I have been tracking the cases we’ve seen here in Carolina for some time now. The data prior to the recent surge beginning in September or October has stomped out the earlier data. That said, we’re really interested in the most recent data anyway.
The pattern here is really pretty straight forward. We see surges in cases after travel to and then the celebration of the three big holidays; Thanksgiving, Christmas and then New Years. I have the feeling, unsupported by data, that here in North Carolina, people traveled and met with large family groups for each of the two traditional family holidays; Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m guessing that those folks who typically celebrate New Years continued that practice. The cases follow the very predictable lag of 3-10 days. If I were to track hospitalizations and deaths, I would see the lag of each as well. The number I saw the other day was this:
12% of cases result in hospitalizations with 12% of those resulting in ICU. If I can find a reasonably easy data source I’ll run that data to confirm.
Anyway, it sure seems that we are seeing a real reduction in cases here; the trend is real. Today’s case total, 3978, is the lowest total in absolute terms since December 29 and the 7-day rolling average is the lowest since January 1. Expect this trend to continue.