The number of daily COVID-19 deaths is expected to continue to increase through early December, but a declining number of daily positive cases offers a glimmer of hope.
Statewide, the average daily number of deaths could rise to about 90 by early December, making coronavirus more deadly than three other leading causes of death combined, said Micah Pollak, associate professor of economics at Indiana University Northwest.
Heart disease, cancer and respiratory disease kill an average of 39.6 people, 36.9 people and 12 people per day in Indiana, respectively.
Based on the latest available data, Pollak's model shows the average daily number of hospital admissions across Indiana could rise to more than 400 by month's end, up from just under 250 last week.
"That's kind of the scary graph, because hospitals are at or close to capacity," said Pollak, who has been working with medical professionals to analyze coronavirus data. "We've got to deal with full capacity now, but we have admissions accelerating for another week to two weeks."
The models Pollak uses to predict hospitalizations and deaths consider the age of those currently reported to be infected and hospitalization and mortality rates among those age groups, he said.
Franciscan Health hospitals in Northwest Indiana continue to see occupancy rates between 80% and 90%, spokesman Robert Blaskiewicz said.
"Over the past couple weeks, our total number of COVID inpatients has been at the highest level we’ve seen since our initial peak in April," he said.
Pollak said one positive sign could be a declining average number of daily positive cases in Indiana's District 1, which includes Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton and Jasper counties.
However, the effect of Thanksgiving gatherings and travel won't be known for about two weeks, he said.
The seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases and the seven-day positivity rate for all cases are early indicators — warning signs of the virus's more dire consequences, including hospitalizations and deaths.
In District 1, the average daily number of positive cases hit a high of 902 on Nov. 12. By Nov. 18, that number had fallen to 808.
The seven-day average positivity rate for the five-county area fell from a high of 14.8% on Nov. 10 to 13.7% on Nov. 22, Pollak's data shows.
The positivity rate is the number of positive test results divided by the number of tests administered. It's an important metric to consider, because it shows whether a community is doing enough testing and can indicate the severity of an outbreak.
Public health officials consider a seven-day positivity rate of 5% to be a benchmark for whether testing is sufficient and the virus' spread is under control. When the rate reaches 10% or more, community transmission is generally considered to be out of control.
Throughout much of November, Northwest Indiana saw a rising positivity rate even as testing hit record levels. However, when testing increases at a faster rate than the virus spreads, the positivity rate declines.
Pollak said he expects to see positive cases continue to decline for about two weeks, before the effect of Thanksgiving gatherings and travel begins to show up in the data.
"I do think we'll see cases go up again at some point," he said. "It's hard to imagine a scenario were all this travel doesn't accelerate cases."
Pollak said it was surprising to see positive cases begin to decline.
Some minor restrictions have gone into effect, but no major policy changes have taken place, he said. Some schools have shifted to virtual learning, but community spread does not appear to be a major issue in schools, he said.
Pollak could only guess at the reason for the decrease, he said.
It's possible people started taking more precautions to limit exposure. Perhaps more residents were taking time off work or staying home because of the upcoming holiday.
Researchers have noticed a decline in cases just before other holidays, particularly Labor Day, Pollak said.
"It could be the virus is very cyclical," he said. "It goes in waves. We could have just hit another wave. ... Your guess is as good as mine."