Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 29-Jul-2020 edition

Great news everyone, the COVID-19 average daily new cases for the week of July 19 increased by 35 cases per day so it looks like we may not need to wait for them to stabilize to see the third week in a row of increased daily cases.

And the 7-day weight average positive molecular test rate that is the top measure for the state of how we're performing (though it really shouldn't matter to anyone given the variability of testing) has reached 2% again for the first time since June 18.... but hey, that's their own preferred stat so it going up surely shouldn't matter to them, right?

Can we stop pretending MA is doing ok and roll back to phase 2a or earlier so we get things back under control before college students move ba... oh, right, too late for that, well... can we just roll back to phase 2a?

In more local news, Somerville had a "decrease" in new cases. Before you start questioning my sanity and saying "but Peter, how did Somerville luck out like that, surely that's wrong," I'm getting to the explanation, don't worry. So, in the weekly report from the state, they tell you the two weeks prior (24 for Somerville) and then do a comparison between that and the previous report's two-week-prior-count (24 for Somerville) and do the calculation for you and come out with that 24 is a "decrease" percent change from 24. It's great. I love it. Let me just say that typically I would like to see a number for "percent change" AND that 24 being equal to 24 (and there are no partial new cases so it's not a situation where they might have left off the fraction from the 2 24's and one happened to be greater than the other), at minimum I would expect to see "No Change". Mistakes are easy... that's why you use spreadsheets and do calculations to come up with the report rather than whatever they're doing.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed. Stay mathy. Stay probably-fully-human-intervention-being-performed-for-reports-that-should-be-fully-based-on-the-data.

[Feeling for post = "Oh COME ON!"]

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