August 9, 2020 - Long-Haul Covid
Long-Haul Covid
August 9, 2020
ADPH has had trouble filing complete, timely and accurate data lately. Today is a prime example. Although ADPH’s stated goal is to update the cases, deaths and tests on its dashboard by 10 am each day, the data were, at best, incomplete as of 2:30 pm - 1,162 cases and 1,606 tests simply cannot be correct because those numbers would produce an absurdly high positivity rate over 72%.
Therefore, I will focus primarily on yesterday’s data, which were finally released late last night. According to ADPH, there were 1,872 cases yesterday (incl. 86 probables) and 20 deaths. Considering 11,304 tests yesterday, Alabama’s 7-day average positivity rate was 17.08%, including probables. Even if probable cases are excluded, the weekly positivity rate is still 15.75%. Only Mississippi, Texas and Florida had rates over 17% while only Nevada and Idaho exceeded 16%.
Over the last 7 days, the average daily cases have declined by 19% from their peak on July 19 while the average daily tests have declined by almost 25% over roughly the same period. That’s why, when reading local media reports that our cases are seemingly in free-fall, you should take a deep breath before cracking open the champagne.
As if to punctuate this point, just after 3:00 pm, ADPH dropped its hospitalization data, showing there are 1,595 statewide inpatients, an increase from 1,492 yesterday.
Before closing, I’d like to mention an issue that is increasingly being studied and reported - the phenomenon of “long-haulers”. According to the CDC, as many as one-third of COVID-19 patients who were not sick enough to be hospitalized do not get back to their usual health more than 3 weeks after diagnosis. For many people, low-grade fevers, fatigue, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath and memory and sleep issues continue long after recovery.
If you have personally experienced this “long-haul” phenomenon or know someone who has, I would be especially interested in hearing from you. Now, here are the 14-day totals:
7/26 - 1,164
7/27 - 1,821
7/28 - 1,251
7/29 - 1,416
7/30 - 1,980
7/31 - 1,961
8/1 - 1,646
8/2 - 2,095
8/3 - 1,217
8/4 - 1,041
8/5 - 952
8/6 - 1,938
8/7 - 1,709
8/8 - 1,872
The partial report today indicates that Montgomery (226) and Autauga (83) counties shattered their previous records for daily cases, which were 145 and 37, respectively. It is not clear what has caused this spike in central Alabama.