Rhode Island’s daily reports on COVID-19 are settling into a pattern over the past few days.  The number of total cases is growing more slowly each day, and hospitalizations are generally down, while deaths continue to increase at a more or less steady pace.  The latter two measures, meanwhile, are regularly revised going back weeks, making it difficult to know what the trends actually are.

The best news of today’s report is that new cases saw its smallest one-day increase since April 7, with only 175 positive cases despite an increase in testing compared with the day before.  (We should note, by the way, that a reduction in the number of tests isn’t necessarily evidence of failure, but could indicate that fewer people need to be tested.)

On the downside, the number of people in the hospital increased, but as previously discussed, we can no longer attribute those hospitalizations to the disease itself.  That is, we are no longer being told who is in the hospital because of COVID-19, but rather, the number represents the number of people in the hospital while having COVID-19, even if they are completely asymptomatic.  (Of course, compared with the state’s original projections that we’d have thousands of people in the hospital because of COVID-19 right now, the gaps between the different was of counting the actual data seem like quibbling.)

My updated projection graph follows:

 

Just for fun, I’ve added the line from the above chart to the state’s original projection, which led the governor to take such extreme measures, and the rest of us to accept them.  My line is the red one way down low.

And here’s how my projections compared with reality today:

• Cases:
  • Projection for 5/4: 9,633
  • Actual for 5/4: 9,652
  • Projection for 5/5: 9,805
• Hospitalizations:
  • Projection for 5/4: 315
  • Actual for 5/4: 339
  • Projection for 5/5: 323
• Deaths:
  • Projection for 5/4: 325
  • Actual for 5/4: 341
  • Projection for 5/5: 346