Houston went under 1.0 in R0 (effective reproduction) for the first time in a few weeks today. Data, here:

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/effective-reproduction-rate-for-harris-county/


Texas' overall R0 continues to plummet, approaching 1.0

https://www.covidestim.org/us/TX


Someone smarter than I on these issues can translate.

Texas overall went under 1 today as a state. Some counties are doing better than others but almost all seem to be trending down. This leads to fewer cases which will help relieve hospital influx over time. It does lag and take time to see hospitals and ICUs improve but is a good trend.

Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas and other hard hit states are dropping even faster on their Rt which is a great thing to see.

Someone who understands epidemiological statistics, help me understand how this ratio is determined without doing contact tracing (I believe that is rarely being done currently). Is it just some kind of modeled guess? I am certainly hopeful that we are near done with the latest surge as it has our hospital restricting our scheduling of certain elective (but necessary) surgeries.

Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

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That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

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That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

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Sorry, I am not on either side of the great Covid debate, but this is ridiculous. Full hospitals say there is more to this than testing.

Don't forget full hospitals are also partly a result of staffing shortages and an unusual spike in RSV. Not saying you are wrong, just think there is a little more to the story than just covid.

Aston94 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

---

That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

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Sorry, I am not on either side of the great Covid debate, but this is ridiculous. Full hospitals say there is more to this than testing.

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you realize the hospitals are full due to more reasons than COVID right?

we have thousands fewer beds than this time last year (severe staff shortages)
RSV is running rampant
Flu is coming back
about 18% of ICU beds are covid

No, they don't realize that. They hear things on the news, take them as the gospel, then regurgitate them ad nauseam.

Aggie95 said:

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Aston94 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

---

That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

---

Sorry, I am not on either side of the great Covid debate, but this is ridiculous. Full hospitals say there is more to this than testing.

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you realize the hospitals are full due to more reasons than COVID right?

we have thousands fewer beds than this time last year (severe staff shortages)
RSV is running rampant
Flu is coming back
about 18% of ICU beds are covid

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There are certainly more reasons than COVID. But COVID is driving this. You say 18%, but in Houston COVID is around 40% of the ICU. We had more new COVID hospitalizations here last week than at any point in the pandemic.

CDub06 said:

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Aggie95 said:

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Aston94 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

---

That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

---

Sorry, I am not on either side of the great Covid debate, but this is ridiculous. Full hospitals say there is more to this than testing.

---

you realize the hospitals are full due to more reasons than COVID right?

we have thousands fewer beds than this time last year (severe staff shortages)
RSV is running rampant
Flu is coming back
about 18% of ICU beds are covid

---

There are certainly more reasons than COVID. But COVID is driving this. You say 18%, but in Houston COVID is around 40% of the ICU. We had more new COVID hospitalizations here last week than at any point in the pandemic.

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so am I supposed to stop living my life? COVID is going to be around from here on out

Zero people asked you to stop living your life.

you are suppose to relocate to the most interior closet / rooms in your house for the next 2 weeks. Wear a mask. Keep everyone in your family in a different interior room with bottles of water and a package of crackers.

come out in 2 weeks if you hear a loud horn. If not, continue for another 2 weeks. dont ask questions. just do it...unless you like being a murderer....

I just wanted to clarify the stats. He said 18%, which might be true somewhere. Here locally, it's more like 40%. That's a big difference.

I don't understand the objection to my clarification.

If you actually want my opinion, I think most people should be vaccinated as the huge majority of those 40% in the ICU are unvaccinated. If simply through vaccination, we can reduce that load, we'll have more opportunity to adequately care for the other ailments and take some of the load off of our hospitals.

Bassmaster said:

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No, they don't realize that. They hear things on the news, take them as the gospel, then regurgitate them ad nauseam.

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Or, I could talk to 2 ER doctor friends, one in Fort Worth and one in West Texas, or talk to my sister who is an ER social worker for Baylor Scott and White and have them tell me that their hospitals are currently overrun with Covid patients.

Or I could go to the hospital in my town where I volunteer and see that they are now back on full lockdown again because of Covid and are out of beds, having to reopen their Covid wing.

Who the hell are you to be so shallow as to assume others only get their opinions from the "talking heads"?

This is a real epidemic, that has caused substantial loss and death. I don't agree with many of the tactics used to scare people, I think masks are not really needed, and I got the vaccine so I could move on without worrying about the potential, but don't tell me where I got my information from and discredit my info just because it doesn't fit your narrative.

Aggie95 said:

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Aston94 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

---

That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

---

Sorry, I am not on either side of the great Covid debate, but this is ridiculous. Full hospitals say there is more to this than testing.

---

you realize the hospitals are full due to more reasons than COVID right?

we have thousands fewer beds than this time last year (severe staff shortages)
RSV is running rampant
Flu is coming back
about 18% of ICU beds are covid

---

Yes, I am well aware there are people in hospitals that do not have Covid.

Your 18% is a number I have not seen or heard.

Yep, everyone has those "dr. friends" giving them the inside look but fail to mention the staffing issues. My dad was in the St. Luke's in the TMC last week. I walked the hospital. They certainly aren't having the issues that you, your "dr. friends," and the media would want us to believe. Maybe St. Luke's is an outlier. Doubt it though.

Or go look at the Austin board for a guy who is trying to get his dad into a hospital but he's TOO STABLE to be taken in because there are no beds.

I know for a fact what I'm talking about. I don't understand why people think there's some conspiracy here.

Montgomery County judge is super conservative and he's adamant that he doesn't support vaccine or masking mandates, but now he is encouraging people to get vaccinated due to the surge and what he's seen first hand.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/08/11/critical-staffing-shortages-reported-at-montgomery-county-hospitals/

Look at your local public health department's social feeds, I'm certain you'll find similar data.

And yes, there are staffing shortages, like there have been everywhere. AND COVID admissions are at an all-time high. That's a bad combo. And it's probably going to lead to more staff getting burned out to make matters worse.

I definitely agree with that. And I think we're probably about at our peak as it is. But it's still mind-boggling that people say that this hospitalization thing is overblown or that the vaccine isn't effective when there's literal proof to the contrary.

Bassmaster said:

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Yep, everyone has those "dr. friends" giving them the inside look but fail to mention the staffing issues. My dad was in the St. Luke's in the TMC last week. I walked the hospital. They certainly aren't having the issues that you, your "dr. friends," and the media would want us to believe. Maybe St. Luke's is an outlier. Doubt it though.

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Yes, I know, it is impossible for others to have friends who are doctors in hospitals.

Unbelievable.

Charpie said:

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Or go look at the Austin board for a guy who is trying to get his dad into a hospital but he's TOO STABLE to be taken in because there are no beds.

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If he's "too stable", perhaps he doesn't really need to be hospitalized? Maybe?

ORAggieFan said:

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Aggie95 said:

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There was a University of Florida study that predicted the peak of this spike would be 8/18...hopefully pretty accurate.

---

That's likely going to be accurate for the southern part of the US. SoCal and across. November will have an uptick. Northern states will lag here but then be worse in fall. The only thing that ends this is stop testing.

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Impossible..they are wearing those clothe masks

beerad12man said:

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Vaccination now unfortunately won't help this current wave. By the time it takes affect, it will be over.

It might help the future fall/winter wave, though. So it's still a good idea for more to get vaccinated, and I hope they do. Fortunately, I think this one is about peaked, will plummet soon, and be the last big hurrah. I'm still pretty shocked with over 50% vaccinated and likely 35-40% with some layer of natural immunity we are still having these issues. Surprises me, as mathematically I would think that would put us over 70% immunity(at least some degree, enough to prevent hospitalizations). But we may very well need about 85-90% to prevent any future hospital crowding.

Hopefully we can get to about 60+% vaccinated in Texas, along with 50+% naturally immune, which would put us over 80% by the winter wave.

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Unfortunately those numbers aren't close to the real situation. Let's do some quick math.

The population of the US is 328 million.

Currently we are looking at 205 million Americans with some level of immunity (168 million vaccinated + 37 m COVID cases). That only equals 205 million Americans, or 62.5% of the US population.

That leaves 120 million Americans with no level of immunity. That's greater than the entire US population in 1918, which sustained a pandemic.

The idea that the virus is quickly running out of hosts to continue this is just unfortunately not true. We will continue to see waves and surges into the fall and winter until a larger percentage of the US population is vaccinated. It's not going away until we put in greater effort to end it.

They say it is overblown as they view anything that comes from an official source as fake news as it's not sourced from a youtube channel or twitter. It's amazing in current society the swiss army knife nature of our population jumping from public health experts to troop withdraw experts.

The fact remains you have a vocal subset which views any government intervention in their lives as a line too far. However, they want all the implicit benefits....