Fun with MA COVID-19 reporting 14-Aug-2020 edition (yeah, on the 15th, whatever)

Before I get started... there's no conspiracy theory here. I have no doubt that this is just errors in accounting). Also, if you're already depressed about the world and don't want to feel it more, you're totally free not to read on, but I will say that the next bit is just about accounting errors and unless you think about the numbers involved and what they mean, it's harmless fun. There's a break between that and the bit that gets depressing without having to think.

Fascinating stuff out of yesterday's data. The daily case data is all "confirmed cases" right? So, you know, errors are made and you might expect a given day's numbers to go down a bit from time to time... however... ok, (these are all relative changes between Thursday's and Friday's reports) before I get to the week of July 26, the average from July 5 and July 12 went up ever so slightly... by 0.14... this happens, it's not a big deal. The week of July 19 remained exactly the same. All perfectly reasonable and expected and not something that would make me take a second look at my calculations or the underlying numbers or make a post or anything.... week of August 2 went up by 2 (exactly 2). This week's average (Sun through Wed for Thursday and Sun through Thursday for Friday) went up by 40.65 (also totally expected... I expect the average to go up by around that amount for the next week). Ok... week of Jul 26... remember, these are the "confirmed cases"... the average... AVERAGE... went down by 18.57. That must have been some accounting mistake to see that July 29's count went from 318 to 315, July 30's from 447 to 340, July 31's from 342 to 322. Those are the changes... all the rest remained the same. Please note, I'm not suggesting anything here, just... I mean... this is the first time since I've started making these posts that the numbers from more than 14 days ago have fluctuated this much ... most of the time it is just a increase or reduction of 1 or 2 on any given day (past 14 days back). This amount of change made me double check my equation, the days involved, and finally start reviewing each day's count because it was just... I mean... a change to a 7-day average of 18! that's HUGE... and yeah, a reduction 107 confirmed cases on a single day will do that.

Oh, and with that, the average for Aug 2 is now greater than the average for Jul 26 which means TADA! we already have 5 weeks straight of increasing cases. I was not expecting to be able to say that this soon ... figured it would be reporting on things at the end of this weekend or start of next week before that proclamation could be made and I hope that it's more than a week before the 6 weeks proclamation can be.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed. Stay mathy.

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