Thread by @ashishkjha

Quick update on the pandemic in US

We're averaging about 800K identified cases daily

Likely missing 75% - 80% of infections

If you do the math

At least 1 in 100 Americans getting infected every day

Everyone wants to know: when do we peak?

Here's the national picture

Thread

The national picture shows a slowing of the surge

But we're still rising

But if we dig a bit deeper, a few things emerge

First, let's start with the big 4

CA, TX, FL, NY

Why? Lots of people live there, geographically and politically diverse

What do we see?

a few things

There is no doubt NY has peaked, down a lot

FL looks like it has peaked, down some

California may be plateauing, likely

Texas is hard to tell, likely still rising, not sure

And that is the 2nd big point:

There is no single national experience

Local conditions vary, widely

Hospitalizations lag a week behind

We now have more folks in the hospital with COVID than at any point in the pandemic

With fewer staff than at any point in the pandemic

That is a bad combo

And whatever plateau we get in cases

Hospitalizations will be rising for a while

4/7

And deaths?

We're at about 1800 deaths per day

While about half as bad as the worst days of the pandemic last year

It is still shockingly high given that we have vaccines widely available

And nearly everyone dying now is someone unvaccinated or high risk but not boosted

5/7

So what should we expect over next couple of weeks?

The states that have already peaked (states in new england, NY, NJ, FL others)

Will continue down

States still early in the Omicron surge to continue rising

And hospitalizations, deaths to continue climbing nearly everywhere

But remember that when infections peak

There will be as many new infections on way down as there were on way up

We still have lots of folks at risk

So across the nation, I think we have several more weeks of rampant infections

And many more weeks of high hospitalizations

7/8

Bottom line?

National peak means less than what is happening locally

After peak, we want to drive infections down quickly

So we need to continue to focus on vaccinations, testing, ventilation, and wearing mask indoors

To slow spread and reduce the burden on our hospitals

End