I’ve gotten a lot of questions about if Montgomery County’s rapid drop in positive Covid cases are actually representative of what is happening on the ground.
Some have questioned if the case dropping is due to an increase in availability of rapid tests. But I’m going to explain how that is not the case and that we do appear to be coming down off our local Omicron wave.
Cases Plummeting
You can see here that Covid cases are just plummeting, this is probably what you are used to seeing.
Cases per 100k total over 7 days dropped 580% over the past 20 days from 1/9 (Moco Peak) of 2137.65 cases down to 313.98 on 1/29.
Positivity Rate Dropping
Positivity rate has also dropped sharpy which is the first indication that the drop in cases is representative of actual cases.
If cases reduce but positivity rate does not (or positivity rate increases), this could indicate that we are not getting enough testing to catch cases. But this isn’t happening, the opposite is.
Positivity rate dropped 240% from 25.16% (1/9) to 7.38% (1/28) over the same 20 day period.
Testing Decreasing
Unfortunately the testing numbers has not been updated in recent days so we can’t compare that.
However, we can extrapolate this information using positivity rate and total cases.
At Case Peak (1/9), the 3 day average for testing was 12862 . Now (1/29) the extrapolated 7 day average for testing was 3940.
This is a 226% reduction in testing which is less than half of the 580% drop in cases.
Hospitalizations Dropping
Meanwhile, hospitalizations with covid, total beds with covid, and ICU with covid have all begun to drop. This indicates that the drop in cases is really representative of what is on the ground.
You can see that total hospital use never really got very serious even during Omicron peak. Covid related hospitalizations very likely did impact other hospital use for non urgent and elective procedures and surgeries.
Maryland Getting Past Omicron Too
More good news from Maryland officials:
Conclusion
Dropping cases, positivity rates, and hospitalizations does not necessarily mean everyone is “safe”.
It does mean that this intense Omicron wave really is dropping as fast as it came. This is similar to what has been seen in other areas hit by Omicron earlier than us such as South Africa, the UK, and NYC.
Now the challenge will be for our hospitals to catch up with the postponed surgeries and procedures which can put people are risk.