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Age Structure Charts, February 3

By February 5, 2022Commentary

The most notable thing in the latest iteration of the age structure charts is the rise in hospitalizations and deaths among the very old.  I am not sure what this is due to, given the heavily vaxed nature of these age groups.  In another post you will see vaxed and unvaxed rates of events.  It appears that a lot of old unvaxed persons are dying, but I scratch my head over that.  Dave’s notes:

1. There are 2 slides for each set of data, one showing data for the whole pandemic and a second chart showing only data since early July, 2021. Note that the full pandemic slides have different start dates, because Minnesota Department started publishing different data on different dates.

2. The data for the charts on testing, hospital admissions, and deaths comes from the Minnesota Weekly Report (available here: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/index.html). The data in the Weekly Report is presented as cumulative totals for each data type each week. I am taking weekly differences and assembling the data into charts. This data is by date of report, meaning the charts are documenting new events reported this week, even though the underlying event occurred sometime in the past. The data is provided for 5 year age groups, and I am assembling into 10 year age groups to make the charts more readable.

3. The data for the Covid cases per week come from a data file published along with the Minnesota Weekly Report, here: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/index.html#wagscd1 This data is published by date of specimen collection, rather than by date of report as the other data is. The data is provided as cases per week in 5 year age groups. I am compiling the data into 10 year age groups in order for the charts to be more readable. This data is updated by date of specimen collection, so it is possible that past week’s data will be updated.

4. Fig. 1 and 2: Covid Tests Per Week.  Reported testing is moderately higher this week. All age groups increased by roughly the same amount. The only standouts are the 80+ age group which increased by more than the other groups, and the 10-19 age group which increased by less than the others.

5. Fig. 3 and 4: Covid Cases Per Week.  The reported Covid cases this week were sharply lower this week in all age groups, for the second week in a row. MDH appears to have processed their backlog of cases, since backlog data was removed today from the Situation Update web page. The impact of the lag in processing cases on the Weekly Report is unknown.  Total cases for the week were reported as 37,309, a 42% decrease from last week’s revised total of 64.629 cases.

6. Fig. 5 and 6: ICU Covid Admissions Per Week.  Reported ICU Covid admissions were generally lower this week. The exceptions were the 10-19, 40-49, and 70-79 age groups which increased for the week.  Reported total ICU admissions for the week were 162, a decrease of 29 from the 191 admissions the prior week.

7.  Fig. 7 and 8: Non-ICU Covid Admissions Per Week.  Reported Non-ICU Covid admissions were generally lower this week. The exceptions were the 0-9 and 80+ age groups which had slight increases for the week.  Total Non-ICU Covid admissions for the week were 1228 a decrease of 95 admissions from the prior week.

8.  Fig. 9 and 10: Covid Deaths Per Week.  Total reported Covid deaths for the week were 222, a decrease of 2 from the 224 reported deaths the week before. The 80= age group had a large increase for the week, matching the peak of this winter’s surge, but well below the peak deaths in late 2020.

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