Daily Status, Dec 4: Numbers are impacted by lower testing...low confidence in the trends
Daily Status, Dec 4 Today is an abbreviated update The data are impacted thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday. Situational Awareness Big picture: At the moment, I think there is an issue with the data caused by the Thanksgiving holiday. I suspect it is fewer people were tested – at least those that were light in symptoms. As a result, the number of tests is down by about 30-40% this week compared to prior weeks, and the percent of tests that are positive is up to about 10%. This means that some of the positives are probably being missed. It also means the trends are not being captured properly. As such, I am not doing a full update. Note that VHD is not reporting any issues. Yesterday, VA reported 2,877 new cases of COVID-19. Our fall surge remains paused, but I am confident this is more a factor of testing rather than caseloads. Today’s count is slightly above the three-week bias-adjusted average of 2,452 cases. The current weekly total of 16,936 new cases, or 2,419 c