot. Immediate results from saliva? That could be a game changer for rapid tests. Especially as this one has a 97% sensitivity to detecting the virus. I’ll take one please!!

https://investors.sorrentotherapeuti...ity-rapid-site

The main issue is that the sensitivity and specificity rates are based on known samples, and not on real people so far (at least not from their posted information). The Abbot Rapid-ID system is in the same ballpark with known samples, but it’s not great in real world applications.

The issue is that in the end the numbers will end up worse because of how samples are obtained, how they are transported, how stable are the samples before you can run the test (rapid tests aren’t as rapid as the name seems to imply. So just by including the human factor it could make it less reliable.

And all of this depends on getting a sample with virus from a person who actually has the virus. My main concern right away with this is that is uses saliva. Especially during the early stages of the disease, saliva is one of the more unreliable sources for virus. NP swaps remain the best source for samples during that time frame. So when you are doing contact tracing and testing folks very early during the disease process it may not be the best approach to use a test that is good at detecting virus if you end up having to use a sample that has the lower chance of having the virus present.

Of course this test could end up getting good numbers, and maybe you can use NP samples and mix it into the solution rather than saliva. Not aiming to be a “this too will fail” person, just voicing some concerns to keep in mind and hoping to see more good progress.

[d-usa]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/william...Q#6d10003519fd

[Scott5114]

This is frustrating and terrifying. Not enough of our fellow citizens or leaders are taking this seriously. Speaking as someone who has a young family member who got this, no one wants to get this! I know I am speaking to the chorus here.

My wife was at a CVS in North OKC when a middle-aged woman came into the store without a mask. The staff told her a mask is required to shop there. The woman said, “No, I’m good. Plus, I don’t have a mask.” They had a pile of free masks and offered her one. She said, “No, I’m fine, I am just picking up some coffee beans.”

This back and forth continued with the staff escalating the intensity of their demand that she put on the mask. Eventually the woman just bullied her way into the store, ignoring the workers and, at this point, other shoppers pleading with her to wear a mask.

Honestly, businesses need to have the courage to say "We won't sell you anything until you put a mask on." Just straight up put their items behind the counter and not accept their payment until they wear it. That is the only way to get their attention.

[RustytheBailiff]

Numbers from the New Your Times:

At least 8 new coronavirus deaths and 1,250 new cases were reported in Oklahoma on Aug. 1. Over the past week, there have been an average of 1,089 cases per day, an increase of 44 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

As of Sunday morning, there have been at least 37,706 cases and 549 deaths in Oklahoma since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database.


STAY SAFE WEAR MASKS

[rezman]

Honestly, businesses need to have the courage to say "We won't sell you anything until you put a mask on." Just straight up put their items behind the counter and not accept their payment until they wear it. That is the only way to get their attention.

That’s what I was saying up thread, post 4445. Businesses need to make it clear. “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Masks, No Service. And stick to it. This can’t be beat by sitting around waiting on our elected officials to do it for us.

[Bill Robertson]

That’s what I was saying up thread, post 4445. Businesses need to make it clear. “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Masks, No Service. And stick to it. This can’t be beat by sitting around waiting on our elected officials to do it for us.

Absolutely! If EVERYBODY would just do what we all need to do to get past this virus we could beat it.

[Pete]

494 new cases reported today (Sunday).

1 more person has died.