Covid Tracking: Here come the holidays

Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

Covid Tracking: Here come the holidays

November 6, 2021

Halloween was a success this year; on my street anyway. We had more Trick or Treaters than we have had for at least five years. Tonight we turn back the clocks–yet another pointless changing of our bio-rhythms. The grocery stores are full up with turkeys and in-boxes are filling with "early Black Friday deals". Talk about unclear on the concept. So let's use this past week as our Covid baseline for tracking purposes as the holiday gatherings accelerate and the boosters come available to those who will avail themselves.

Here's the data from San Mateo County for this week:

91.7% of the County over age 16 is vaccinated. Up another 0.4% from last week.

Total Cases: 53,201 +349 in the County for the week. The new positives have been running about +350 for weeks.

Positivity: 1.0% This gauge is flat again and with a mandate for weekly testing of those who refuse vax, it will likely stay very low as the denominator increases.

Burlingame Cases: 1,631 Up by 13 from last week. Cases in the last 30 days up a little to 60.

Even with some office workers being required to show up in the office and families thinking it's time to act like families again, the foundation of a safe holiday season seems like it is in place in San Mateo County. Let's hope so. Here is a chart from the Daily Post that shows the variation in death rates by county in the Bay Area–a 22.9% swing is huge and somewhat unexplained to date.

Covid deaths_111221

Posted in General

55 responses to “Covid Tracking: Here come the holidays”

Joe

April 16, 2022

As reports of the BA.2 subvariant climb in the Northeast, we are seeing a bit of a bump here as well. The reports are catching up to what I figured a few weeks ago–at home testing and asymptomatic positives mean the reported numbers are likely way off. The replacement is hospitalizations, so let’s start tracking that:
Total Cases: 123,502 – Up 1,102 in the County for the week — up about 32% from last week’s increase
Burlingame Cases: 3,945 – Up by 38 over last week, similar to last week’s increase but causing the number of cases in the last 30 days to tick up again to 104.
Hospitalizations in the County: 11
Joe

April 23, 2022

Overheard this week while picking up take-out; “everybody’s getting Covid”.
Overheard in the check-out line at Safeway; “everybody’s getting Covid”.
Reported the Daily Journal; 90 of 600 San Mateo High students got Covid after the prom in SF last week. (and counting)
In the Chronicle this week: “Some experts say city may be seeing surge even though metrics are low”. The data geeks at the Chron have created an “uncertainty ratio” that divides the daily testing positivity share by the 7-day average confirmed case counts. I’m not convinced it addresses the fundamental uncertainty of cases that go completely unreported to anyone–test positive and just ride it out seems to be common.
Anyway, even if the numbers are off let’s still track them in the County:
Total Cases: 124,946 – Up 1,444 in the County for the week — up about 31% again from last week’s increase.
Burlingame Cases: 4,062 – Up by 117 over last week, triple last week increase. 162 in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 14, up by just 3.
Since Wednesday was 4/20 there may be another high coming…..
Joe

April 30, 2022

Here’s the Saturday check-in which shows some slowdown–which is likely because fewer people are getting tested officially and even fewer are seeing anyone about their symptoms.
Total Cases: 124,946 – Up 1,607 in the County for the week — up about 11% from last week’s increase, so slowing down.
Burlingame Cases: 4,135 – Up by 103 over last week, so also slowing. 210 cases in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 12, down 2.
Joe

May 7, 2022

Some health officials are calling it a swell (sort of like a surge, but smaller) and today the Chron has a piece titled “Sixth wave of pandemic hitting Bay Area”. BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 are here. It’s starting to look like the Dewey decimal system of Covid. Here’s how the SM County week turned out:
Total Cases: 127,590 – Up 2,644 in the County for the week — up 65% from last week’s increase, so surging just in the official numbers.
Burlingame Cases: 4,135 – Up by 66 over last week, so slowing down here! 249 cases in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 19, up by 7.
It’s a mixed message when the County accelerates and B’game decelerates–unless more B’gamers just deal with it at home.
Joe

May 14, 2022

The County dashboard is having “systems issues” with the State tracking so the next update will be on Monday. I’m not sure if these numbers reflect the usual Friday update or not:
Total Cases: 127,590 – Up 1,793 in the County for the week — down a third from last week’s increase.
Burlingame Cases: 4,249 – Up by 114 over last week, so almost double the prior week. 256 cases in the last 30 days.
Hospitalizations in the County: 29, up by 10.

ABOUT THE VOICE

The Burlingame Voice is dedicated to informing and empowering the Burlingame community. Our blog is a public forum for the discussion of issues that relate to Burlingame, California. Opinions posted on the Burlingame Voice are those of the poster and commenter and not necessarily the opinion of the Editorial Board. Comments are subject to the Terms of Use.