Data Projects How Long COVID Spike Will Last In Louisiana
The Indian variant of COVID-19, also known as the "Delta variant", is causing a lot of panic in the United States. From renewed calls for lockdowns, the parents threatening to not send their kids to school in the fall, this new Indian variant has a lot of national attention right now in the US.
But the rest of the world has already been dealing with this variant. The "Delta variant" has already made its way through India, Germany, Portugal, and the UK have already battled this strain. Many of those countries took the approach of the World Health Organization, and did not lose focus on their strategies due to high case counts. Perhaps the best example is Scotland.
In Scotland, the country was prepared to move to "Level 0" of COVID reopening in July when the "Delta variant" hit. The country continued to move to "Level 0" (their last level before full reopening) with COVID cases spiking. They also continue to move to full opening in August. The country saw a massive uptick in COVID cases in June and July, but kept their plan in motion.
For the people of Louisiana, Scotland might be a good example of what to look for in the state's "Delta variant" experience.
Scotland has a fierce independent streak, like Louisiana, and their population is around 5.5 million, so it's not like a massive population that would be unrelated to a state the size of Louisiana.
In Scotland, their 7-day rolling average of COVID cases hit the 1,000 mark on June 17th. The average continued to grow, to over 3,000 cases per day, until July 6th when the 7-day rolling average of cases started dropping. It continued to drop every day since. That was a total of 19 days.
In Louisiana, the first day of continued growth in the 7-day average hit and stayed above 1,000 on July 14th. If we use the projections from Scotland, that means the Louisiana spike should start declining on August 7th.
The only thing that could keep Louisiana above that mark for longer than 19 days is vaccination rates. Louisiana has been one of the slowest states to vaccinate in the country. Which could give COVID a path to a longer run.