The masks are off in public places. The number of new cases is declining. But people are still dying. Today, the Columbia County Department of Health reported 13 new cases and 1 death--bringing the number of deaths in February to 8. The number of active cases being reported today is 6 fewer than yesterday, from which it can be inferred that, since yesterday, 18 county residents have recovered from the virus. The number of county residents hospitalized and in the ICU remains the same.
A year ago today, the CCDOH reported 10 new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 3,349, and the number of active cases was 277. There were 215 county residents in mandatory quarantine, 27 were hospitalized, and 2 were in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 81.
Carole, I could be reading too fast, but the one statistic I don't seem to see is the "death rate." Is that available? Is it possible to know how many Covid deaths we averaged this time last year? Or, even better, to see the death trends over the last couple of years. Another interesting statistic to have would be "recovery rate." It now seems as though everyone "has had Covid" and recovered. Some people boast of having Covid a couple of times. I know we're all tired of Covid, but the number of deaths attributed to this disease still seem rather astounding to this observer. --the real peter meyer
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, nobody reports a "death rate" per se, but the NYSDOH provides lots of information about COVID-19 fatalities here: https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/fatalities-0
DeleteI'd say about one third of customers at our local food market stopped wearing masks.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that cases are declining but "people are still dying" should not come as a surprise. Most diseases have time periods between the onset of symptoms and either death or recovery and COVID is no different. For that reason, it doesn't make sense to have a death rate per day per se. I can tell you that the current national mortality rates range anywhere from 0.42% to 0.50% based on 30, 60 and 90 day averages of confirmed cases and reported deaths. That death rate has been consistently dropping for some time and is obviously a factor of many data elements.
ReplyDeleteThe similar death rates for NY range between 0.40% and 0.85% using the latest data. The 30 day mortality rate has been increasing since January 1 when it was 0.20% to the current 0.85% and can be attributed to lower number of cases reported and relatively higher number of deaths due to the lag mentioned previously. The average number of deaths have stayed relatively consistent while the cases have dropped significantly.