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STRATEGY: Colleges are managing COVID-19 shockingly well. Lessons for the US economy overall?
Are the Democrats overplaying their hand of stimulus? A testy exchange between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi certainly suggests this is the case. Tom Block, Fundstrat’s Washington Strategy, thinks this is the strongest sign yet that the tide of public opinion is shifting and now viewing Pelosi as the obstructionists to a much needed stimulus.
It all started with this tweet by Ro Khanna, a US House Candidate for California. He notes the White House proposal of $1.8T is absolutely massive and 2X Obama’s proposal.
https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1315318905062203392
And Wolf Blitzer cited this tweet in his interview with Nancy Pelosi. And she got a bit testy and blamed CNN for being “Republican apologists” — which as we know, is not the reputation of CNN.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1316134598393450496
I received this perspective from Tom Block. And as you can see, he gets to the point. The Speaker is the person holding up stimulus. And now it looks like the media is taking that view as well = bad news for Pelosi.
And it looks like other Democrats are breaking ranks here and speaking out about the need to get a fiscal package done ASAP. The US is in the midst/recovering from the worst economic Depression ever, worse than the Great Depression. And even former Democratic Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, is forcefully speaking out.
https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1316129566306512898
If rational thinking follows, this raises the odds of getting some type of fiscal stimulus passed prior to election day. This is a positive, particularly for those Americans out of work and about to lose the much needed financial bridge. So, all in all, this is a positive development.
Colleges are handling COVID-19 far better than states and cities…
We are updating our analysis of US college/university cases, using a combination of data from NY Times (college COVID-19 data on GitHub) coupled with data gathered by our data science team, led by tireless Ken. We were pretty surprised by this update:
– In total, college-wide daily cases are ~3,400 per day now, down from 5,239 per day at the start of Sept, contrary to trends across the US
– Colleges account for 8% of daily cases from 15% in early September
– Trends improved more dramatically at schools that saw the worst outbreaks
– Top 15 schools (of 1,470) account for 22% of all college cases
– Daily cases are down 88% at the top 15%, with many having <100 active cases (>2,000 total) currently
– 9 hospitalizations total out of >40,000 cases in the top 15. None currently. No deaths
Source: NY Times and Fundstrat
If we look at colleges as territories or states, these are absolutely astonishingly good outcomes:
– Colleges are managing cases and outbreaks far better than the US overall
– Hospitalization rate is 0% currently vs ~1% US overall
– Few active cases at the moment
– Daily cases are crashing at the schools with the biggest outbreaks
There are so many implications of this. As you know, many administrators opted to not have “on-campus” college in 2020, but those schools with on-campus seem to be managing very well. I think positive credit needs to be given to these schools. And in fact, the media tends to only focus on those schools which are seeing outbreaks. There are outbreaks, but the schools with early outbreaks now seem to have it under control.
And I think this speaks to allowing younger and less-at-risk adults to interact with the economy. The colleges have not seen hospitalizations because many at-risk students are not on-campus or are taking extra precautions. And this should have some policy implications for the overall US economy.
But mostly, we want to highlight that the overall situation at colleges is hardly the disaster many predicted.
POINT 1: Daily cases are stable and not going exponential but not “out of woods” yet
With this surge in daily cases, our concern remains the potential for the spread to go exponential — ala Europe. At the moment, US cases are rising but the 7D delta is stable/declining. So, we are not seeing this massive step function. Daily new COVID-19 cases are rising, something apparent for the past few weeks, and rose to 46,040 which is up +6,564 vs 7D ago. The cases are rising but not exponentially.
– Daily US cases are rising = bad
– This looks like the second wave but it is not colleges (see below)
– It has not gone exponential, which is a good thing
– But the key to watch is hospitalizations and deaths
Source: COVID-19 Tracking Project and Fundstrat
And for comparison, let’s look at daily cases US vs Europe (per 1mm). The surge in cases there is clearly exponential and far surpassing US case counts:
– If US matched France/Spain/UK levels, this is >85,000 cases per day
– Yet, policymakers in Europe are not over-reacting. They are course correcting = good
– But no doubt, citizens have COVID-19 fatigue
Source: COVID-19 Tracking Project
US daily cases 7D delta is up but not exponential…
Again, the daily change vs 7D ago, in our view, is the leading indicator as it is what influences the 7D moving average.
– As you can see below, the 7D delta in daily cases is rising, but it has not yet gone exponential
– Exponential means we are seeing rapid spread across the US, ala Feb/March
– This has not yet happened, but it could
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
POINT 2: We forgot how bad NY mortality in April = equal to USA at 10,000 per day…
During the dark days of March/April 2020, NY and the tristate area accounted for the vast majority of US deaths. So while there was a horrific USA death count, it was primarily taking place in 5 states.
– During those dark days, NY tristate experienced 30 deaths per 1mm daily.
– If the whole country experienced this level, daily deaths would be 10,000 per day (it is average ~700 now)
– So you can see, when it comes to viewing mortality in COVID-19, March/April 2020 was a massacre for NY tristate area
Look at the current trends (right side of the chart) and you can see daily deaths per 1mm are ~3, or 90% less than what NY tristate experienced. This is something we need to keep a perspective on.
– But recall the IHME forecast of up to 10,000-12,000 US deaths per day this Winter
– That is essentially saying the whole nation will have mortality as bad as NY tristate during its darkest months
This is their forecast. I don’t have a personal view. As you know, COVID-19 is mysterious and completely unpredictable. But so far, the daily mortality has been tracking way better.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking Project and Fundstrat
No “wave” in hospitalizations and that is key to watch…
In fact, this chart showing the total number of Americans hospitalized (by tiers of states) helps provide context for the current situation. As you can see below, we saw waves of hospitalizations:
– the first surge was NY tristate
– second surge was FL, CA, AZ, TX or F-CAT
– there is no “third wave”
But this third wave, if it happens, would be in the 22 states with low case prevalence.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking Project and Fundstrat
POINT 3: College update: Evidence of ‘herd immunity’ at colleges
Something very interesting is happening at US colleges and universities. COVID-19 cases are falling, unlike the rest of the US, and they are utterly collapsing at schools with the largest number of cases.
– Yup
– Are some college campuses achieving some type of equilibrium aka ‘herd immunity?
We gathered this data using a combination of the NY Times data (which is quite extensive and now on GitHub) and supplemented by tireless Ken and his team extracting data from each college/university dashboard.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html
Colleges are now only 8% of US daily cases compared to 15% a few weeks ago…
So colleges are turning out to be much safer places for COVID-19 spread, compared to the US overall. The share of US cases is down from 15% a few weeks ago to 8%. In fact, this kind of defies the narrative that colleges and universities are contributing to the spread.
– The opposite is true, cases are actually falling in aggregate in colleges/universities
– But the more interesting trend is daily cases at the 15 colleges/universities with the greatest number of cases.
Source: NY Times and Fundstrat
At top 15 schools, daily COVID-19 cases are down 88% vs 35% system-wide across Universities/Colleges
Below is a summary of COVID-19 case trends at the 1,740 colleges/universities with COVID-19 data. We highlight both total schools and the 15 schools with the greatest cumulative number of COVID-19 cases.
– University-wide, daily cases average about 3,431 per day, down 35% from its peak a few weeks ago
– At the top 15 schools (based on total cases), this figure is down 88%
– Again, these figures are the opposite of the US, which has seen cases surge >40% since early September
Source: NY Times and Fundstrat
We only found 9 hospitalizations out of >40,000 cases reported by the top 15 colleges/universities…
The number of US students hospitalized remains extremely low. We looked at the top 15 university dashboards and summarize the number of hospitalizations. We have snapshots of the dashboards and commentary as well.
– The top 15 schools (of 1,470) ~22% of college COVID-19 cases, so it is fairly representative
– Of the >40,000 cases (15 schools), we found 9 hospitalizations.
– None currently, as those were in early September
– No deaths reported
So, it seems like the data is supporting the notion that younger adults tend to have milder cases of COVID-19. This does not mean these 40,000 cases were all lacking symptoms (asymptomatic). Not at all. We have many anecdotes and new stories about students who experience symptoms and illnesses. Rather, this suggests that current treatment regimens are preventing these cases from turning into a level of severity requiring hospitalizations.
Source: NY Times and Fundstrat
Taking a closer look at case trends at the 15 universities with the greatest number of cases…
We wanted to highlight case trends at these 15 schools because foremost, they are 22% of all cases, so a huge share. We grouped these so we could provide some insights.
– Foremost, these schools have less than 100 active cases, in fact, in many cases, it is 50 or less
– Think about that, less than 50 “active” cases per college
– Second, daily case trends are falling visibly and meaningfully, down 70% or more
– Third, positivity rates at many of these schools are 1% or less.
3 examples of a minuscule small number of active cases…
Each of the top 15 schools has reported >2,000 cases since early Sept. Look at these examples of few active cases currently:
– Ohio State University –> 83 (of 3,051)
– University of South Carolina –> 42 (of 2,494)
– University of Kentucky –> 157 (of 2,070)
https://safeandhealthy.osu.edu/dashboard
https://sc.edu/safety/coronavirus/dashboard/index.php
https://www.uky.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-data-dashboard
7 examples of the collapse in daily cases reported…
Look at the daily case trends of these 7 colleges. Daily cases are collapsing:
– University of Georgia
– Clemson University
– University of Wisconsin
– Penn State University
– University of Illinois
– University of Arkansas
– Auburn University
https://www.uhs.uga.edu/healthtopics/covid-19-health-and-exposure-updates
https://www.clemson.edu/covid-19/testing/dashboard.html
https://smartrestart.wisc.edu/dashboard/
https://virusinfo.psu.edu/covid-19-dashboard
https://go.illinois.edu/COVIDTestingData
https://health.uark.edu/coronavirus/covid-dashboard.php
https://auburn.edu/covid-resource-center/
Positivity rates <1% at the University of Arizona
Look at the positivity rates at the University of Arizona. These are just 0.6% in the past 10 days. Compare this to >5% for the US overall and one can argue the testing situation here is under very good control.
