Our last Covid tracking post was six months ago as we approached the holidays and it tracked the holiday surge through last week here. Life may not have been simpler then, but it seemed clearer. You did all the things they told you to do, hoped for the best and could essentially see how it was going in the County to gauge your own personal risk. Those were the old days. Now tracking is blurrier. Home testing is private testing. Symptoms can be so light that you think it's allergies--ask me how I know. Past infections raise immunity for some period of time, but how long? My neighbor got it, got through it and Kaiser told him to get a booster right away. That seems over-protective while waiting a few months extends protection, but it's blurry. The County dashboard that I use for the Saturday updates occasionally splashes a screen saying the numbers from the state are missing without explaining why we need the state to report our own County data. Nonetheless, let's press on with tracking what we know and acknowledging what we don't know.
Here are the numbers for last week and they look terrible:
Total Cases: 134,492 - Up 6,902 in the County for the week -- up 385% over last week's increase.
Burlingame Cases: 4,249 - Up by 186 over last week, so 63% higher than last week which was almost double the prior week. 367 cases in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 40, up by 11 and double two weeks ago.
The Spring surge (is that the 5th or 6th, I forget) is definitely here. The County has a few new tidbits to advise here, but it sort of the same story.
I want the pox report. When will county start posting? I've heard there's a vax on the way.
Posted by: MBGA | May 22, 2022 at 03:29 AM
Thanks, MBGA, that's funny. Just came across the "wave count" for Covid--this is the fifth.
Posted by: Joe | May 23, 2022 at 12:38 PM
Anecdotally the surge continues and some of the people are getting pretty ill even having had a booster, etc. The B'game number jumped much more than the County rate which slowed down:
Total Cases: 134,492 - Up 2,969 in the County for the week -- down about 60% from last week's jump.
Burlingame Cases: 4,535 - Up by 286 over last week, so 54% higher than last week. 388 cases in the last 30 days so some of the increase might have been catching up from earlier.
Hospitalizations in the County: 41--about the same.
Posted by: Joe | May 28, 2022 at 02:11 PM
Today's Comicle headline asserts that we have seen the most recent peak and are in slight decline. That's not born out by the SM County numbers. Alameda County brought back the indoor mask mandate as well. Here's how the week went:
Total Cases: 140,702 - Up 6,210 in the County for the week -- double last week's increase.
Burlingame Cases: 4,535 - Up by 108 over last week, so less than half of last week's increase. 436 cases in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 31--down 25%.
Posted by: Joe | June 04, 2022 at 01:24 PM
Moderna's announcement of a new vax for Omicron was accompanied by talk of new variants popped up this week with BA.4 and BA.5. BA.5 is now 7.6% of cases nationally. Locally our week looked like this:
Total Cases: 143,453 - Up 2,751 in the County for the week -- less than half of last week's increase.
Burlingame Cases: 4,746 - Up by 211 over last week, so almost double last week's increase. 437 cases in the last 30 days--flat which is odd given the increase.
Hospitalizations in the County: 38 - about the same
Posted by: Joe | June 11, 2022 at 02:50 PM
Even with more summer socializing, the numbers show a pretty quiet week Covid-wise:
Total Cases: 146,098 - Up 2,645 in the County for the week -- flat week over week.
Burlingame Cases: 4,746 - Up by 70 over last week, so a notable slow down. 401 cases in the last 30 days--as things taper down.
Hospitalizations in the County: 43 - about the same
Posted by: Joe | June 19, 2022 at 12:18 PM
It was another pretty average week in the County according to the official numbers. I heard of several breakthrough-boosted cases among friends and acquaintances. Also keep hearing the Moderna booster will kick yer butt:
Total Cases: 148,771 - Up 2,673 in the County for the week -- flat week over week again.
Burlingame Cases: 4,746 - Up by 164 over last week, so more than double. 396 cases in the last 30 days--flat week over week as a higher week this week replaces a higher week a month ago.
Hospitalizations in the County: 28 - down 15
Posted by: Joe | June 25, 2022 at 01:14 PM
As I said in the original post from May, things are blurry out there Covid-wise. You can read all about the BA.4 and BA.5 and how there is a surge. You can read about the government telling Pfizer they should update their vax--like Pfizer did know that and hasn't been working on it for weeks or months....but here we see about the same numbers as the last few weeks:
Total Cases: 151,848 - Up 3,077 in the County for the week -- up about 15%.
Burlingame Cases: the county website is having a "data source error"
Hospitalizations in the County: 39 - up 11
Posted by: Joe | July 02, 2022 at 04:31 PM
If you want the straight poop, then go to the SM County COVID Sewage Data. It will tell you that we are far worse off than at any time prior.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article263044553.html
Yes, we are in Deep Shit (pun intended) While deaths are down, the anecdotal data of long effects of COVID and after effects are real (and debilitating.)
Outbreaks at summer camps, travel related, etc show we are spreading faster Creamy Skippy on White Bread.
The poop data and the NY Times data shows that SM County is so hot it looks like we've been on a "habanero cleanse" of COVID. We are Red Hot on COVID.
Posted by: Literally- The Straight Poop on Covid- The Sewage Numbers | July 03, 2022 at 09:05 PM
It was another week of BA.5 subvariant headlines but the County numbers don't align with the headlines as it was a relatively quiet week here:
Total Cases: 154,369 - Up 2,521 in the County for the week -- 80% of the prior week's rise.
Burlingame Cases: 5091 with 473 in the last 30 days so pretty flat
Hospitalizations in the County: 32 - also flat
Posted by: Joe | July 09, 2022 at 02:08 PM
Thanks Joe.
Posted by: Peter Garrison | July 09, 2022 at 04:47 PM
This is the week the Prez got it and is taking Paxlovid and talk of the surge continues. I missed posting last week, so here are the two-week numbers:
Total Cases: 159,318 - Up 4,949 in the County for two weeks or 2,475 per week -- the same as two weeks ago!
Burlingame Cases: 5,175 with 469 in the last 30 days--up only 83 in two weeks as reported, but it has to be higher than that.
Hospitalizations in the County: 39 - also mostly flat
The surge must be mostly being handled by people on their own since the numbers don't show it.
Posted by: Joe | July 24, 2022 at 11:18 AM
Like the flu it always was.
Posted by: Cassandra | July 24, 2022 at 08:40 PM
The news this week was all about monkeypox and had a terrible deja vu feel to it. But in Covid news, the Daily Journal ran a piece that gets to the question of how blurry the numbers are. It was obvious two months ago when I made this post that the official count was an undercount. Now some UCSF researchers are estimating that 80% of the test results go uncounted. So we would need to really increase these numbers for the week:
Total Cases: 161,234 - Up 1,916 in the County for the week so pretty flat.
Burlingame Cases: 5,271 up 96 for the week.
Hospitalizations in the County: 54 - a noticeable jump.
BART just reinstated the mask mandate, but I don't know anyone who is using BART with any regularity and not just because of Covid.
Posted by: Joe | July 30, 2022 at 01:24 PM
It was another week of steady drumbeats on Covid. Keeping mind the undercounts from home testing, here are the numbers for the week from the County:
Total Cases: 163,012 - Up 1,778 in the County for the week so down a bit but pretty flat.
Burlingame Cases: 5,393 up 122 for the week--a bit of a rise.
Hospitalizations in the County: 52 - also flat.
Posted by: Joe | August 06, 2022 at 06:11 PM
I know this is anecdotal, but it's an example of how much havoc covid can cause for families. Have a friend with two preschool-age kids. The whole family got covid this summer. For him and his wife, it was "minor" -- each felt knocked out with fever for a day or two but after that got better every day. One kid got so sick he had to be hospitalized. Other kid was really sick for about two weeks with lethargy and fever before he started getting better -- dad said basically all the kid could do was lie in bed or on the couch sleeping/dozing, often crying because he felt so miserable. Meanwhile, parents couldn't work for weeks between them and the kids being sick -- being in isolation while they were still positive, taking care of kids sick/hospitalized, not being able to put kids back in child care until they were well and no longer positive, etc. Luckily they have jobs/employers where they were able to take the time off and don't live paycheck to paycheck to have to go back to work while they and the kids were dealing with illness running through the family. And they were surprised that their kids got so sick because young kids supposedly don't get that sick from covid.
Posted by: HMB | August 06, 2022 at 09:18 PM
Useful anecdote, HMB. I had a similar conversation with a friend this week who got it with his wife and each had a very rough week.
Posted by: Joe | August 07, 2022 at 02:29 PM
I guess my point is that even if you think of covid as a bad flu, it can be very disruptive to your life, esp if you have young kids. My childless friends, family and acquaintances generally fared well, though I know a few who said they had to take a daily nap for over a month because of fatigue. And a few said that they had incredible night sweats for a couple of weeks -- that between the high fever of the first couple of days and the sweating they could see how someone could get dangerously dehydrated.So drink plenty of fluids if you get it!
Posted by: HMB | August 07, 2022 at 05:09 PM
HMB - The correct word would be childfree, not childless.
Posted by: Paloma Ave | August 08, 2022 at 09:22 AM
Apologies, Paloma and others -- point taken!
Posted by: HMB | August 08, 2022 at 09:34 AM
It seems like it was a relatively quiet week Covid-wise. I heard of one friend who got it. No instances of rebound cases aside from the one in the news. I just saw the top comment above asking about monkeypox back in May. The County just punts the question to the state which you can find here: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Monkeypox-Data.aspx
Back on Covid, here are the numbers for the week
Total Cases: 164,519 - Up 1,507 in the County for the week so down a bit again.
Burlingame Cases: 5,445 up 52 for the week--so a clear slowdown.
Hospitalizations in the County: 43 - also down.
Posted by: Joe | August 13, 2022 at 02:38 PM
Today's headline "County in low risk CDC tier". My observation: people shopping in Safeway and elsewhere have not gotten the message yet. There was also a bit of news I had not seen before: "Politics drives many CDC decisions, including one last spring not to collect information on breakthrough Covid cases lest this show declining vaccine efficacy." That was exactly the data I was hoping to get months ago. C'est la vie. The leveling off continued in the county this week.
Total Cases: 165,680 - Up 1,161 in the County for the week so down a bit yet again.
Burlingame Cases: 5,499 up 54 for the week--flat.
Hospitalizations in the County: 27 - almost half of last week.
Posted by: Joe | August 20, 2022 at 02:58 PM
In the same week that Fauci announces his retirement, the WSJ is quoting the London Telegraph with this data:
For 14 of the past 15 weeks, England and Wales have averaged around 1,000 extra deaths each week, none of which are due to Covid.
If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from the virus this year—and be even more deadly than the omicron wave.
So what is going on? Experts believe decisions taken by the Government in the earliest stages of the pandemic may now be coming back to bite.
------------------
Expect to see similar numbers here as the delayed care effects of the lockdown surface. In the County this week:
Total Cases: 166,644 - Up 964 in the County for the week so down a bit several weeks in a row.
Burlingame Cases: 5,523 up 24 for the week--less than half of last week's increase.
Hospitalizations in the County: 17 - almost half again of last week.
Posted by: Joe | August 27, 2022 at 12:40 PM
The bivalent vaccine was approved this week so the new cocktail for Fall jabs is on the way. There was talk about a bivalent Covid plus flu shot (trivalent?) but I don't think it is really on the horizon. Here are the numbers for the week:
Total Cases: 167,348 - Up 704 in the County for the week so down a bit again.
Burlingame Cases: 5,547 up 24 again for the week so very moderate.
Hospitalizations in the County: 22 - a slight uptick.
I went to the Greek Festival in Belmont yesterday. It's a long time favorite event. Things were pretty close to "back to normal" except the inside cafeteria food line was not in effect. All food service was outside although you could walk back inside to eat it. Stay cool this Labor Day weekend!
Posted by: Joe | September 04, 2022 at 01:31 PM
People seem to be continuously relaxing a little about this. I notice fewer masks and less social distancing going on. Here's the week's numbers
Total Cases: 168,111 - Up 763 in the County for the week so pretty flat for several weeks.
Burlingame Cases: 5,576 up 29 for the week so very moderate.
Hospitalizations in the County: 23 - flat also.
The newest booster is out so people are queueing up to get that.
Posted by: Joe | September 11, 2022 at 02:13 PM