MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Earlier this week, officials including Mayor Jim Strickland said they were relying on local doctors and Vanderbilt University researchers to predict the surge in coronavirus cases in the Mid-South. They had said it would be about two weeks until a local surge, but the new research suggests a much longer timetable.
Vanderbilt researchers said they worked on modeling with the Tennessee data so far, including the Mid-South.
“It’s critical to continue social distancing until we reach a sustained drop,” Melinda Buntin with Vanderbilt University said.
Experts charted three different possibilities: improvement, status quo or an increase in the rate of transmission between people.
If we do better, the surge would shift to May. If we do worse, the healthcare system will get quickly overloaded.
If we maintain the status quo, we can expect a surge of hospitalizations in mid-June, rather than the shorter timeline given by local officials.
“Two months is not a long time to get into place the types of public health measures we’re advocating in terms of testing and contact tracing, so that’s a relief really,” Buntin said.
Researchers said the shift is hard to predict.
To encourage improvement, they recommended better contact tracing and more testing. Measures like the increase in the use of masks could improve outcomes, but there’s no way to know for sure.
They said the Mid-South had seen the most dramatic drop in cases as a response to the stay-at-home order of any area in Tennessee.
Researchers also said Shelby County had the best turnaround testing rate of any area in Tennessee.
They said they did present these findings to the governor and state representatives.
WREG ask if this modeling takes into account patients from other states like Arkansas and Mississippi, but Vanderbilt researchers said it does not.
We also reached out to the health department to find out if they’ve modified their predictions, and they said they plan to release modified predictive modeling next week.