Brief THREAD on where things are & why they are NOT rosy.

1. WI, MT, MN, SD with record high cases; many others near highs.
2. Hospitalizations, cases, & deaths have seemingly stopped declining.
3. Massive testing by SOME colleges has made positive rate unreliable.
1/6 https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1309987914810494976

Hospitalizations have clearly stopped declining (3 days in a row of week-over-week increases). Regionally, the midwest is pulling numbers up; The South may be hitting a floor. 2/6

Cases are rising again. Here, the Midwest & West are clearly driving the trend. 3/6

Everyone seems impressed by the magnitude of testing & relatively stable/low positive rate. But -

Harvard, Cornell, Yale, U-Illinois, Brown account for 140K tests/week. Positive rate is below 0.2. Multiply this out...

Positive rate is no longer reliable for predictions. 4/6

Add this: there are NO regions that are shutting bars, limiting crowds (more than before) or taking any other aggressive proactive steps as we were doing in June and July.

The lack of active mitigation makes this challenging.

5/6

I am anticipating that hospitalizations will begin to increase again (perhaps not this week, but soon); that deaths will plateau WAY higher than many models have been predicted and then increase. Cases will grow again.

We have a tough Autumn ahead of us. #MaskUp
6/6