COVID-19 Forecast for El Paso County — Dec. 7
Plus, our resident microbiologist on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines
Good morning, and happy Monday. On this pre-pandemic date last year, Colorado Springs locals were watching the Festival of Lights parade. (This year’s parade took place last Saturday in the Broadmoor World Arena’s parking lot, with a maximum of 60 entrants.)
Today, Phoebe Lostroh returns to give her weekly COVID-19 forecast for El Paso County and to explain why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened the recommended quarantine period. Lostroh is a professor of molecular biology at Colorado College on scholarly leave who is serving as the program director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation.
➡️ICYMI: On Wednesday, we reported on Colorado College’s weekly food pantry and the Scientific Advisory Group’s role in plans for the spring semester.
🚨WE’RE HIRING: Come join The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project team! CC students, if you’re interested in joining us, email us at ccreportingproject@gmail.com for application information. Applications are due Dec. 16 at 5 p.m. MT.
Phoebe’s Forecasts
NOTES: These forecasts represent her own opinion and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation or Colorado College. She used the public El Paso County dashboard for all data. Lostroh prepared these forecasts on Dec. 5.
⚖️How her predictions last week shaped up: Dec. 5 is the last day of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report week 49 in the national public health calendar. It is the 39th week since the first case was detected in El Paso County. Since March 13, 345 El Paso County residents have died of COVID-19. Last week, Lostroh predicted 4,036-4,406 new COVID-19 cases in El Paso County during the week ending Dec. 3. Instead, there were around 4,820.
“The fact that my estimate was too low means that the curve has accelerated again,” Lostroh says.
Predicted cumulative reported cases in El Paso County
🗝️Key points: The reported cases are represented by black circles, while estimates are in other colors and are based on fitting an exponential curve to the most recent 21, 14, or 7 days. Horizontal boxes filled with a gradient from white to purple indicate the six weeks following an event that might reduce spread. Horizontal boxes filled with a gradient from white to pink indicate the six weeks following an event that might increase spread. For the week ending Dec. 10, Lostroh predicts there will be 5,300-6,000 new COVID-19 cases in El Paso County. Lostroh’s prediction range is in part so wide because of lags in reporting cases, tests, and deaths.
“The data from El Paso County Public Health are coming in very slowly,” Lostroh says.
14-day rolling incidence annotated with changes in local policy and activities
🗝️Key points: The actual calculated incidences are in black Xs, and the other symbols provide estimates based on exponential curve-fitting. Four weeks after the statewide mask mandate, the incidence curve flattens. It has been almost four weeks since the local safety precautions changed to “Level Orange: High Risk,” but so far, El Paso County does not have a downward-trending incidence curve.
Cumulative reported hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in El Paso County
🗝️Key points: The hospitalization curve in red transitions to a steeper increase between days 252-259, as does the curve for deaths. The hospitalization curve is worsening faster than the curve for cumulative deaths. For the past two weeks of reliable data, about 15% of local people hospitalized with COVID-19 ultimately died from it. From Nov. 16-29, El Paso County had around a 3.9% hospitalization rate. If this trend continues, Lostroh predicts 207-234 new hospitalizations next week, which is 5-6 times higher than the peak of the summer wave.
Reported weekly cases of COVID-19 in El Paso County
🗝️Key points: The summer wave peaked during week 30, but local cases this past week are almost eight times higher than at the peak of the summer wave.
Q-and-A with Lostroh: Our resident microbiologist on mRNA vaccines
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CC COVID-19 Reporting Project: The CDC recently shortened the recommended quarantine time for an individual who may have been exposed to the coronavirus to 7-10 days, compared to the previous 14. Why did that happen and what are the implications of that decision?
Lostroh: I think it happened because as we have more cases, we’re learning more. From the earliest data coming out of China, people were still shedding virus detectable by the PCR test for weeks after they developed symptoms. Now, we know a little bit more about the sensitivity of the PCR test versus how long a person is actually infectious with the virus. It turns out there’s detectable virus genome in someone’s nasal passages for longer than there’s actually detectable infectious virus. So people can have the detectable levels of genomes in their nose near the end of the course of infection, but not actually be infectious. That’s the basis of shortening the quarantine time. So it’s good, I mean, it shows that science is always open to revision, which I think is part of what conspiracy theorists pick up on and then say, ‘But it isn’t true.’ But actually it’s a big strength of science that you can get more information and then make adjustments and, you know, move forward in a new way.
CCRP: Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses. How far apart are the doses spread out and how will that impact vulnerability to COVID in between doses?
Lostroh: You’re still vulnerable to the virus in between the two doses. If you do get both doses, you will reach immunity about eight weeks from the first dose. So, hypothetically, if the doctors in Colorado were to get immunized today, they would be immune, if they got both shots, two months later — so after Christmas. Both the mRNA shots are four weeks apart. I don’t know how much flexibility there is in that. Imagine a logistical problem where you give somebody a vaccine, and then you tell them they must come back on this other day to get the second shot. A thousand things can happen to not get people to come back for their second dose, like, ‘My dog threw up and I had to take him to the vet, so I missed my vaccine appointment’ or a million other things. That is going to add a layer of logistical complexity. I have high confidence that healthcare workers and people in long-term care facilities will get the two doses exactly four weeks apart. But when it starts to get to the general public, that’s another issue, and we’re going to have to learn how much flexibility there is. Is it okay if you get the shots three weeks apart, five weeks apart, six weeks apart? We don’t know. We’re going to find out the hard way. We’re building the spaceship while we fly it, as they say. So yeah, it’s two months to get immunity after the first shot, if you get both shots, to have confidence that you’ve reached the highest level of protection that you can.
CCRP: Why are Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines unlike other vaccines that have been mass distributed, and what are the pros and cons of using an mRNA vaccine?
Lostroh: It’s interesting that the United States decided to go all-in on a brand new technology for this vaccine that we really need. The benefit is that it can be manufactured quickly — that’s it. The other benefit is it’s ready to go right now, because we put all of our money into it. The problem with mRNA vaccines is that we have never tried them in humans before. We don’t have a track record of knowing the various adverse events that could happen, if any. And then the storage, where they have to be stored at very cold temperatures, I didn’t really know what a problem that was. I have one of those ultra-cold freezers in my lab, and so does almost every molecular biologist at Colorado College. It’s a routine piece of research equipment, but apparently a minus 70- or 80-degree freezer is not a routine piece of medical equipment, especially outside of major urban areas, so I didn’t know that. That’s going to be a problem for vaccine distribution. Also, you have to store this vaccine in glass, and we don’t use glass in the minus 70 freezer — you would have to buy a specially manufactured glass that can resist that low of a temperature. Now they’re trying to manufacture literally millions of these special glass vials, so that’s going to be a difficult problem.
About the CC COVID-19 Reporting Project
The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is created by Colorado College student journalists Miriam Brown, Isabel Hicks, Esteban Candelaria, and Lorea Zabaleta in partnership with The Catalyst, Colorado College’s student newspaper. Work by Phoebe Lostroh, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at CC and National Science Foundation Program Director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, will appear from time to time, as will infographics by Colorado College students Rana Abdu, Aleesa Chua, Sara Dixon, Jia Mei, and Lindsey Smith.
The project seeks to provide frequent updates about CC and other higher education institutions during the pandemic by providing original reporting, analysis, interviews with campus leaders, and context about what state and national headlines mean for the CC community.
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