Economy 28 October 2021, 12:03pm

COVID-19: Over 4,000 new cases, 45 deaths, nearly 2,000 people in hospital

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Hungarian authorities diagnosed 4,039 people with COVID-19 and 45 people died of coronavirus-related diseases over the past 24 hours. Nearly 2,000 people with Covid are in hospital, with 204 of the on ventilator. Comparison bonanza with a cornucopia of graphs.

Let's start with a few key figures to compare the current 'wave' of the coronavirus pandemic with the one a year ago. And then it's all charts. At first, there was a 10 to 12-day 'delay' in the current 'wave' compared to the one at the same time of 2020. This gap has narrowed to about 3 days by now.

27 October 2021 vs. 27 October 2020:

new cases --- 4,039 vs. 2,291
in hospital --- 1,970 vs. 3,166
on ventilator --- 204 vs. 263
test positivity --- 14.56% vs. 12.22%
3-day average percent positive --- 15.31% vs. 14.89%
accumulated cases (1 Aug - Oct 27) --- 49,771 vs. 61,407
accumulated deaths (1 Aug - Oct 27) --- 665 vs. 980

Balázs Pártos, the original ‘author’ behind some of these graphs commented in a Facebook post about the positivity rate two days ago.

“Interestingly, our best chance in terms of COVID-19 is if the percent positive continues to rise. If it keeps on rising at the [then] current rate, it will reach 30 to 35% relatively soon, and it will practically never breach that level. The test positivity rate was not stuck for a long time there anywhere in the world. The daily peaks are around 35 to 40% everywhere, but the 7-day average is not north of the 35% mark anywhere.

“When we start to approach 30% then we’ll be about a week from the peak in infections, as far as detection goes, that is. In my view, the infection peak is when the positivity rate hits 26-28%. The rate will keep on climbing from there (i.e. from 26 or 28%) for another five, seven or ten days, but those diagnosed then had been tested earlier.

“It’s a rather paradoxical situation, but if test positivity jumps it will be the good news. If it gets stuck around 15%, well, that will suck.”

What the declining ratios on the following charts mean is that hospitals are currently being transformed into Covid centres. The 3-day average ratio of hospitalised Covid patients to the number of active cases is down to 6.4-6.5% from over 7% it was for two weeks (29 Sept - 12 Oct). The 3-day average On ventilator / In hospital ratio has retreated to 11% from over 15% in early Oct.

On chart below the 0% line is important. When the curves are under 0% there’s a decline, when they go over 0% it’s an increase. The changes show that the situation in terms of hospitalisations started to worsen after 20 August.

More importantly, when a value is north of 0% but the curve descends, it means an increase at a slowing rate, rather than a decrease. If the curve is above 0% and ascending, it is an increase at an accelerating rate. When we are under 0% and the curve goes lower, it translates into an accelerating decrease, and when it goes up it marks a decelerating decrease.

When the Case Fatality Rate (CFR, shown on a reversed scale below) drops the pandemic starts to gather momentum, because CFR = deaths / registered cases. There is an increasing number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases but the number of Covid fatalities is just starting to catch up. Whatever looks like a drop on the chart, is actually an increase in reality.