[christkv]

The infections are spiking but for example in Madrid the number of hospital beds with covid patients is holding steady at 19% (as of October 23). https://www.epdata.es/datos/evolucion-coronavirus-cada-comun...

So many people are getting ill but a lot less are ending up in hospital than March-April. I find the discussion about number of cases to be a distraction.

[tremon]

The infections are spiking

Not in Madrid. From your own link, the number of new cases in Madrid has been holding steady around 2,500-3,500 for a month now [0]. Since the average hospital stay for Covid-19 is around 20 days, the in-flow and out-flow of patients in hospital beds should reach a steady state. In fact, you can see from [1] that the number of new cases was higher in september than in october, so we should expect to see a slight decline in hospital occupation over the first few weeks of october, which is exactly what the charts show [2].

So if you start your post with a falsehood, what value does the rest of your post have?

[0] https://www.epdata.es/casos-diarios-coronavirus-lugar-ultimo...

[1] https://www.epdata.es/evolucion-nuevos-casos-diarios-coronav...

[2] https://www.epdata.es/porcentaje-camas-hospital-ocupadas-pac...

[Jare]

The amount of tests performed in Madrid in that same period went down from 2500 to nearly 1000, so it's only natural that the amount of cases is going to go down or stay steady. Is there a dataset that disputes this? If testing has indeed gone back up, we'll see the numbers in a week or two (because data from the past 2 weeks is always missing large chunks that get added later).

I believe we're still in for a few surprises, and I can only pray the magnitude of those surprises remains tolerable.

[dragontamer]

The pipeline is cases -> hospitalizations -> deaths, with a week or 2-weeks between each stage.

Only 20% of cases turn into hospitalizations, and only a small percentage of hospitalizations turn into deaths... but that's the general pipeline. The exact % changes depending on population dynamics (who gets sick, and where), but the biggest contributing factor is the number of people in the previous stage of the pipeline. (If you double cases, then a few weeks later, hospitalizations will almost certainly double).

If a case-spike happens, the idea is to make a decision BEFORE hospitalization spikes up a few weeks later. We want to be ahead of the wave, not behind it.

[slimed]

!remindme 2 weeks

[christkv]

Well I'm saying the Madrid numbers are not bearing out the prognosis you are outlining. It could be younger people are getting ill and that elderly people are better isolated but it's hard to know because they don't provide deaths by age groups.

[dragontamer]

My spanish isn't the best, but with assistance from Google Translate, I'm able to line up the death-charts with the cases charts.

https://imgur.com/cJw6dTk.png

If I'm reading that spanish correctly: its "Number of daily cases" (casos diarios) on the top, with "number of deaths" (Muertos) on the bottom, both in Madrid alone.

----------

The first wave is clearly wreaked by undertesting the population: Spain probably just didn't have enough tests to really count the cases back then. But for the 2nd wave (going until today), the death numbers clearly went up a few weeks after the case-count went up.

The case-count has begun to decline in Madrid, I think they're "over the hump" (knock on wood...). So looking forward, they're in a good spot.

But you can clearly see: when cases go up, deaths go up soon afterwards. When cases go down, the deaths go down soon afterwards.

[Barrin92]

not sure why you're being downvoted. The situation right now is much better than it was during the first wave. (https://imgur.com/nDgb7d7, representative of most countries)

[kgwgk]

"much better" may be a matter of opinion but it's definitely getting worse.

There are 2500 patients in intensive care in France. Far from the 7000 at the peak but they were just 1000 one month ago and 1500 two weeks ago.

[christkv]

People don't like information that contradicts their convictions. You question the "narrative" and they get upset. Somehow epidemiology became a political question I guess in the us.

[chrisco255]

Well, it's an election year, unfortunately.

[corty]

Not in the rest of the world, but it still looks similar. I guess it is just incompetent politicians and bureaucrats being overwhelmed by things.

[anoncake]

They're no worse than anyone else. Practically the entire population is panicking.

[Joeri]

The article is about hospitals filled with coronavirus patients to the point they have to turn away new patients. Did you read any of it?