More news from Paulding County

The Washington Post published a great Perspective piece this morning by Amy Westmoreland of Lithia Springs, GA. She is – or was – a school nurse in the Paulding County School District in Georgia, which I wrote about in this post on August 7. She loved her job and the fact that she could really help the kids who came to her, both physically and emotionally. However, that came to an end this summer:

…as the school board in Paulding County finalized its reopening plan this summer, it seemed obvious to me that our leadership still wasn’t taking the pandemic seriously. When I read the instructions for faculty and staff in mid-July, I knew I couldn’t carry them out and sleep well at night. They make no sense — and won’t keep people safe. I quit.

Of course, I was afraid of catching the coronavirus on the job. But my bigger fear was that I’d unknowingly spread it to students and their families, or to my colleagues. I refuse to be complicit in endangering the health or the life of a child. I refuse to act as a prop, making people feel secure when, in reality, we’re putting their health at risk. As a nurse, I developed trust with families, with children. Going back to work, as if everything were fine, would betray that trust.

She goes on to describe how the school district’s guidelines don’t require mask-wearing and don’t even include temperature checks at the door (although she points out that parents might give their child a fever-reducer and send them anyway, if they think it’s just a routine cold or the flu. The guidelines don’t seem to say anything about testing for the virus). She also describes the protocols set up for how she is supposed to handle any child suspected by their teacher of having Covid-19, and how following it would inevitably lead to her infecting other children (and probably herself, although that isn’t her main concern) if the suspicion proves correct. She simply couldn’t continue to work at her school under those conditions.

Meanwhile, how are things going at North Paulding High School, where two students were suspended for posting photos of maskless students crowding hallways? The school was shut down this week, at first because 7 or 8 infections were found in students and staff members; the number of infections had climbed to 35 on Thursday.

The school will reopen next week on a system where students are in school two days a week and virtual the other days. Masks will still be optional, and the school won’t guarantee social distancing in classrooms or on buses. Meanwhile, cases continue to climb in the county. It sounds like the administrators may have gotten the message about how serious the situation is, but there are still parents that are clamoring to have their kids in school, so they can work. 

Of course, a little creativity – like outdoor classes – might have allowed the school to have the kids back as well as social distance. But I guess creativity is too much to ask for in that school, where less than two weeks ago they were suspending students for telling the truth to the nation. Since they're at least not doing that any more, I guess that counts as progress.

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). No other variables go into the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 5%.

Note that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4 weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks previous.

However, once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays - after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some indication of what will happen in the near term if there are no significant intervening changes.

Week ending	Deaths reported during week/month	Avg. deaths per day during week/month	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
March 7	18	3
March 14	38	5
March 21	244	35
March 28	1,928	275
Month of March	4,058	131
April 4	6,225	889
April 11	12,126	1,732
April 18	18,434	2,633
April 25	15,251	2,179
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
May 2	13,183	1,883
May 9	12,592	1,799
May 16	10,073	1,439
May 23	8,570	1,224
May 30	6,874	982
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
June 6	6,544	935
June 13	5,427	775
June 20	4,457	637
June 27	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,476	782
July 25	6,971	996
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
August 1	8,069	1,153
August 8	7,153	1,022
August 15	7,556	1,079
August 22	7,902	1,129
August 29	8,264	1,181
Month of August	33,312	1,075	125%
Total March – August	190,083

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 172,630

Deaths reported yesterday: 1,095

Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 5% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 5% two days ago. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 5,531,282

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 55,016

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 7%  

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 2,904,237

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 172,630

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 6%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com