COVID-19 Insights & Analytics Issue 3

July 30, 2020

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The COVID-19 Insights & Analytics newsletter is designed to quantify national trends that may help in COVID-19 response planning. The included data and analytics are derived from electronic patient data from 338 participating U.S. hospitals initiated on March 1, 2020 through July 23, 2020 unless otherwise indicated.

States that are re-opening the economy quicker are experiencing a rising rate of daily new positives.
The re-open earlier states are experiencing higher occupancy in their ICUs.

Testing Insights

Figure 1: Test positive in re-open earlier states

Figure 2: Test positive in re-open later states

Indoor restaurant dining was used as proxy time demarcation of a state’s re-opening status. If a state opened before May 22, 2020, they are categorized as “Re-open earlier” and the “Re-open later” states opened after May 22, 2020 or are not yet open to indoor dining.

Commentary for Figure 1 and 2

For the re-open earlier states, after a few months of relatively low and flat daily positive rates, a rapid increase was observed in the month of June. This corresponded with both higher testing volumes and higher positivity rates. Given that the incubation period of COVID-19 is 14 days, and the time delay it may take to be hospitalized and/or seek medical care from onset of symptoms, it is plausible that the increase is due at least in part to reopening policies.
For the re-open later states, after being part of the initial peak in daily positives, the daily positive rate declined from April through June, before experiencing an increase in July. The increase in these states came a month later and is far less drastic compared to the earlier re-open states.
The trend difference may be due to the quicker re-opening of businesses in the re-open earlier states, but could also be impacted by greater compliance of social distancing and mask wearing in states that were hit hardest in the beginning of the pandemic. Many of these areas are represented in the re-open later states.

Figure 3: Test positive age distribution for re-open earlier states

Figure 4: Test positive age distribution for re-open later states

Commentary for Figure 3 and 4

The re-open later states have an age spread that more approximates a “normal distribution” with a median age in the 50s.
The re-open earlier states have a disproportionate amount of positives from 21-30. This may be due to younger people visiting bars and restaurants in June and may reflect a more robust willingness to engage socially versus older populations during the pandemic. This phenomena has been reported on in the press.

Figure 5: Hospital Admissions in re-open earlier states

Figure 6: Hospital Admissions for re-open later states

Figure 5 and 6 are daily admissions % change vs. the same time period one year ago.

Data pulled for Figure 5 and 6 are the same subset of states as from the groups in figure 1 and 2.

Commentary for Figure 5 and 6

Overall hospital admissions are relatively similar between the two groups. The return of elective procedures and ER visits have not returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. This may be masking local capacity constraints in markets like Arizona, Florida and Texas in the re-open earlier group.
ICU admissions have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels for re-open early states, while the re-open later states are still 10-20% lower than a year ago. The difference may be driven by incremental COVID-19 positive admissions in markets seeing a surge. ICU utilization began dropping in mid-July. This may be due to suspension of procedures requiring ICU stays in states like Florida and Texas.

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COVID-19 Insights & Analytics Issue 3

Testing Insights

Commentary for Figure 1 and 2

Commentary for Figure 3 and 4

Commentary for Figure 5 and 6

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