Tracking the surge
 

Several people have referenced an article in the WSJ regarding the coming surge of Covid-19 cases in the villages, so I decided to post a daily update on the surge. Since there is no separate reporting for the Villages specifically, I decided to combine the numbers from the 3 counties that include portions of the villages, as reported by the Daily Sun. It's not perfect, but its a pretty good representation of the overall trends in our part of central Florida.

As of today, we have 506 reported cases in Lake, Marion and Sumter county. Dividing by total deaths of 21 gives us a case fatality rate of 4.1%. That is higher that the state average of 3%, I assume in part due to the fact that Sumter county has the highest average age of any county in Florida, so a higher percentage of the population is at risk. On the other hand, it appears that the case fatality rate of new infections is much lower, possibly due to more widespread testing and better treatment.


Below is a breakdown of the trends.

New cases: 13, up 2.6% from the previous day
% infected: .058% of the population has been tested positive.
Total Fatalities: 21, there has been no change for the past 6 days.
% Fatalities: .00242% of the population in the tri-county area has died from C-19.

Odds you get infected: Based on the total number of cases, your odds of getting infected are 1,709 to 1. Based on the new infections, your odds are 66,538 to 1.

Odds you will die: Based on the total deaths of 21, your odds of dying from C-19 are about 41,190 to 1.

Again, those are based on total deaths. If you use yesterdays number of new cases as a baseline, and apply the 4.1% case fatality rate (observed), your odds of contacting the disease and dying from that infection are 1,632,075 to 1 on any given day in the Tri-county area. As a point of reference, the odds of getting hit by lightning in Florida are about 600,000 to 1.

In Sumter county, which may be a better proxy for the Villages, the observed case fatality rate is 6.7%, and new cases were up by 10 (6.1%) yesterday. Using the same math as above, your odds of contracting C-19 are 13,300 to 1 in Sumter county, and your odds of dying from the the disease are 198,507 to 1 on any given day, assuming 10 new cases per day. We'll see how tomorrow's numbers look, and I'll post an update then.

Stay safe and be reasonable.

There are more than 900,000 people living in the three counties, TV is a small percentage of those people. 21 deaths out of 900,000 looks pretty good to me. I believe there are records of how many deaths in TV, last I read a few days ago was 9.

Although it is tedious, tracking the increase in cases by zip code on the FL Public Health Covid-19 site can narrow down the location of the positive cases.

For instance, Sumter Co. shows 5-9 cases in 32159, 53 in 32162, and 16 in 32163. Interestingly, there are 49 in Bushnell (33513) and 21 in Lake Panasofklee (33538). In Marion County's info for 32162, there are 0. Some of the same zip codes show up in different counties. Sumter shows a zip code for Leesburg with 0 cases, while Lake shows the same zip code, 34748, with 28.

To me it looks like the 10 new cases in Sumter yesterday were all men in Bushnell. I suspect more numbers from the correctional facility there.

Only the tip of the iceberg
 

The Villages has 76 confirmed Coronavirus cases (as of Tuesday). The tri-county area has more than 500 confirmed cases to date.

It is critical to recognize the very high probability that every one of those people have passed it on to 2-3 people...who in turn, have passed it on ... and on ...exponentially. Many of those people are out and about in supermarkets, pharmacies, and in every corner of The Villages (even those that might not be Villages residents). The number of confirmed cases is only the tip of the iceberg, as testing has been woefully inadequate.

The daily dashboard accessed from
Home | Florida Department of Health COVID-19 Outbreak
go to the bottom and find
Review case, monitoring and PUI information on the latest COVID-19 Daily Report.
See the report Click on See the report
It will take you to a new report each day.
Using Control F open a find search box or use the hand lens search icon
Enter The Villages
It will then highlight each entry for TV

Today
The Villages Sumter 68
The Villages Lake 7

Testing The Villages Regional Hospital 26 negative 5 positive

The results per lab are strange. Way too many labs are reporting 100% positive tests. Maybe they are only notifying their positives, which will skew the data, or maybe they are mis-reading results. But it is strange. Today page 20 to 31

Biocollection Worldwide : 1 neg 267 positive
Cape Coral Hospital Clinical Lab 1 neg 129 pos
Orlando Health 4 neg 117 pos
Quest Miramar 7 neg 106 pos

I have emailed the state but not received a reply. They probably have better things to do.

DISAGREE with the odds because we do not know how many people are positive but have not been tested. And the death rate depends on age and any other vulnerability. Therefore any one individual’s odds could be much much higher than the odds calculated by OP.

Numbers
 

It's the same dynamic for every contagious disease, this is nothing new. If you are worried about the veracity of the number of reported cases, track the fatalities, those numbers are pretty reliable, since most medical experts agree when a person has expired.

Odds
 

First of all, if we have a large population of positive but untested (and likely asymptomatic) individuals, the lower case fatality rate would largely offset the higher probability of infection. Secondly, the Sumter county numbers include an unusually high number of highly suseptable individuals, and that is reflected in the higher than average case fatality rate, as I noted in my post.

As a point of pride, Sumter also has the highest average age in the entire U.S. (62.7 years, based on 2010 census data. Next highest county is 55.9).

I expect we'll retain our #1 standing when the 2020 data is calculated!

Be aware that the Sumter Correctional Institute has a large number of positive cases. It is located in zip code 33513. As of the time of this post, they have 42 inmates and 4 staff that are infected. I tried to include a link to the website, but my post was flagged by doing so.

The Prison in Coleman is a federal prison and is reported on a different website. It currently shows 1 inmate and 3 staff infected. I couldn't include a link to this website either.

Things aren't as bad in the community as the numbers make it appear.

Nothing new? What is the definition of “novel” virus? Dead are dead but the age range and the proportional number of the dead are very relevant to a retirement community.

A study was done in a large California city testing for COVID19 antibodies to prove an individual had and recovered from COVID19. Basically there were believed to be about 80 people that were infected with COVID19 and recovered with no medical care for each person that was symptomatic and requiring medical attention. 80 to 1. You can find the data reported in several sources.

This is actually a good thing, assuming it is accurate and representative of the nation as a whole. It suggest the virus is MUCH more prevalent that previously known and MUCH less deadly than previously known.

So your theory the virus spreading " to 2-3 people...who in turn, have passed it on ... and on" is probably correct and yet is not nearly as dire as you seem to think. Until a vaccine can be administered (in about a year from now) herd immunity is what will eventually slow and then stop the virus.

Curious why you think developing a test for a previously unknown virus, producing it, distributing it, and administering it to 1 in 300 people in the US in a period of about 50 days is woefully inadequate. More needs to be done for sure but I for one am impressed with the effort to date.

It is absolutely not the same dynamic for every contagious disease and that is precisely why the coronavirus, with its very high rate of contagion, has shut down almost every country in the world. The fatality rate speaks for itself and it continues to increase every day. With thousands of people dying, the sarcasm in your comment was unnecessary.

perhaps also there are deaths attributed to the virus that, in fact, may actually be from other causes?