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WPCNR SUNDAY COVID ROUND-UP. From the NY State Covid-19 Tracker. Observations by John F. Bailey. December 5, 2021:

The Covid Tracker of New York continues to report results on a 48-hour delay, it has been doing so for five days now, meaning Sunday’s covid cases reflect the new case covid positives reported Friday, December 3.

The Westchester County positives Friday number 388 up 66 from the day before (up 20%.)

The last day Westchester County had close to 400 cases was in the fourth month of the second wave of Covid in early April on April 8 when the county had 423 new persons testing positive. Within a few days of that, new infections began to taper down to 100 cases by the end of April, an Easter miracle. Cases eased down through May averaging 30 cases a day by the end of May.

Then former Governor Andrew Cuomo began to lift restrictions “coming back smarter,” but ignored most of his caution too soon uncharacteristically (after the state legislature stripped him of the authority to manage covid policy, and had initiated a probe of sexual allegations against him).

The governor within weeks had lifted restrictions. In June infections plunged to about 20 new cases a day. Euphoria created a very loose and careless atmosphere over the July 4th weekend. Anything went!

Within two weeks after July 5, infections per day climbed from 9 on July 5 to 51 on July 19, and continued to climb to 98 on August 1 to 147 on August 2 to averaging over 100 a day August 9 to August 14 to over 200 a day August 15 through August 31.

Since Labor Day infections averaged in the high 100s finally declining in the first week of October to below the 100 a day level in late October.

As holidays in October created more socializing and variants had their effect, November saw a new Fourth Wave begin. By the end of November just before Thanksgiving new covid infections were averaging 150 a day as of November 20.

That 150 a day has now doubled in two weeks to over 300 a day.

The Thanksgiving weekend has spread the disease very quickly resulting in a 300 new infections day total from November 30 through Friday December 3.

The county has gone from averaging 155 a day on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and 3 days later, hitting 311 infections on November 30; 359 on December 1, 322 on December 2.

Now we learn today Sunday 388 new poor people test positive Friday.

As I wrote yesterday 300 infections a day could mean a lot more persons getting sick from Covid in two weeks because 2/3 of those testing positive have not been vaccinated. The County Executive has assured us the hospitalizations are 52 as of Monday and are sustainable.

So the big mystery is what is the hospitalization rate of unvaccinated persons testing positive for covid the last two weeks before Monday, the 21st of November.

There were 2,127 total new covid infections from November 14 through Saturday November 27 (13 days).. That is 163 a day. If we divide 52 by 2,127 we get a hospitalized rate of 2.4% for the covid infected two weeks ago: 52 infections

Now depending on whether this 300 new infections a day, pushing on 400 as of Friday, continues let’s see what happens. A week of 300 infections yields 2,100, yielding 52 hospitalizations. The more infections you have the more hospitalizations. Four hundred infections a day yields 2,800 new cases a week which if hospitalized at the same 2.4% of unvaccinated persons means 67 hospitalizations a week in two weeks. Still not a problem if hospitalizations are stabilized at the 50 level now and stay there.

However if the holidays coming exponentially spread and double the infections to say 500 a day, 3,500 a week you’re up to 84 hospitalizations weekly. If the newly infected get more seriously infected you might get more hospitalizations. then again we may not. Six hundred a day means 4,200 new cases a week of mostly unvaccinated people. That many cases may drive hospitalizations up to 100 at the 2.4% rate. Seven hundred means 117 infections a week. Of course you do not know how sick these new infected people will become and how long to cure. We do not know how long hospital stays are now for covid sufferers being hospitalized. We do not know how many go into the hospital and are immediately stabilized and released.

Looking the way the new infections are going up is sobering. It is imperative if you are not vaccinated you get vaccinated.