Indiana COVID-19 update: 10 October 2020

I just updated my Indiana COVID-19 dashboard with today’s numbers. They are not pretty. The state set a record for new cases for the third consecutive day. Today’s increase was “only” 6.5%, which is an improvement on the 24% increase that yesterday’s new record represented.

Positive tests or positive individuals?

The number of tests administered is on the rise, but we’re testing far fewer individuals. In fact, we’re testing about 33% fewer people a day than we did at the peak in late August. That the state is focusing on the total positivitiy rate (5.2% over the last 7 days) as opposed to the rate of positive individuals (9.3% over the last 7 days) strikes me as deceptive.

I attribute the disproportionate increase in tests (compared to people tested) to school systems, at least in part. I know of teachers who have had to take several COVID-19 tests in the past two months in order to return to work after any illness that shares a symptom with COVID-19. While I applaud the schools for taking this seriously, it does lead to some misleading numbers.

Deaths and hospitalizations

On Thursday, Indiana hit 20 daily COVID-19 deaths again. Most recently, this mark was tallied on September 26 (21 deaths). The last time before that was June 14th. We have not had a day with single-digit deaths since September 21. The only stretch longer than that is the 68 days from March 28 through June 5.

Hospitalizations are up dramatically as well, as I mentioned in the last update. The current levels haven’t been seen since late May. Hospitalizations yesterday were 42% higher than on September 9 and 30% than two weeks prior.

Looking forward

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released a new model run late last night. I have added that to the dashboard as IHME 10/9 and hidden the IHME 9/11 lines for readability. A few days in, and this run seems to be over-estimating Indiana deaths so far. This is a welcome relief, since the last month’s worth of runs have been pretty consistently running too low. Given that deaths tend to be reported over the course of several days, the model may end up being more accurate after all. IHME has not published the updated briefing yet, so they may have more to say about the changes in this week’s run.

IHME’s forecast assumes that states will re-implement restrictions when conditions deteriorate to a certain point. Assuming that is accurate, we’re looking at restrictions coming back in mid-to-late November. Under that scenario, the forecast calls for a peak of 66 deaths per day in early December (with a range of 35-105). That would exceed our April peak by 32%.

However, given Governor Holcomb’s decision to move to Stage 5 in the face of materially unimproved circumstances, I don’t know if we can depend on that. If we do nothing, or further ease the few restrictions left, the model suggests we could be losing over a hundred Hoosiers a day in late December.

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