Dr. Joe Gerald did a new COVID model run analysis this week. Lots of interesting new graphs. You can check out the full 8 page report here. Below is his summary of the analysis for this week:
Now that social distancing restrictions have been lifted, a greater frequency and intensity of human interactions will tend to facilitate viral spread. If this scenario is realized, increases in newly reported cases, hospitalizations, and ICU utilization would be detectable by early June.
o Absolute levels of community-driven viral transmission remain high as evidenced by substantial numbers of newly reported cases.
o For many locales, social distancing restrictions are likely needed to prevent reported cases, hospitalizations, and ICU utilization from increasing. o Hospital utilization has slowly increased over the past 4 – 6 weeks for COVID and non-COVID related care with excess capacity declining from approximately 30% to 15%. While adequate capacity exists to care for some increase in severely ill patients, additional viral spread will narrow that safety margin.
COVID-19 testing capacity (PCR and serology) has meaningfully increased over the past several weeks; however, the PCR test positive rate remains above 3% indicating capacity is not adequate to meet clinical and public health demands. This 3% target reflects testing practices in countries that had a more robust public health response and were more effective in controlling viral spread.
Several important changes have occurred in the past week that still make it difficult to assess the underlying trends in viral transmission. First, testing capacity has expanded identifying milder disease that would have previously remained undiagnosed. Second, ADHS added COVID-relevant causes of death from death certificates to the case definition of COVID deaths. Lastly, Arizona’s “stay-at-home” order expired May 15 likely increasing social interactions with the potential to transmit infection.