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Rhode Island has started to see a plateau in the rate of hospitalizations for the coronavirus but not yet a decline, according to models presented Saturday at Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s daily briefing.
“We are not out of the woods yet,’’ Raimondo said. “I have to tell you I’m very worried about this weekend because it’s a beautiful day.”
Plans to lift the stay-at-home order on May 8 could change, the governor said, if residents disregard the social distancing rules and congregate in parks and other public places this weekend. Raimondo noted that governors in several other states including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey have extended their stay-at-home orders. (Massachusetts’ stay-at-home order expires May 18; Connecticut’s expires May 20.)
“I hope not to have to do that past May 9th,’’ Raimondo said. “Hang in there one more week.…Don’t invite your friends over for dinner. Don’t go for a cookout…”
The models, created by state health officials with assistance from a team of experts at Brown University and data sciences at Johns Hopkins University, show two major changes since the virus first hit Rhode Island.
In early March, the number of hospitalizations was doubling about every four days. “That was a scary time,’’ Raimondo said. If the trajectory had continued, she said, the cases would have wound up “quickly overwhelming our hospitals.”
The models show that hospitalizations for the virus are continuing to increase, Raimondo said, “but at a much more gradual rate.” And the shifts in the virus’ trajectory, she said, can be directly traced to policies including shutting down businesses and social distancing.
The first big change in the trajectory of the virus, she said, began on April 2, about two weeks after restaurants and bars were ordered to shut down. That’s when the growth in new hospitalizations “started to flatten and become more linear,” Raimondo said.
The next “dramatic shift” from a more linear growth to a plateau, she said, came on April 14, about two weeks after Raimondo issued her stay-at-home order. It takes about two weeks from for the virus to run its course, so any change in behavior is expected to show up in hospitalization rates after two weeks.
“A month or so ago we were looking at really devastating hospitalizations and deaths,’’ Raimondo said. The flattening of hospitalization rates, she said, shows that compliance with the stay-at-home order and social distancing is working. “As a result we have dramatically changed our trajectory,’’ Raimondo said. “The worst case scenarios we have planned for haven’t happened.”
If the models are accurately reflecting the benefits of social distancing, they also appear to be revealing when those practices lapse. Raimondo pointed out two dots representing spikes in hospitalizations around April 20 and 22, roughly two weeks after the holidays of Passover and Easter.
“If in two weeks from today we see a spike that leads to people being sicker,’’ Raimondo said, “it’s because we went out this weekend’’ and failed to obey social distancing practices.
Another model showed two possible scenarios for the next two weeks: a gradually decreasing plateau similar to what’s occurring in Massachusetts, or a more traditional bell curve like other types of infectious diseases.
Raimondo cautioned that the virus is new and models projecting its course could change.
-Lynn Arditi, health reporter, larditi@thepublicsradio.org
