At least you abide by Rule #1

There is no sanctuary

Is that a fairy tale or this what has actually happened?

ChampagneAg said:

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Is that a fairy tale or this what has actually happened?

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You clearly don't know.

It's a fairytale
HTH

Latest Texas 7-day moving averages for new cases (blue line) and deaths (red)

looks like a downward trend to me.

Now that we are past the protest, things are smoothing out nicely.

Fitch said:

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This thread is starting to read like twitter...

TMC moved into ICU surge capacity today, by the way.

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How frequently do they move to surge capacity?

I don't think you know your up from down.

Beats me. Has it ever?

Agreed, they don't have issues. Just noting it because it hasn't happened to date during this whole business and people were losing their minds over it a week ago. Seems pretty quiet considering.

Hi pot, meet kettle.

Ah, spoke too soon. AgLiving06, bolded below for your question.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/health/article/TMC-hospitals-go-into-Phase-2-surge-plans-as-ICU-15380224.php

Quote:

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With the number of intensive-care patients now exceeding [base] capacity, Texas Medical Center hospitals have begun implementing COVID-19 surge plans that leaders thought might not be necessary after numbers fell far short of projections in April and May.

The hospitals this week began opening additional beds both intensive care and regular floor beds, some new, some converted to accommodate a surge in COVID-19 patients that has grown exponentially in the past two weeks. The actions followed the hospitals' collective ICU bed volume topping 100 percent capacity Wednesday.

"To tell you the truth, what worries me is not this week, where we're still kind of handling it," said Roberta Schwartz, Houston Methodist's chief innovation officer, who's been helping lead the system's efforts to expand beds for COVID-19 patents. "I'm really worried about next week."

"It's actually possible that we could become the next New York City. I can't believe we're now staring down the barrel of that gun."

Schwartz noted that Methodist's COVID-19 volumes are expected to approach 600 by the end of the week; its high dating back a month or more was about 260. Memorial Hermann hit 719 cases Wednesday; it was in the mid-150s in mid-May.

The numbers are disturbing throughout the Houston region and the state. The region's rate has more than doubled since May 31 and Texas' count on Wednesday hit another all-time high more than 8,000 new cases. Its rolling average for new cases has now increased for 22 consecutive days.

Officials at Methodist, Memorial Hermann and CHI St. Luke's hospital systems, the medical center's three major private adult hospitals, all said they are opening new units or converting regular patient care beds to ICU and non-ICU beds dedicated to the care of patients with COVID-19. They also said they are beginning to reschedule less urgent inpatient surgeries and procedures, something they had been loathe to again begin doing.

TMC leaders denied that going above 100 percent for the first time during the pandemic suggests they're in crisis. They noted that ICU units want capacity to be between 90 percent and 95 percent and that it is not that difficult to flex up or down because of sudden influxes of patients. It is not uncommon during active flu seasons, they said.

But in those cases, volumes typically drop back down quickly. There is little hope of that happening now.

For that reason, the hospital leaders pleaded with Houston residents, particularly during the July 4th weekend, to wear masks and practice greater social distancing.

"Houstonians need to think of a face mask the same way they think of seat belts," said Dr. Paul Klotman, president of Baylor College of Medicine. "When you get in car, the first thing you do is buckle your seat belt, . If you hate wearing a mask, you're really going to hate being intubated."

Klotman said the surge response now invoked is "a little stressful but not a problem." But he added that if TMC hospitals have to go to the next-level surge phase, it will be "a big deal, potentially crippling."

The medical center, which boasts 1,330 ICU beds under base operations, had 1,350 such patients in house Wednesday. Full invocation of its first phase of expanding would provide 373 additional ICU beds. A second phase, if necessary, would provide another 504.

The implementation of surge planning was noted in a TMC dashboard slide posted Wednesday that noted ICU capacity had hit 102 percent. A slide last week showed medical center hospitals ICU were at 100 percent, but it represented a rounding up there were still five beds open. On Wednesday, there were 20 more patients in intensive care than capacity.

COVID-19 patients comprise 480 of the 1,350 ICU patients.

The Harris Health System, the county's safety-net health care network, had already implemented the initial phase of its surge response and expect by early next week to have completed a second phase that involves limiting patient activities at some of its outpatient clinics to virtual care and imaging in order to move staff to support patient care at its Ben Taub and Lyndon B. Johnson hospitals.

Because it is so overloaded, the system has been transferring patients in greater and greater numbers. LBJ and Ben Taub together have sent 33 patients to other hospitals in the last 24 hours and were working on 15 more Wednesday morning. The 48 patients represent 10 percent of the two hospitals' combined regular adult acute care beds (ICU and medical/surgical beds).

In the past week, the two hospitals have transferred patients to CHI St. Luke's, Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, HCA Houston Healthcare, St. Joseph, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and, most notably, Texas Children's. The transfers to Texas Children's were all adults, highly unusual for a pediatric hospitals.

TMC hospitals' invoking of surge plans comes a week after Gov. Greg Abbott expressed displeasure to executives about the mixed message of hospital leaders assuring the public they could manage the spike and the TMC dashboard showing ICU occupancy at near-full capacity. TMC leaders subsequently removed the slides for a few days while they sought to make them less confusing.

Klotman argued that converting beds is not that difficult because intensive care can be provided anywhere it just requires continuous monitoring of vital signs; access to intravenous treatment; a 1:1 or 1:2 nurse-patient ratio; and the availability of airway support. Other hospital officials noted it is not always easy to make such adjustments.

HCA, which is not part of the medical center, said in a statement it still has ICU capacity. But it acknowledged that "this crisis is evolving and we are vigilantly assessing our resources and taking action."

After flattening the curve in May, Houston and Texas are experiencing their worst spikes of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state rolling average for new cases is now at 6,157 and the Houston region again added more than 2,000 cases Wednesday.

The Texas Medical Center dashboard includes information from seven hospital systems St. Luke's, Methodist, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children's, MD Anderson, Harris Health and UTMB. Numbers are drawn from all their facilities, not just the ones in the complex south of downtown.

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Geeze. Galveston closing beaches effective today through Monday. I guess if you wanted to protest it they wouldn't have an issue with it though.

Just call it a beach blm protest

FWIW:

I have been thinking about the T-cell immunity issue and the new info that suggests that a 20% infection rate in a population combined with what appears to be cross-reactivity from other coronavirus immune response and have reversed engineered the number of cases Texas will need to get to based on our population numbers to reach a 20% infection rate.

In New York by comparison:
Total current confirmed infections: 417,836
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 4,178,360
Population of New York: 19,400,000
Percentage of population infected: 21.5% infection percentage

So for Texas:
Total current confirmed infections: 167,269
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 1,672,690
Population of Texas: 29,900,000
Percentage of population infected: 5.6% infection percentage

So to get to 20%, which is about where New York saw their infections taper off dramatically, Texas would need to be at about 598,000 total infections. A difference of about 431,000 cases. At a current burn rate (assuming this remains relatively constant and does not keep accelerating) of about 6,000 new cases per day, we should be to that level in around 72 days (early to mid-September). If the number of cases accelerates to about 8,000 per day, we would be there in about 54 days, around the end of August.

Locally in McLennan County:
Total confirmed infections: 957
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 9570
Population of McLennan County: 250,000
Percentage of Population infected: 3.8%

McLennan County's burn rate is about 80 per day right now. Would need 50,000 infections to get to 20%, meaning around 5000 confirmed cases. At current burn rate, McLennan County would reach that number in about 50 days, late August again.

One of the reasons I think New York went faster was because of their population density. I think every area will need to get to 20% infected like they have to slow this thing down, but in less population dense areas, that burn rate will be slower.

Thanks for enduring the ramblings of a science/math geek.

What's your issue?

Nice thoughts.

The 20% burnout figure may also be dependent on density as well. I would be a bit shocked if it wasn't, actually.

ChampagneAg said:

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What's your issue?

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Any time I see this posted I know I need to read back through the thread.

BarryProfit said:

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FWIW:

I have been thinking about the T-cell immunity issue and the new info that suggests that a 20% infection rate in a population combined with what appears to be cross-reactivity from other coronavirus immune response and have reversed engineered the number of cases Texas will need to get to based on our population numbers to reach a 20% infection rate.

In New York by comparison:
Total current confirmed infections: 417,836
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 4,178,360
Population of New York: 19,400,000
Percentage of population infected: 21.5% infection percentage

So for Texas:
Total current confirmed infections: 167,269
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 1,672,690
Population of Texas: 29,900,000
Percentage of population infected: 5.6% infection percentage

So to get to 20%, which is about where New York saw their infections taper off dramatically, Texas would need to be at about 598,000 total infections. A difference of about 431,000 cases. At a current burn rate (assuming this remains relatively constant and does not keep accelerating) of about 6,000 new cases per day, we should be to that level in around 72 days (early to mid-September). If the number of cases accelerates to about 8,000 per day, we would be there in about 54 days, around the end of August.

Locally in McLennan County:
Total confirmed infections: 957
Assumption of a 10X actual infection rate to confirmed cases: 9570
Population of McLennan County: 250,000
Percentage of Population infected: 3.8%

McLennan County's burn rate is about 80 per day right now. Would need 50,000 infections to get to 20%, meaning around 5000 confirmed cases. At current burn rate, McLennan County would reach that number in about 50 days, late August again.

One of the reasons I think New York went faster was because of their population density. I think every area will need to get to 20% infected like they have to slow this thing down, but in less population dense areas, that burn rate will be slower.

Thanks for enduring the ramblings of a science/math geek.

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I would be skeptical of assuming that NY's case count "error" is similar to other areas. At one point, their test positivity rate was something like 80% at their peak. In comparison, Texas's first peak was at a 20% positivity rate.

20% of NYC has antibodies, so the number with T-Cell immunity would have to be even higher right?