the most stunning takeaway from LA's recent press briefings: officials estimated last week that 1 in 400 people in LA County were infectious with covid and not isolated. this week, that estimate has increased to 1 in 140 people. next week, it could be 1 in 70

so what's happening? well, huge numbers of people are falling sick. yesterday, nearly 3,000 were diagnosed with covid in LA County, the highest number of daily cases ever reported. cases have been growing fast for the past two weeks, even though testing levels are stable

each infected person in LA County is estimated to be getting another 1.26 people sick, way lower than the transmission estimates of 2 or 3 early in the pandemic. but so many more people are sick now -- thousands newly diagnosed each day! -- that the outbreak can grow rapidly

Angelenos began to fall sick in greater numbers around Memorial Day, from protests + reopenings + more lax behavior in general, according to LA County health director Barbara Ferrer. disentangling the impacts of each is very difficult and they haven't done the necessary analysis

LA health officials partly blame the recent surge on businesses/restaurants not following guidelines, even weeks after reopening. they have said before that there have been recent clusters of cases linked to restaurants

LA officials also blamed people for letting their guard down, interacting more closely with more people in the past month. they linked that trend to a 40% increase in cases among people 18 to 40

one thing that confuses me is health officials lamenting that 500k ppl visited nightlife spots last Saturday. if the spots were legally reopened, then it seems like either a problem with reopening or w/ bars not adhering to capacity protocols? why does this fall on individuals?

anyway, I think there had been some hope that younger demographics falling sick in LA would mean fewer hospitalizations and deaths. but hospitalizations are climbing rapidly now and are expected to cross the highest ever peak of 1,900 by next week

the last time hospitalizations were as high as they are now, admissions were trending downward. now they're going up, and expected to keep climbing since case numbers are increasing too and it typically takes a few weeks to end up in the hospital after infection

this graph is why people are freaked out. the steep slope just left of the blue dotted line shows the increase in hospitalizations in recent weeks. because more people continue to fall sick, that line is about to shoot up very high

LA officials said that even with the closure of bars/beaches, some of that projected increase will happen anyway since those people have already become infected. but the changes we make now could help prevent those hospitalization trends continuing to climb a month from now

tldr; so many people are being hospitalized with covid in LA County as infections spiral out of control that we could run out of beds in a few weeks. so, you know the drill, it's time to flatten the curve