Coronavirus Outbreak

[mike]

The virus spreads more quickly as people congregate indoors, so what I've heard is that southern states tend to have waves of the virus in the heat of summer as people stay inside due to hot weather, where northern states tend to have waves in the winters as people stay inside due to the cold. Not sure whether this is accurate but it makes sense.

Peek heat in the south is July August. I do not see the peek hitting there. I see it a little after that.

The other issue with Florida is the high level of elderly. It makes sense that its death rate would be up some.

Cases in Florida peaked in mid-August and began to drop at the end of August, near the end of peak summer heat in Florida.

I agree with the high level of elderly, and it is a wonder that it took a year and a half of the pandemic for that to be reflected in the virus numbers in Florida.

Florida is dropping in the rankings, down to 13th as of today in the rankings of Covid deaths/million.

[Ken]

Florida case counts are up 815% in the past week with the advent of omicron. Case counts have gone near vertical and are on target to pass their all-time highs in a couple of days. Hospitalizations are starting to trend upwards as well. But it is too soon to see if death counts will also rise as well. But it hardly seems like Florida is out of the woods yet.

[mike]

Florida case counts are up 815% in the past week with the advent of omicron. Case counts have gone near vertical and are on target to pass their all-time highs in a couple of days. Hospitalizations are starting to trend upwards as well. But it is too soon to see if death counts will also rise as well. But it hardly seems like Florida is out of the woods yet.

Maybe, but compare how much worse it is in terms of case counts in the Northeast than in the South right now. The Northeast is off the charts - higher than at any other point during the pandemic, where in the south the current numbers look to be around 60% or so of their highest counts. And wow, what's with the case counts in Washington, D.C.?



Looking at the heat map, it looks like a band through the Midwest and the Northeast are the big Covid hotspots right now, while the South and the Northeast look not as bad.

[Josh]

Holmes County pops out as a bright white spot in that map. It also happens to be one of the least vaccinated places in America.

Vaccinated = get sick with Omicron.

[Valerie]

Holmes County pops out as a bright white spot in that map. It also happens to be one of the least vaccinated places in America.

Vaccinated = get sick with Omicron.

I love that BUT (we are in Berlin overnight) my former Amish friend seems to notify me of death here from covid so that I don't look at Holmes county through Rose colored glasses. I have also heard that for example Amish don't tend to get tested for covid so they wouldn't count in the numbers unless they got sick enough to go to the hospital correct?

[Josh]

Holmes County pops out as a bright white spot in that map. It also happens to be one of the least vaccinated places in America.

Vaccinated = get sick with Omicron.

I love that BUT (we are in Berlin overnight) my former Amish friend seems to notify me of death here from covid so that I don't look at Holmes county through Rose colored glasses. I have also heard that for example Amish don't tend to get tested for covid so they wouldn't count in the numbers unless they got sick enough to go to the hospital correct?

But isn’t that true anywhere else? Most of us don’t just go and randomly test ourselves, unless we are really sick / go see a doctor.

And proper public health reporting doesn’t rely on individual tests. Instead, things like tracking excess deaths, testing wastewater (this is how they track Omicorn) etc are used.

[silentreader]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ... -1.6298799

[Ken]

Holmes County pops out as a bright white spot in that map. It also happens to be one of the least vaccinated places in America.

Vaccinated = get sick with Omicron.

Maybe we should take a deeper dive into Holmes County Covid statistics because I suspect that low case rate is probably because few people in Holmes County go in for Covid tests when they show symptoms. Let's look at deaths and hospitalizations which are a more accurate measure of what is happening in a jurisdiction.

This is the current data for Holmes County as of today. Holmes has seen 9 deaths from Covid in the past 2 weeks and hospitalizations are up 46%



As of the last data report, Holmes County has 91 patients currently hospitalized with Covid and since the pandemic began, has had 146 Covid deaths which equates to a Covid death rate of 356 per 100,000 which puts puts it in 18th place out of the 88 counties in Ohio. The statewide death rate in Ohio is 246 per 100,000, which matches the national death rate of 246 per 100,000. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... cases.html So Holmes rates in the top 20% worst counties in Ohio and is worse than Mississippi which has the worst death rate of any US state at 349 per 100,000. In other words, the Covid death rates in Holmes County is worse than the very worst US state: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... cases.html

Here is the total number of patients currently hospitalized for Covid in Holmes County



By contrast, I live in Clark, County WA which has a population of 501,869 (which is 11-times higher than Holmes County which has a population of 43,901) and only 74 people currently hospitalized with Covid. That is the total number, not a rate. And my county also has a Covid death rate of 121 per 100,000 which is 3-times lower than Holmes County



As far as vaccinations go, this is the latest information from the Holmes County health department which is about 4 weeks out of date. But show that 96% of total Covid hospitalizations in Holmes County have been among the unvaccinated and 95% of Covid deaths in Holmes County have been among the unvaccinated.



Bottom line, that little piece of white on the national map of current Covid cases is hiding a whole lot of Covid-related death and misery in Holmes County. And all that death and misery is almost exclusively happening among the unvaccinated.

[ohio jones]

Holmes County pops out as a bright white spot in that map. It also happens to be one of the least vaccinated places in America.

Vaccinated = get sick with Omicron.

I love that BUT (we are in Berlin overnight) my former Amish friend seems to notify me of death here from covid so that I don't look at Holmes county through Rose colored glasses. I have also heard that for example Amish don't tend to get tested for covid so they wouldn't count in the numbers unless they got sick enough to go to the hospital correct?

One of my friends just lost both of his parents (who lived in Holmes Co.) to covid. Of course that's an anecdote rather than a valid statistic, but for him the heat map is bright purple.

[ken_sylvania]

While we're mentioning anecdotes - just talked to a gentleman this afternoon whose son took the COVID vaccine about six weeks ago. Within two weeks after taking the shot the son starting feeling quite ill, and two weeks later was dead. Of course, nobody can prove that he wouldn't have gotten sick and died if he hadn't gotten the shot.....