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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of May 9
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
Cases in my area are going up, and we’re seeing more cases in my school than we have in a while. Nearly everyone here has been treating it like it’s over since March, and for the past two months it felt like it was. New cases were pretty much non-existent in my area.
I’m one of the only teachers in my school still in a mask, but up until recently I would have been comfortable removing it. I wear it mostly to support the few remaining kids who continue to wear masks on their parents’ orders, and I never want a student to feel unsafe if I stand near them or work with them one-on-one. As such, my mask has stayed on. Plus, COVID isn’t actually over yet!
Another teacher told me today, after a number of new cases popped up in her students, that she’s going to start wearing a mask again. I hope I see more people choosing that soon, but I kind of doubt it will actually happen. I think for every person for whom the previous lull was a necessary break from mask wearing before we don them again there are probably ten people who consider masks over and done with for good now — even if cases go up sharply.
I used to get myself PCR tested weekly but stopped that after the Omicron wave receded. Based on our numbers now, I just scheduled one for the first time since March. I put a lot of stock in this guide from Katelyn Jetelina. Just a few weeks ago we were comfortably in the blue range, but now we’ve made our way back up to orange.
I’m hoping my local rise is just a leisurely climb that ends soon rather than an inflection point for something much worse. We won’t know that for a few more weeks though.
Right on time: I got the news today that one of my students tested positive this morning.
This is the first positive case in one of my classes (that I know of) in... weeks? Months? It's been a while.
Two more positives in my classes today. My local area is definitely in the middle of an uptick right now.
Here my weekly look at US statistics:
Cases
US cases up another 18% to 21 per 100k, continuing its steady rise. This is looking pretty comparable to the beginning of the Delta wave.
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are at over 100 per 100k, which is the arbitrary threshold I've been using for "exceptionally high." For them it's higher than any previous wave other than Omicron.
On the mainland, a bunch of east coast states at the top of the list. Rhode Island is the highest at 64 per 100k. New York state is at 48. This looks considerable worse in upstate New York and New England. The CDC now has many counties in red (Community Level: high). For New York State this case rate is actually higher than Delta.
California +22% to 19, about half of Delta. The CDC still has most of California in green except for bay area counties in yellow. Bay area county cases were already a lot higher than the rest of the state, but it doesn't seem to have increased much in the last week?
Hospitalizations
US hospitalizations up 6% to 5.8 per 100k. This is rising quite a bit less than in previous waves; perhaps better treatment is doing some good? But remember that it lags cases. East coast states are at the top of the list, with New York State the third highest at 13 per 100k. NYC hospitalizations are "stable" at 53. California hospitalizations also stable, about matching what it was in June of last year.
Deaths
US Deaths down 23% to .079 per 100k, below 300 per day. It's not as low as last July but getting close.
Eric Topal on Twitter seems to be pointing to a connection between states with high vaccination rates that did better relatively during the Omicron wave, the spread of new variants, and higher infections in this new wave.
This seems consistent with the bay area doing relatively worse this time around in California?
Paxlovid, Personally
Derek Lowe got Covid and writes about the side effects of taking this drug.