COVID-19 Update September 18

COVID-19 Update September 18

Total: 322 confirmed cases in Salem
1 out of every 92 Salem residents have been infected
Salem Today: 1 new case in the past 2 days, 9 active cases

• • • TODAY’S SPOTLIGHT • • • • • •

Salem has another resident who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. We have averaged 1.5 people every day for the past two weeks.
48 NH Residents had positive test results today; the number of positive cases in NH went up by 47. The daily average for the past week is 34 and for the past two weeks is 35 people infected per day.
The positivity rate today is 2.34% The daily average for the past week and the past two weeks are both 2.6%. The goal is less than 2.0%.
The school report is getting too big to summarize by school, and, because I question its accuracy, I’m only going to do brief summaries as a gauge of how things are changing. Therefore, schools with active or recovered cases:
- No preschool. 7 elementary schools. 2 middle schools. 9 high schools. 11 Colleges/Universities.
- Salem is not showing as having had any infections.
- Windham is showing with 4 active cases, and 3 recovered cases.
- UNH-Durham has 28 active cases, and 65 closed cases, and is still showing up as the only school with any clusters. (They have had 2, but no current outbreaks.)
UNH has its own dashboard, where they are reporting a one-week daily average of almost 3,400 tests. These are not being included in the state’s report, which has averaged only 1,461 over the past week. I missed yesterday’s press conference. I’m told that “Dr. Chan reported that UNH testing has NOT been included in the daily DHHS numbers and says this will begin to be included soon.” (Thanks, Nancy!) Why hasn’t this been included since the beginning?
13 more people were reported today as “recovered.” In the past week, 247 people in NH are no longer considered infectious. This does not mean that they are healthy, or that they feel the same as they did before they were infected.
The number of active cases in NH is back up to 306. On Sept 4, just two weeks ago, we were down to 209.
No one has been hospitalized with COVID-19 in the 24-hours covered by this report. The number of hospitalized patients is also unchanged.
There have been no new COVID-19-related deaths in NH in the past three days.
The number of new cases is growing internationally, with a trend that is a bit concerning. Today there were almost 346,000 new cases reported. The two-week daily average is 281,948.
The number of US new cases are also rising. Today we had over 51,000 new cases; the two-week daily average is 38,530.
I have updated two tables, which can be found below the calendar.

• • • • DIAGNOSTIC TESTS IN NH • • • •

New positive cases per DHHS: 48
My new positive cases (Total of today’s cases minus yesterday’s total): 47
Children under 18 in new cases: 14
Total positive cases in NH: 7,861
Percentage of today’s tests that are positive: 2.34%
Total PCR tests results reported today (Positive results plus negative results): 2,008
The daily average of diagnostic (PCR) tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 1,213
New negative results reported today: 1,961
Total negative cases in NH: 227,696

• • • • Rockingham County • • • • • •

Total cases in Rockingham County: 1,959
New cases in Rockingham County: 10
Rockingham County: New cases per 100K residents: 3.2
Rockingham County 1-week average per 100K residents: 2.9
Percent of all cases from Rockingham County: 24.9%
Percent of all cases from either Hillsborough County or Rockingham County: 54%

• • • • Active Cases• • • • • •

Active cases in NH: 306
Active cases in Rockingham County: 91
Percent of NH’s active cases that are in Rockingham County: 29.7%

• • • • OTHER TEST RESULTS• • • • • •

New antibody tests: 59
Total antibody tests (No break downs of positive vs. negative): 30,635
The daily average of antibody tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 44
Children diagnosed with MIS-C: (as of 5/22/2020): 1

• • • • RECOVERED IN NH • • • • • •

Announced today: 13
Total Recovered: 7,117
Percentage of diagnosed cases that have recovered: 90.5%

• • • • HOSPITALIZATIONS IN NH • • • • • •

New: 0
Current: 7
Total Hospitalized: 725
Percentage of those who have been infected that have been hospitalized: 9.22%

• • • • DEATHS IN NH • • • • • •

Lives lost today: 0
Persons over 60 years of age who died today: 0
Persons under 60 years of age who died today: 0
Total fatalities in NH associated with COVID-19: 438
NH Residents diagnosed with COVID-19 that died: 5.57%
Lives lost in Rockingham today: 0

These are not simply numbers. We must not forget that these are all someone’s husband or wife, mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter, friend or neighbor.

It has been a frustrating day today, on many levels. I was unable to obtain the stats from the state, so my spreadsheet has holes in the town and county data, the school data, and the kid’s reports. I tried! I’ve reported the un-updated links to the webmaster, who responded quickly the last time they screwed up. Since there was no response today, I re-sent the webteam a message, and called several people. No answers, so I left messages. I heard back from a “Public Information Officer, Bureau of Communications, NH Department of Health and Human Services” who wrote “Please see the overview dashboard for yesterday attached. Today’s will be updated this evening.” That graphic she sent was useless. A request for more info was ignored, but there were changes to the website in midafternoon.

Today it was hard to tell what data I was looking at! On the main menu, it said that the report was updated as of September 17, 2020, 9:00 AM. The graphics for Active Cases Dashboard, Active Cases Map, Cumulative Cases Dashboard and Cumulative Cases Map showed September 16, but when those links are opened, the new pages showed September 18. For a while, I couldn’t tell if I was looking at yesterday’s data or today’s. Apparently, they were able to update the info for today in midafternoon. The menus now look like I expect it, but we are missing a day’s data.

So much for transparency and accuracy. Can you hear my frustration?! When we combine issues like this, with the UNH tests not being included in the NH test counts, and schools like Salem and Windham high schools not being reported in the school dashboard, as well the school contact tracing issue, it is hard to have faith in the NH DHHS. They can do better. They need to do better.

Tomorrow will be a new day. Stay safe, and always, be kind.

~Bonnie