Data Without Doctoring
Dr. David Owen
Bed situation today continues to improve in all three counties. Again, this could be a continuation of the normal "emptying" out we see on the weekends but think of this. Covid admissions we assume are constant. The weekly fluctuations tend to be discharges from surgery, other medical conditions felt better treated at home over the weekend than in the hospital and are more likely non-covid related. Add to this, that many hospitals in all three counties are approaching 1/3-1/2 empty which I presume is typical of late summer (I may be wrong on this, but not by much). I would propose that covid hospital discharges may be much more than suggested in the daily reports. Don't forget the reports by state and county are cumulative and do not reflect discharges. What I have done in my daily reports is to subtract from that number, the numbers of both two and three weeks ago. This assumes, for example, that all of those admitted three weeks ago have been discharged or passed and outside of a few outliers, I don't think I'm wrong on this. Percentages of available beds in the largest hospitals, Gen low-high are for Dade: 10-34%, Broward 5-45 and PBC 16-42. So despite the hysterical MSM, the data is improving, however we wait for catch up admissions over the beginning of the week. More data slowly accumulating suggesting the worse may be over. Again, the weekend numbers tend to be lower due to reporting issues. Most of the ED/FSED data shows curve inflection downward starting July 4-9, for the following parameters statewide and in all three counties: ED daily visits for cough, fever, SOB, weekly ED/FSED visits for flu-like Sx, daily ED visits resulting in cough-associated admission, and weekly ED/FSED visits for covid-like Sx. Bed situation IMPROVED in all three counties if you parse through all the numbers. (No ICU bed data available for past 2 days).
Regarding the hypothesis of reaching HI at 20% puts Dade county 10 days away and PBC 12 days, so we'll see over the next few weeks. As we get closer to this admittedly low number for HI, expect these downward curves noted above to continue and then deaths to begin to fall off. If the hypothesis is not supported, then I'll try a HI rate of 30%, which has also been cited in the literature. Most of the literature for the states suggests 50-60% HI is needed but many believe this is too high. We'll see. Death rates statewide and in the tri-county area continue to fall nicely. Beds are abundant in PBC and west Broward where we may be approaching normal summer bed capacities. East and in Dade things are tighter but much capacity remains. Again no ICU actual bed numbers are available, but percentage wise we are running 87% full in Broward and 77% full in PBC. All in all, I conclude the MSM still has it wrong, but they'll never know as some reporters have asked that I not provide them with my snarky morning report anymore. They can't take it, the truth hurts!! ____ www.frankcastingmediagroup.com www.frankmulhall.com