Thread by @ashishkjha

Things are very concerning with the pandemic

Not just vaccine distribution but outbreak itself

It's bad

Yesterday we had more than 4,000 deaths from COVID19

Highest single day ever

But story is worse when you look at cases, hospitalizations

And thus, urgency to act

Thread

Let's talk data -- via @COVID19Tracking

7-day moving averages from yesterday

Daily deaths 2761: highest ever

Daily new hospitalizations: 4284: highest ever

Daily new cases: 224K: highest ever

% positive: 16.6%: highest since Apr 21

You know what's not highest ever? Testing

So this is a problem for lots of reasons

Obviously, having more Americans dying is horrible

But yesterday's deaths represent infections from mid-December

Before the holiday surge

And back then, cases were lower

And the percentage of tests positive was lower

3/8

Remember, % positive is another way of asking – how many infections are you missing?

And at 16.6% positive – we are missing a vast majority of infections

And of course, there’s the new variant that we aren’t tracking closely

So what do the numbers mean?

4/8

With case fatality rate around 1.7%

Yesterday's 4,000 deaths will soon become new daily norm

And lets talk testing because it remains a problem

We did as much testing yesterday as we did on November 20

So since 11/20, Cases are up 35%, deaths have doubled, but testing is same

With variant starting to take off, easy to see us hit 500,000 deaths before February ends

Catastrophic

But not baked in. Not inevitable.

We can substantially slow deaths in February

How? By getting high risk people vaccinated in January

6/8

Remember that >90% of deaths are in people over 55

Which is why we have to prioritize getting vaccines out quickly, especially to older people

And why Biden Team announcement to not hold back doses is so smart

Bottom line is this:

We are in for a VERY rough few months.

7/8

A horrible January largely baked in because of failures in December

But what we do in upcoming weeks will shape February

We have to remain careful, wear masks, and push on testing

But critical to get as many vaccinated in next few weeks as possible

It will save a lot of lives