There is mostly very good news this month. Attached are my regular charts, updated. I would like to point out a couple of things.
You can see in the Testing Chart that we have begun to see a drop in positive tests. Unfortunately, we are also seeing a drop in the total number of tests performed each week. That is a trend that we would like to see reversed. The more testing done, the better we are able to understand the viral spread and identify hot spots.
Nevertheless, even as the total number of tests performed has decreased, the positively identified cases has decreased at an even greater rate. This can be seen in the Positivity Chart. We are seeing Positivity rates at levels not seen since last Spring.
Some cautions about why the number of tests has been decreasing:
Some of the reagents needed for the tests are also used in the manufacture of several of the vaccines. It is possible, that the reallocation of those reagents to the vaccine manufacturers has resulted in a decreased supply of tests
Also, the sales of “at home” testing kits may not have been included in these numbers. If those sales were not included, and it would be reasonable not to include them since the simple act of purchasing a test does not guarantee the use of the test, then these numbers may be artificially low.
Those caveats though should not be reflected in the positivity numbers since those people who test positive will most likely report to their physicians and/or hospital and those records are then sent to the CDC for collation.
With regards to deaths and hospitalizations, here is the updated chart:
You can see that the numbers of deaths has begun to decline this month, and significantly so. The numbers are still higher than they were since early last year, but the decline may be reaching a new plateau. We will need to follow this data for the next month to be able to generate any better conclusions.
What we can say is that the number of hospitalizations has been declining faster than the number of deaths. This is very good news and may actually be related to the efforts over the past 6 weeks to vaccinate those in nursing homes and eldercare situations as well as the healthcare workers there.