Well, we’ll see what effect all the springtime rioting has had on Rhode Island’s COVID-19 situation, but for now, the trends are all in a positive direction.

Once again, if you see news reports about continuing high death rates, don’t believe them.  The numbers continue to be revised going back weeks.  Double-digit deaths are becoming the anomaly.  An interesting note, here, is that the decrease is especially strong outside of the hospital.

Early on in this ordeal, I noted that the state was not maintaining any sort of count of “active” cases.  If we assume that the average COVID-19 case is active for two weeks, then the number is now below 2,000 (1,916) and plummeting.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue their downward trend, and there are now about half the patients in Rhode Island hospitals testing positive for COVID-19 than was the case at the peak on May 1.  Reminder: This is not people in the hospitals because of COVID-19.  That number stopped being tracked after April 30.

When the state changed the way it counted hospitalizations, the number jumped 41%.  If that difference has been maintained, there would now be just 133 people in the hospital because of the virus.

 

(See here for my original methodology and here for a subsequent modification I made.)

Projections versus actuals (date of report).

• Cases:
  • Projection for 6/2: 15,072
  • Actual for 6/2: 15,112
  • Projection for 6/3: 15,199
• Hospitalizations:
  • Projection for 6/2: 193
  • Actual for 6/2: 188
  • Projection for 6/3: 178
• Deaths:
  • Projections for 6/2: 724
  • Actual for 6/2: 732
  • Projection for 6/3: 736