Just a brief update on forecasts and how utterly worthless they tend to be from the "experts". This was the Covid Act Now forecast back on July 1. I figured I'd see how we are doing compared to the forecasted number they put out back then. They claimed by August 1, there would be 16,000 deaths. Current death count as of this morning is 4,521 on the Worldometers site. This would mean that each and every day from today on we would have to post 717 dead people in order to achieve this number. The highest deaths reported on any particular day thus far? Yesterday at 132. You be the judge on the statistical possibility of this forecast. All I'm here to do is point out the numbers.
New record today. That's how viruses work when they run amok. Saw a stat today that in the last two weeks Florida has more infection cases then Canada has in the entire year. It hardly matter if one of the experts has bad forecasts. Numerous medical experts said 4-5 weeks ago that the increased infection rates would very likely lead to higher death rates in 3-4 weeks. Roughly speaking, the daily deaths have doubled now. Not sure how high they have to be for it to be a concern for you, but numerous hospitals said they were struggling prior to today.
I posted actual hospital data, updated daily if you care to browse it. If you want to show me which of the hospitals were saying they were struggling, we can look up their numbers together to see. They might be. But I trust data over some random person who may or may not have a political agenda to push a narrative. As for comparing Florida to Canada, this is a bit apples to oranges, no? Florida has open borders with other states, has 21.5 million people packed into a bit less than 66 thousand square miles and Canada has 37.6 million people over 3.86 million square miles and is essentially locked down on the one country that borders it. I'll betcha if we compare Florida to Fiji, Fiji wins hands down.
ICU is the only thing that looks pretty bad so far from a capacity standpoint. Less than 1k beds in TX and FL I think. Not crazy critical yet, but they could fill up pretty fast if it starts spreading more in older areas. Also agreed on the forecasting being terrible, I could run the data through my supply chain demand planning modules and do better.
Hospitals are trying to get as much elective surgery in as they can. This doesn't usually take up ICU beds but it does take up hospital capacity. Since many hospitals are losing their ass financially at this point, they've tried to take up as much additional work as they can. This is why I posted the links on the beds and the links showing - specifically - how many non-covid patients make up the bed usage (both ICU and non-ICU). Because that matters a great deal.
You can. But the right comparisons matter if you're going to do them. Especially when you're making a point. Is the situation in Florida getting worse? It is. Is it getting much, much worse? This is not a definite at this point. The data doesn't show anywhere near as dire a situation as the media is pushing. Happy to debate specific data if you want. But so far no one wants to challenge the actual data I continue to publish, they just want to post articles or point to the media as if that is a source we should all trust (for anything). Comparing Florida to Canada doesn't make a whole bunch of sense, though. People called out Sweden for its response and its case increases the whole time, now they are starting to look like they are a bit smarter than folks thought. Florida is back to work. Florida is going back to school. This might be disastrous. It might be the right choice. Time will tell. The rest of this is subjective opinions. That's why I rely on the data.
You know, if the people of Florida are comfortable with 8-15K new cases a day and 80-150 deaths per day, then I guess that's what it's going to be ( or possibly worse ). As I said 5 weeks ago, 40-60 deaths a day was too many in my opinion, for reasons I laid out at the time. NYC and New Jersey got hit hard initially and I don't see a lot of complaints about lock downs in those areas. Maybe they know better to play with this at all. Toronto got hit hard by SARS years ago and seemed more ready to deal with Covid both medically and mentally then many areas. We don't want to play around with this virus either. But it is your deal and I'm exhausted trying to reason with Americans on this topic. In a few months, it will be clear if our slower staged approach worked out or not ( majority of Ontario goes to level 3 Friday ). We will likely have some increased counts. Final tally will be instructive.