6/30/2020

I’m convinced that the key metric to track is the number of new cases for residents 65 years old and older. It’s the closest thing we have to a leading indicator for number of patients in hospital beds and therefore the number of deaths. The recent trend of new cases for those 65+ has been increasing and as a result the number of beds occupied have also increased. (Blue is the 7 day average of new cases for those 65+, Orange is the number of beds occupied by COVID patients)

6/29/2020

Added a LA Hospital Tracker

The 7-day moving average positivity rate is up to 12% now and the new cases are still predominately among those 18 to 40 years old. ICU utilization is at 43% which is still much lower than the 55% to 60% utilization in early May. The last two weeks have seen a net increase in the number of hospital admissions as well as the average length of stay go up from 2.3 days on June 14th to 3.2 days on June 28th. It doesn’t feel like the hospital resources are being stretched right now, and the number of deaths continue to drop. If the young don’t infect the elderly (big IF), then this the the current hospitals can sustain this level an even higher level of new cases

Orange County: The situation has been degrading in the OC since April and it is just as bad as LA county, with the ICU utilization at 46% and similar length of stay at 3.2 days but they were not included in the recent bar shutdown. (Charts below show OC)

6/28/2020

“There are 1,717 people currently hospitalized, higher than the 1,350 to 1,450 daily hospitalizations seen in recent weeks. Testing results are available for over 1,056,000 individuals, with 9% of people testing positive. The cumulative positivity rate has increased from 8% to 9%, and the 7-day average of the daily positivity rate has increased from 5.8% two weeks ago to 8.7% today” (Today's Press Release from the LA Department of Public Health)

If anyone can explain the statement above please reach out, would be great to hear from you so you can help me understand it. How does the cumulative positivity rate increase from to 8% to 9%, when the positivity rates for the past 2 weeks were less than 9%?

6/26/2019

7-day average positivity rate is up to 11.8%.

More concerning is that even with fewer tests being conducted th 7-day average number of new cases for residents over 65+ years has been trending upwards since June 15th and as a result new hospitalizations have also started to trend upwards. What we’ve seen in the past is that the number of new hospitalizations will follow the number of new cases for residents 65+ years old. (CDC hospitalization rates by age for reference)

6/25/2020

Fewer new cases due to less testing but the 7 day average positivity rate is up to 11% now

6/24/2020

Barbara Ferrer is misinterpreting the data!

She stated that:

1.) She states “cumulative positivitvity rate remains constant at 8%” - Of course the cumulative rate remains constant! It measures the positivity rate for everyone tested since March 1st (LA Public health dashboard), and recent changes to the positivity won’t change this metric. The cumulative positivity rate has minimal value for evaluating the current situation and she quote this number all the time

2.) She also states that the “7 day average daily positivity rate is 5.3% on June 12th” - If you look at the LA public health dashboard, none of the 7 data points on June 12th and before are below 7%, how would the daily average be 5.3%!? It was around 5% a month a go not a week ago.

3.) She said the recent spike in cases was “highly likely” to the large gatherings from protests. The protests started May 30th when the when the. 7 day average positivity rate was already 8.3%. The lowest the positivity rate has been was 4.9% on May 13th but it as been increasing since then.

Real Deal: The positivity rate is over 10% now, and the most troubling trend is that the number of new case for residents over 65 years old is increasing. I think that hospitalizations and deaths will increase very soon

6/19/2020

5/26/2020

The highest rates of new cases on the Eastside, Southeast, and South L.A so far.. Hopefully it’s a sign of increased testing. This chart also shows the difference in the number of new cases per 100k by region. On the Eastside the 7 day average for new cases is 19.9 new cases per day/100K, while in the South Bay it’s 4.5. Though the the number of new cases for LA as a whole has plateaued, it’s still increasing a rapid rate in the less wealth regions

5/16/2020

We’re on the wrong track

1. Normalized the number of new cases by region by population. It’s interesting to see that the Westside and the South Bay which are wealthier regions in Los Angeles, had the highest rates of COVID Cases when the pandemic started but now these two regions have the lowest rates and the number of new cases have flattened.

2. It looked like new cases were starting to decline across regions, but recent data shows that there are many regions where number new cases are rising again. The number of new cases in Southeast LA is the highest it's ever been

3. There has been a noticeable drop in new hospitalizations but there hasn’t been subsequent in the number of deaths which is odd to me.

5/11/2020: I see some encouraging trends:

1. Fewer hospitalizations which should lead to a declining number of deaths

2. Many regions like the Westside, South Bay, Verdugos (Pasadena area) have seen a flattening of the number of new COVID-19 cases

3. Harbor (Long Beach area) an early and persistent hot spot has seen a major reduction in the number of new cases

   LA region defined here

4/22/2020

Update 4/21/2020:

Over a 100 new cases in Palmdale and 70 new cases in Lancaster in the last 3 days! I wonder what’s happening out there. Possibilities I can think of are testing becoming available, both communities were part of the backlog of tests that were recently processed, or that’s a new hotspot

Update: 4/20/2020 (Coronavirus COVID-19):

Hospitalizations: I think this is a much better metric to track to see if the curve is bending. I’m also curious to see if deaths lag hospitalizations. I put both on the dashboard above and we can see

New Hot Spots: Surprised to see Palmdale as the neighborhood with the largest increases in new cases. Long Beach, East LA, Pico-Union, and Sylmar rounding out the top 5. Neighborhoods that dropped out of the top 5 were Torrance, Pasadena and Glendale.,

Update: 4/18/2020

I’ve been reading some people say that LA has successfully flatted the curve because the number of new cases each as flattened. To test this theory, I looked at the number of new hospitalizations. What I noticed is that there is still a strong upward trend on daily hospitalizations and peaks and valleys are a result of a day of the week effect of hospitalizations.



Update: 4/17/2020