California Restrictions Saving Lives: Washington Virus Tracker

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The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research arm of the University of Washington, says early and rigorous stay-at-home orders, early actions to shutter non-essential businesses, and strict social distancing are having a large and measurable impact on projected deaths and hospitalizations from the coronavirus across the state of California.

The Institute’s virus modeling and tracking has been cited repeatedly by the government’s coronavirus task force, and used by the U.S. government in virus response and planning for weeks.

According to the Institute’s metrics, which are updated daily with new data, models show California will experience the peak number of virus deaths on April 26th, at a much lower level than originally feared.

The model also predicts, if current trends hold, that California’s healthcare system will be stressed, but able to handle the case load that is anticipated at the time the virus surge peaks in late April.

The horizontal purple line in the graphic below indicates hospital beds available statewide, while the dashed purple line shows the projected need. Similarly, the horizontal green line shows the ICU beds available, while the dashed green line projects the ICU beds needed.

There is still much uncertainty, and the shaded area shows the range of possibilities. That is why the state of California, which uses these projections along with its own modeling, says it remains critical that strict stay-at-home orders continue through May, as the early progress now being seen, could easily be lost.

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom said modeling done by the state showed that the healthcare usage peak would take place in mid May, several weeks later than Washington’s modeling indicates.

If California continues to strictly abide by the restrictions in place, the University of Washington model predicts the state will see just over 5 thousand coronavirus related deaths by early August. Once again, the shaded area represents the range of possibilities, while the dotted line tracks the projection as of April 2nd.

The Bay Area became the first region in the nation to enact strict stay-at-home orders on March 16th, and Sonoma County soon followed suit.

Largely due to the success of those orders in slowing the spread of coronavirus infections, as of April 2nd, more than 80 percent of the population of the U.S. are now under some form of stay-at-home restrictions.