Trying to decide at what point I will stop using an N95 in public spaces and not doing indoor dining.
CDC says we are now at ~600 deaths per week and ~6,000 hospitalizations per week, which is a lot lower than flu, but still, where is my risk limit?
Except that's there's very little testing compared to previous times. It's apples and oranges. Deaths and hospitalizations are essentially meaningless now. I wouldn't think that's a good way to measure out your choices. The only two numbers that I can see still being meaningful are wastewater testing(although that has limitations) and excess deaths(which are lagging).
We have a hospital basically across the street from us. On the last day of August, 2022, they decided that they didn't have to keep reporting COVID numbers if they didn't test anymore. They haven't done a single test since. Officially, that means we have zero cases for the last 10 months. Those zero cases get averaged into the data for the CDC's whole area data, bringing down the numbers for a whole chunk of central Florida.
It doesn't have to be that extreme where you are to give a totally false sense of what's going on.
I have no wastewater data, either, so I'm pretty much forced to just assume everyone else has COVID. Seems like my only cautious option given the complete lack of data.
@BE
Right.
I feel like we are back in a situation where the CDC has abandoned us to our fate with a "you do you", but the data that would be needed to form any sort of rational decision are either attenuated or not available.
My county doesn't report COVID wastewater, and the nearest counties that do just show if it is detected or not. This is not very useful as a means to reach a decision on whether to mask or not.