Data Without Doctoring Dr. David Owen 08/23/2020
Morning update: Another fine report, subject to our expected weekend underreporting of events. Nonetheless the underreporting is better than past weekends. Reported deaths down to approx. 51 with Broward county supplying half of them. Also all of the deaths were recorded for dates after July 29, supporting the fact that just about all of the July deaths have been recorded at this point, and that July may represent the apex of deaths. Recorded daily deaths for each day in August are down as well, also supporting the above. Death rates statewide and in the tri-county area have risen slightly but this is more of a denominator issue. Covid hospitalizations continue its precipitous decline in the state with a slower rate of decline in the tri-county area. I think I can hypothesize that most, if not all changes in hospital bed utilization in the tri-county area are now due to non covid patients. Having covered this pandemic for close to five months and observed the rise and fall of the M&M statistics, I remain extremely interested in determining our new baseline, and more importantly, when the next spike occurs. At this point I see no reason for any spike in activity until the Labor day weekend at the end of the first week in Sept. By then, daily deaths should be under 100 per day, and similar to the death counts back in May. I'll report on the continued improving bed counts this evening on facebook. ___ www.frankcastingmediagroup.com www.frankmulhall.com