Strangely, Westchester was not grouped with the New York City region which shared a similar epidemic and with which Westchester is tied by heavily traveled commuter train lines. Instead, Westchester is grouped with the 'Mid-Hudson Region' which includes the less populous and lesser effected counties of Rockland, Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, and Putnam.
Each region must meet the gating criteria to enter 'Phase 2' which allows some low-risk/high-value businesses to open. Because Westchester was the first county in New York with a cluster (New Rochelle) it is ahead of the other counties on the epidemic curve. I have not studied these counties (yet) in detail, because they are not similar to Westchester. My early guess is that they will delay the opening of Westchester.
The criteria and the current conditions in Westchester are summarized below.
1. 14 days of decline in total hospitalizations (rolling 3 day averages)
The hospitalization data for Westchester is not published. The county executive usually gives the number in his daily briefing. From his accounts Westchester meets this criteria. As I have stated in prior blogs, I do not believe the '3-day averaging' does an adequate job of eliminating noise in the data. Much of the noise comes on weekends, so a 7-day average is needed.
2. 14 days of decline in deaths (rolling 3 day average)
Westchester deaths have been declining for three weeks, but there are not 14 consecutive days of decline due to the noise. Even a 3-day rolling average does not remove the noise (as mentioned above). The green line is the 3-day rolling average. The last three weeks can be approximated by a linear decay (orange dashed line). That decay predicts Westchester could have a '0' day by May 17. For practical matters Westchester meets this criteria, but the criteria are poorly writtern.
For Westchester this mean less than 20 patients per day. Currently less than 10% of the new cases are hospitalized and there are about new 200 cases per day. Westchester is borderline in meeting this criteria, but the hospitals are not taxed and the hospital population is dropping. This criteria is not meaningful if hospitals are not stressed! I am not sure why they threw in this criteria? It is redundant.
Westchester has 3000 beds and only about 700 are being used for COVID-19. That number continues to drop. Criteria met.
5. >90days of PPE supply
I am not sure what this mean? 90 days supply based on future estimated hospitalizations? Or is this some unrealistic supply based on a worse-case scenario? This seems a bit like they are just trying to slow things down. Who has a 90-day supply of anything?
6. >30 tests per 1K per month
This criteria means 1000 tests per day for Westchester. Westchester has been testing about 2000 per day for the last month. Criteria met. If 10% of tests are positive, that results in 200 new cases per day in Westchester (10% of 2000 tests) leading to about 20 new hospitalizations (see Criteria #3). Currently Westchester is running ~15% positive, but the trend will put it at ~10% in one more week.
7. >30 tracers per 100K (300 for Westchester)
This just means Westchester needs to hire 300 lackies. I have explained in previous blogs why 'Test and Trace' is a fool's errand for a virus where 90% of the cases are asymptomatic. [Antibody tests show at least 15 % of Westchester has been exposed, but there are only 2.5% confirmed cases.] Critieria met.
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