Thread by @firstresponses

Memphis/Shelby County
Covid Wk-In-Review

tl;dr
* case rate, 255 per 100k
* 2,396 new cases/day (26,328 active cases)
* 475 pediatric cases/day (5,098 active)
* 41.7% positivity rate
* hospitalizations, nearly doubled
* but deaths are staying low, at least for now

1/

Let's start with case rate.

I had to adjust the limits of the vertical axis - again - bc cases have continued to explode.

Before this wave, the previous high was right at 90 avg daily cases per 100,000 people.

Last wk: 181 per 100k.

Now: 255 per 100k.

2/

Remember back when Harvard's Global Health Institute said that stay-at-home orders were necessary to control the spread once we reached 25 per 100k?

And now we're 10x that, at 255 per 100k.

3/

Here's the entire pandemic, by year.

Cases are triple what they were this time last year.

4/

Cases...
+41% over 1wk
+247% over 2wks
+1,258% over 4wks
+2,249% over 6wks

The wk of Oct31 had just 79 cases/day.

It rose slowly but steadily to 202 case/day.

Then it exploded to 690, followed by 1,702, and now 2,396 cases/day this wk.

5/

The positivity rate tells a similar story...

Two months ago, it was down to a record low 2.9%.

It rose slowly but steadily to 5.7%.

Then it just exploded to 18.0%, followed by 37.1%, and now 47.1% this week.

6/

We know that, at 10%+, you are missing a significant number of cases. And we're over 40%.

A conservative estimate is that actual cases are triple what's been reported.

That would mean around 7,500 new cases per day!

7/

Some of these unreported cases are being found with at-home tests.

But as we know, these are nearly impossible to find - and they're so expensive as to be out of reach to many.

Testing was a massive problem two years ago. And it remains a big problem today.

8/

Of course, what makes today different is that we have vaccines available.

But only 58% of people have been vaccinated.

That means 393,000 people are un-vax'd.

9/

We know that 8% of people are only partially vax'd. That's another 75,000 people.

And how many are overdue for a booster? While there's no official data on this, we know it's a lot, almost certainly more than 250,000 people.

10/

Our infection rate seems to be starting to drop. That's good.

But it's still at a dangerously high level, higher than any point between March 2020 and Dec 2021.

11/

Hospitalizations continue to rise.

This is only updated through Monday, but they released new data on Thursday.

After a low of 82 covid patients in early Nov, we hit 164 just before Xmas, then 317 last wk, and now 575.

And they're projecting 1,562 next wk.

12/

They didn't start releasing pediatric covid data until late August. We reached a high of 279 pediatric cases a few wks later.

Then we dropped to 20 per day on Dec1.

A month later, we were up to 316 pediatric cases/day.

And now we're at 475 per day.

13/

Look at how cases have exploded in schools!

A record high 657 cases.

But teachers - only 719 all year previously...then 491 this week alone!

14/

I've got to run, so I'm going to stop here.

Y'all be safe.

15/15