Data After Dark Dr. David Owen 08/24/2020
Night report: Continued drop in hospitalizations due to covid statewide and in the tri-county area with some of the lowest bed utilization numbers in the tricounty area since I've been following these stats. With beds freely available now, I've stopped analyzing each of the high census hospitals as we know the day to day changes are not due to covid, at this time. As an example of how "low we go", PBC %general/%ICU bed availability is 64.85/67.32 which is at record lows!!! Overall statewide %covid bed usage is 10.5%, up slightly but still in the overall downtrend. %covid test positivity is in the low 5% range statewide and in the county. All good news and consistent with an ebbing pandemic. As I say each night, we will see how low these bed levels go until we reach our new baseline. I'm going to predict, if we have reached any significant degree of HI then hospitalizations (first) and then deaths should trend below the baseline established in May before the spike. And of course, the more HI we attain, the less the new spikes due to holidays, school openings and the feared second wave, will affect us. ___ www.frankcastingmediagroup.com www.frankmulhall.com