Fauci cites Minnesota's 'insidious' increase in positive test rate

[TexasTowelie]

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday told the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that Minnesota’s “insidious” rising percent of positive COVID-19 tests suggest a future surge like outbreaks that have slammed the southern U.S.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also said a pause on reopening is worth considering. Minnesota’s seven-day rolling positive case average is 5.1 percent, up from 5.0 percent this weekend and 4.9 percent on Wednesday. The rate has generally increased slowly since June.

Said Fauci: “It’s become clear now as you look back at the states in the southern region that have surged up … that prior to the surge you could detect an early increase in the percent positive for any given state. Even if it goes up by 1 to 1.5 percentage points, and it continues to go up. It generally does not spontaneously come down.”

State officials, he said, “may need to pause” reopening or “drop back a little bit.”

Read more: https://www.minnpost.com/health/2020/08/the-daily-coronavirus-update-fauci-cites-minnesotas-insidious-increase-in-positive-test-rate/

[progree]

1. Hopefully the statewide mask mandate (eff. 7/25) and closing Minneapolis bar areas (eff 8/1)

will bend the curve back down. They took effect on 7/25 and 8/1 respectively.

Below are my notes from several articles:

On July 29, Minneapolis Mayor Frey ordered that all bar areas within bars and restaurants in Minneapolis must close beginning August 1 at 5 P.M. Affecting 650 establishments. Dance areas are closed too.

People can still go to bars and restaurants, and order food and drinks, including adult beverages, but they must sit at tables (a maximum of four people at a table unless they are in the same family and household with 6 feet of spacing between tables. )

Governor Walz said, "We’re not looking at a statewide rollback at this point in time.”

Emergency Regulation 2020-17

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/07/29/mayor-jacob-frey-announces-bar-areas-must-close-again-due-to-covid-19-spread/

There's already a bit of a bending of the curve --
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/minnesota-coronavirus-cases.html

Daily new cases, 7 day moving average
7/29: 712 (all-time peak)
8/3: 680
-4.5%
But 5 days is too short to take much hope in this yet

[question everything]

2. How is the positive rate been calculated?

Still, I was looking at today's paper with total cases of around 50,000 and was thinking that for some states: Florida, California, Arizona, this has been a daily number..