The model appears to be working. For example, I have Florida projected at 68% to 72% capacity, and their dashboard says 72%. Texas is holding up as well. Florida has actually expanded its hospital bed capacity, though. It was officially 55,800 as of last year. It’s now about 59.5K, so I’ve updated. That’s the type of thing I’m finding as I drill down into a state’s specifics, which I can then import into the model.
The Ugly
The little bit of good news for Arizona is that their R0 is down slightly, but it’s still too high to save them. I continue to believe their only hope to avoid overrunning their hospitals is to surge the capacity somewhat dramatically. Don’t let their decreased case numbers fool you, the Sat-Sun case totals were low last week too - and these are way higher than those.
South Carolina has 12-28 days left, down from 14-32. Of course, three days have passed so this is roughly on the same track. Their R0 ticks up slightly from 1.68 to 1.75. Could just be noise, but it doesn’t really matter. They need that to be dropping in a hurry. If they’re not already out of time to flatten their curve, they’re close. They’re also going to need to surge capacity, most likely. Horry County (Myrtle Beach) is at 81% capacity officially as of Saturday. I haven’t run their numbers yet, but the curve there is steep so I’m guessing they’re 10-12 days away from overflow in that county.
Florida continuing to be an area of increasing concern. In three days they went from 21-39 days away from toppling the hospitals to 15-31, with their R0 going from 1.61 to 1.8. I’m tracking Orlando’s rate of spread, they were at 2.54, they’re now at 3.76. Yikes.
Orlando’s hospital bed capacity was reported to be over 80% a week ago. This would put them way out in front of the rest of the state, and with a higher R0. That said, they also are reported to have fewer cases per 1M people than the state overall. Maybe their hospitals are importing cases from surrounding counties? Their largest hospital (1,185 beds) is at 78% capacity, their second largest (611 beds) is at 99.18% capacity and their third largest (304 beds) is at 89.8% capacity. Orange County overall has about 500 beds left, with an estimated 2,593 active cases. 1,600+ of those cases are in the last seven days, which means most of those probably haven’t hit the hospital yet. I think Orlando has about a week at this rate before they have doomed their hospitals to needing surge capacity, which means about 2 weeks before that manifests itself. That’s unless their R0 comes down.
The Bad
Oklahoma had an eventful weekend, going from 3,084 active cases to 4,009. Almost an entire Trump rally in Tulsa’s worth of cases. A parscale, if you will. From 36-57 days down to 18-31. From a 1.47 R0 up to 2.13.
Texas is gaining momentum, from 29-61 days down to 21-48. R0 jumps from 1.31 to 1.4. However, they appear to be scaling up their surge capacity. It’s a race against the virus, but at some point they’re going to run out of room. Houston’s R0 jumps from 1.24 to 1.35, their total number of beds in the county increases, but they’re still down to 17 days. Dallas is holding pretty steady in R0, slightly down to 1.19, and they are 37 days away from overflow.
Nevada continues to experience a gambling event. 36-69 days drops to 24-48, with R0 jumping from 1.28 to 1.41. I haven’t dug in yet on the specifics, but if the trends with FL and TX hold, Vegas is probably < 24 days away.
Idaho gets itself into the mix of states to keep a wary eye on. They went from 97-157 days out to 45-75, with R0 going from 1.14 to 1.31.
Montana still green, but their R0 jumps from 1.44 to 1.84. They won’t be green for long if they keep that up.
The Good
Oregon starts to see a shift back in the right direction. They go from 20-33 days to 23-39, with R0 dropping to 1.72 from 2.02. They need it to keep coming down, though.
Hawaii gets a big downward bump in R0 as we’ve been expecting, I expect that to continue and get them into the solid green within a week or so.
North Carolina actually moves a couple days in the right direction, they continue to confound me. Although they did reopen later than most other southern states (they have a Democratic governor). Elections matter.
Utah a slight bump in the right direction, Wyoming safe for now but with a bad R0 of 1.60.
