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Good morning. As far as we can tell from state + federal data, this is what's going on with the pandemic this week. https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/soaring-death-numbers-and-highly-regional-outbreaks-this-week-in-covid-19-data-jan-14
Deaths are so high—25% higher than ever before. States reported more covid deaths this week than the CDC's estimate for US flu deaths for the entire 2019-2020 flu season. We may still be seeing some backlog resolution from the holidays, but we don't know how much.
Deaths also lag behind cases and hospitalizations. Case data was garbled by the holidays, but hospitalizations provide a more stable measure of what's going on and where. In many subregional divisions, hospitalizations are rising—but in many they're falling or flat.
Our post identifies which states appear to be driving the regional spikes in hospitalizations, but I think it's also important to say that in many states, we're seeing curves bend down or keep dropping. https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/soaring-death-numbers-and-highly-regional-outbreaks-this-week-in-covid-19-data-jan-14
This could change in the near future, but right now, I think it's useful to look at states like IL or OH or OR and recognize that *something seems to be working*, and it wasn't the "let it burn" approach.
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/illinois
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/ohio https://covidtracking.com/data/state/oregon
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/illinois
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/ohio https://covidtracking.com/data/state/oregon
By contrast, Arizona now has the worst outbreak in the world (for places where we have data) based on per-capita new case rates. https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/cases-per-million-by-state
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=IND~USA~GBR~CAN~DEU~JPN~ISR~PRT~AND®ion=World&casesMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=IND~USA~GBR~CAN~DEU~JPN~ISR~PRT~AND®ion=World&casesMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc
When the numbers are as bad as they have been in so many places—especially Southern California right now, which is going through catastrophic pain—it's maybe tempting to assume that nothing we do works, or that vaccines are all that matters.
But we can see based on the hugely inconsistent outbreaks over time across the US that what we do as communities really does matter. The data is still super unclear on many subtleties, but we really do know that more contact, more shared air—all these things do increase risk.
So speaking as just me, what I want to say in the face of these ghastly numbers is: if you are still holding course on the basics, *you are still saving lives*. Without the quiet sacrifices made by so many people through all this chaos, it would be so much worse.
Individual action is manifestly not enough—but it's also very far from nothing, and vaccines are lurching chaotically along toward everyone who wants them. Meaningful gov support is, I hope, on the way.
There are also still things we can do to help our neighbors who are in the worst of this. If you're in an area with a severe outbreak, find mutual aid networks and offer what you can. https://www.usacovidmutualaid.org/find-your-local-group If you have extra, you can feed people. https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank
That's the whole thing, I love you, please keep safe. <3
