On Nov. 19, the Ministry of Health released updated modelling information which provided four possible forecasts of what could happen in the coming months as COVID-19 spread across Saskatchewan. Several slides referenced Nov. 29 as part of a 14-day forecast. So, what actually happened?
Generally speaking, even with regularly climbing daily case counts in Saskatchewan, reality has been much less harsh than those models were predicting.聽
While Saskatchewan has continued to show exponential growth in its seven-day average new case count, reality turned out to be much lower than the projected forecast.
The 鈥�14 Day Forecast of Lab Confirmed Cases (to Nov. 29, 2020)鈥� slide shows a band of possibilities, with a 鈥�50 per cent Forecasted Value鈥� line, the 鈥淯pper Credibility Interval (97.5 per cent),鈥� and the 鈥淟ower Credibility Interval (2.5 per cent).鈥� The chart also says 鈥淚nterpret with caution.鈥�
The forecasted 50 per cent value was roughly 1,400 cases per day on Nov. 29, with the upper number coming in around 2,100 and the lower number at 660.
In actuality, Saskatchewan鈥檚 new case count on Nov. 29 was 351, one of its highest days, but its seven-day average on that day was 250 cases per day.
Three days earlier, the average case count of 243 cases per day exceeded the 240 case per day level 鈥� a doubling from 120 average cases per day reached 16 days earlier on Nov. 10. Saskatchewan had been seeing a doubling of average cases per day roughly every 14 days since Oct. 10.
Similarly, the 鈥�14 Day Forecast of Acute Hospital Admissions (to Nov. 29, 2020)鈥� was also substantially off the mark.
It鈥檚 50 per cent forecast line came in at 90 new admissions per day, with the high mark at 130 and the low mark at 40.
The daily COVID-19 updates from the province do not speak of new admissions per day, but rather provide how many people are in hospital, overall new cases, recoveries and deaths. So, while the total number of people in hospital may increase by eight, as it did on Nov. 30, there will be churn within the number for people recovering and going home and new admissions coming in.
Thus, in reality, on Nov. 30, Saskatchewan had 123 people in total hospitalized throughout the province, the highest level to date. That was an increase from 115 the day before. On Nov. 30, the 325 new cases also came with were 49 recoveries. There were two deaths reported on Nov. 30, and 23 people were in intensive care.
Manitoba and North Dakota compared
With 325 new cases announced on Nov. 30, Saskatchewan鈥檚 seven-day average is now 262.9 cases per day. That number shows a continuing growth pattern, but perhaps not as sharply as the previous two months had been and it may no longer be on the same exponential curve that it had been on from Oct. 1 to Nov. 15.
In comparison, Manitoba has remained relatively flat since Nov. 13, when its seven-day average case count hit 400.4. Since then there have been fluctuations in the daily count, but the average has remained in a narrow band between 371.6 and 422.7 average cases per day. On Nov. 30, Manitoba鈥檚 seven-day average was 392.4 cases per day.
Prior to mid-November, Manitoba had been undergoing exponential growth at a rate almost exactly the same as Saskatchewan, but roughly 16 to 18 days ahead of Saskatchewan鈥檚 curve. By Dec. 1, that had stretched to 30 days, as Saskatchewan鈥檚 growth rate slowed and Manitoba鈥檚 flattened out.聽
North Dakota, which received national headlines as one of the worst affected states in the union, has not only flattened its curve, but bent it substantially down in the last two weeks of November.
North Dakota, too, had been seeing exponential growth of new COVID-19 cases for the two months leading up to mid-November, albeit at a lower rate of growth than either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Its overall numbers were much higher, however.
North Dakota鈥檚 seven-day average crested on Nov. 18, at 1,415.7 average cases per day. Its highest individual case count for a day was 2,278 on Nov. 14. But in the two weeks since, that seven-day average case count made a steady decline, falling to 1035.7 by Nov. 27 and 848.1 on Nov. 30. On an individual day bases, Nov. 30 was the best day North Dakota had seen in over a month, with 598 new cases. The last time the state had a number in the 500s was on Oct. 26 at 527.
