Brace yourselves
Each day around 3:30 p.m., I check the Hamilton County Health Department COVID-19 website for the latest data. As I wait for the website to load, I try to predict what the day’s numbers will tell me about our local outbreak – hoping that it will show improvement, while at the same time bracing for bad news. I remember being taken aback in June, when we posted our first day with more than 100 new cases, and then again in November, when we topped 200 and later in the month 300 new cases in a day. But now, in each of the last three days, Hamilton County has reported more than 400 new cases.
It’s important to remember that this week’s staggering numbers are only just beginning to represent the impact of Thanksgiving gatherings, since it’s believed to take on average around four or five days (and possibly up to 14 days) before someone who’s infected with the coronavirus starts showing symptoms (if they do at all). Then, that person must go get tested and wait on average three days for results. And if they wind up needing hospital care, it could take another week or more before their illness reaches that point.
All this is to say – brace yourselves. Things are likely to get much worse before they get better.
Stay safe,