Louisiana was one of the early hotspots. The general consensus is that it was spread through the crowds at Mardi Gras and ended up in many nursing homes where it decimated the population. The kids were sent home from school March 13, and a further restrictions followed. In April we were pretty much on lockdown--restaurants were take-out only, churches were closed, offices were closed etc. We went back to church the Sunday after Mother's Day, with 25% occupancy allowed, with masks and six feet of social distancing. At the beginning of June things opened up a bit more, and by the end of June the numbers started increasing again.
Nola.com is our newspaper's website and they update graphs daily. In March, April and May, most of the cases were in those 50 and older. In June, the numbers began to shift and now it is the young people who are testing positive.
Throughout my posts on the subject, I have tried (and sometimes failed) to use terms like "positive tests" or "diagnosed cases" rather than "cases" because one of the few things "everyone" agrees on about this disease is that there are many cases which have never been diagnosed or recorded--some because they were asymptomatic and some because, whether because of lack of tests/strict protocols for who could be tested, or because of people choosing not to be tested for whatever reason. According to a study by a local hospital, I'm guessing that overall testing has caught about 1/3 of the cases--fewer at the beginning, more lately.
The first day on the chart on NOLA.com is March 13 and there are 140 days between March 13 and July 31. June 30-July 31 is 32 days, which is 22% of 140. If numbers remained constant throughout--if the same number of people per day were testing positive and dying-, you'd expect that 22% of the positive tests were in that time, and 22% of the deaths. That's not what's happening.
In July, there were 6,666 positive tests for those under 18. That's 68% of all the cases for kids. One child died, which is 25% of deaths to children.
There were 14,543 positive tests to twenty-somethings. That's 56% of the total cases in that age group. 4 people died, which is 26% of the deaths to that age group.
9,744 people in their 30's tested positive, which is 50.9% of the positive tests in that group. There were 14 deaths, which is 20% of the deaths in that age group.
Regarding those in their 40's, there were 8,450 positive tests, which is 48.2% of the positive tests in that group. There were 24 deaths, which is 17% of the deaths to 40-somethings.
There were 7,861 positive tests for those in their 50's, which is 46.2% of all the positive tests in this group. 65 people died, which is 19.4% of deaths in that age group.
The 5773 positive tests to those in their 60's is 43% of all positive tests in this age group. The 132 deaths is 19.3%.
For the elderly, 5245 positive tests, which is 38% of the positive tests in this age group. There were 482 deaths, which is 18.6% of the deaths in this age group.
Clearly the number of people testing positive is high compared to earlier in the pandemic. I don't know enough about statistics to know if it is significant that the number of deaths in the age groups are not 22%--are all the numbers close enough to 22% that it doesn't show a change, or are hospitals getting better at treating Covid (I hope so) or did we kill off th especially vulnerable early on? I don't know. Do you have any idea?
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