Same story, different day: COVID-19 positives up, hospitals holding steady

The Virginia Department of Health reported 3,915 new positive COVID-19 tests on Thursday. Hospital census, per the VDH COVID-19 dashboard, is 13,394, 81.3 percent of the state’s overall hospital capacity.

The seven-day average for new COVID-19 positives is 3,791.

The seven-day average for hospital census is 13,129, 79.7 percent of the state’s overall hospital capacity.

The number of beds occupied today by patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 or are awaiting COVID-19 test results is 2,018.

The seven-day average there: 1,929.

A month ago, on Nov. 10, the seven-day moving average for COVID-19 patients in Virginia hospitals was 1,088.

Also on Nov. 10, the seven-day moving average for hospital census was 12,865, 78.1 percent of the state’s overall hospital capacity.

COVID-19 hospitalizations are up 841 a day from a month ago; overall hospitalizations are up 264 a day.

This as the seven-day average of new COVID-19 positives is up from 1,462 a day on Nov. 10 to the 3,521 a day as of today – an increase of 2,329 a day.

The trend continues: big spike in cases and COVID patients; barely any movement in terms of impact on overall hospital capacity.

What we’re … still … working on

We keep noting that we’re working on getting what we think are a couple of key metrics to provide more context from VDH.

As we reported on Monday, the percentage of visits to Virginia emergency departments and urgent care centers for influenza-like illness is down more than 50 percent.

We know the percent; what we don’t know is the raw number.

We’re wondering if the raw number decrease in ILI visits could correlate to what we’re seeing in terms of COVID-19 test numbers.

We’re working to get VDH to give us those numbers.

One other important bit of context we’re seeking from VDH: past year hospital census numbers.

This is particularly relevant in terms of addressing the factor of seasonality for both COVID and influenza.

Hospitals seem to be faring well, for now, in our COVID winter. How does this compare to past winter flu seasons?

We get daily hospital census updates from VDH on its COVID-19 dashboard.

Past year census data shouldn’t be hard to track down.

Though, we’re now three days into our wait on both of these seemingly-easy-to-retrieve data points.

Story by Chris Graham