California Covid-19 deaths could almost triple by April 1.
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley as well as Bay Area Counties are about to go into lockdown, and 33 million of California’s 40 million, or 83%, will be in lockdown to only essential travel and meetings. The shutdown is for three weeks. The 278,000 US deaths is just two days short of the population of Irvine, CA, at 282,000. Current California deaths are approaching 20,000, and 1.3 million are confirmed infected.
Current deaths in the IHME model fits for California are at 19,924, and are projected to grow by a factor of 2.72 or 172% to 54,120 by April 1. Fast track vaccines can reduce this to 51,871 or by 2,219, while full masking (95%) could reduced it to 45,913 saving 8,207 lives. So by April 1, full masking could outdo the vaccine by a factor of 3.7 in lives saved. Current masking is at 77% in California.
Present deaths in California in the IHME model are 19,924, meaning that there are 34,196 more to go by April 1. The 8,207 lives saved by full masking are 24% of future deaths with only current masking.
The March 1 projection of the IHME projections of November 19, was 37,062. The projection for March 1 deaths in this edition has grown to 47,026. So that is and increase of 10,000, or 27% growth in the projections.
Daily deaths are currently 112 in the IHME for California, but these will increase by 270% to a peak of 415 a day on February 3. With full masking, that can be reduced to 284 a day, saving 131 a day, or 32%, or a third.
Estimated daily infections peak on January 15 at 79,094 a day. This is twice (2.0) times the current estimated daily infections of 39,216 a day. With full masking, the January 15 daily infections will be reduced to 54,012, saving 25,082 or 32% or third of daily infections. Current confirmed infections are rapidly increasing, but a seven day average is around 17,500. The ratio of model current estimated infections to confirmed ones is 2.2 in California. In a graph, IHME shows that currently 29% of cases are detected, giving a ratio of 3.4. As of November 16, 9% of Californians were infected according to the model, and that was still less than 10% on November 30. On April 1, it is estimated that 25-30% will be infected.
The California lockdowns are triggered when available ICU beds fall below 15%. Two of the five districts have done so, as listed at the start of this article. However, the IHME model shows a much more drastic situation. They quote ICU beds available over average ICU bed use as 1,994, slightly under 2,000. Their model says that a total of 2,535 Covid-19 ICUs are needed now, which then rises and falls, but still requires 3,257 by April 1. The peak total Covid-19 ICU need occurs on February 2, where it will be 4,243, over twice the total of extra available ICU beds.
All hospital beds needed for Covid-19 over average use will peak on February 4, at 37,809. There are normally 26,654 excess beds available. The excess beds will be exceeded from January 5 to March 8, over two months. The bed counts do not include surge beds. Update, December 7, 10,000 Californians are now hospitalized.
The reason that full masking is more effective than vaccines is that vaccines can only be distributed to a fraction of the population in the first quarter, while everybody can contribute to full masking immediately. In California this is going from 77% masking to 95% masking, equivalent to immediately vaccinating 18% of the population of 40 million, or 7.2 million Californians. In California adults, 80-84% are willing to take a vaccine for Covid-19.
