Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 02-Nov-2020 Edition - NEW LAYOUT IN THE REPORT!

THERE'S A NEW REPORT LAYOUT! (there will be a separate post about current counts/prediction follow up)

It's always interesting to see a new layout because it gives insight into what the state's priorities and story-telling is. 

Today's layout shows that they continue to be either sloppy with their design OR they want to try to confuse people by putting deaths and turn-around time for test results under the same heading line, similar to how all testing/cases are under one and how all information on hospitalizations are under a second line.

We now have an "average age of deaths"... but we don't have which average it is, whether it's mean, median, mode, or whether it's overall or for the newly reported or the last 7 days or last 14 days or any kind of detail around it.... same with the new "average age of cases that were hospitalized".

They're no longer showing the percent of individuals tested testing positive and only showing the percent of overall tests.  This is the figure that epidemiologists were saying a few weeks ago downplays the concern.  With that said, they've started showing the percent with and without higher education tests (as well as the percent for higher education).  This is in an effort to suggest that higher education isn't the cause of the spread, which is fair.

They now have 2 confirmed case graphs.  The first goes back to March (instead of just the last 45 days) so that they can downplay the recent rise in cases.  The second, in case you kept going, is the one that shows the last 45 days but it no longer includes the cumulative because really, you should be reviewing the first graph and not this second one, right?  

Oh, and on the same page as the first confirmed case graph, we now display the weekly MA-wide 2-week daily average which is factually incorrect by now.  As of last week, it was 11.8 cases per 100,000 people per day based on how they calculate it....  recalculating shows that it's crept up a bit, though only a bit (it's now 12).... oh, and that figure was below 3 back in June if you go back and do that bit of math.

They also have moved the confirmed cases information to after the testing graph, since we all know that what's important is that we have a low testing percentage.... nobody should care about whether more people are actually getting the disease, only that we are testing sufficiently to keep that test rate down.  And not to be confusing, but they then bring us back to testing with the positive tests by age group which is nice and colorful and shows how the percent of people testing positive has shifted from mostly 40-59 year olds to being relatively evenly distributed between 0-19 year olds (but no, elementary schools being in person likely aren't a problem right?), 20-29 year olds, and 30-39 year olds with 40-49 year olds trailing just slightly.  I would point out at this time that essentially what they're saying is we're doing a better job of keeping the 50+ year olds locked up more but clearly don't have an answer for anybody else.

Then we continue with more testing graphs, because, again, test percentage is key, not cases, not deaths, just test results.

From there we move into hospitalizations which has, again, been extended to May.  This allows us to showcase how, though we've been steadily increasing in hospitalizations since August (and we incidentally highlight the fact that we changed how we calculate the hospitalizations), it's so much smaller than what we saw in May.  To aid in pointing out that we can totally accept a surge in cases and have nothing to fear, we also have 2 pages of showing how we have plenty of space left at hospitals.  One more note on the hospitalizations: Yesterday, we had 613 COVID-19 cases hospitalized.  Today, in an effort to make things look better, the report now only shows the confirmed cases and, while we saw an increase of 33 more hospitalizations over yesterday, the count has, by virtue of changing what we're looking at, decreased to 469.  This distinction caries over to the ICU (changing from 113 yesterday by increasing by 10 to a total of 96 today) count and intubation count (55 yesterday, increase 3, now 50).  Cute, Baker, very cute.  

Next up, deaths... this time starting in April to avoid people thinking that 18+ deaths per day is a bad thing... I mean, at least we're not seeing 140+ every day like we did in May.  We also again show another page with just the last 42 days of deaths/day, similar to how we did with cases.

And since nothing is more important then test rates, we have another page on graphs about testing, because.... but holy cow, the number of tests being performed at higher education pretty much matches the number being performed elsewhere.  Just imagine if the colleges hadn't re-opened and the testing could have been focused on the general populace... that 2.1 day average turnaround of tests might have been a bit lower.

And finally, to round us off, we have a page on long term care facilities and the data about counties. 

To summarize: 

• The Baker administration wants us to focus on the positivity test rate, but not the percent of people testing positive and instead the number of tests being returned as positive.
• Number of people in the hospital, in ICU, and on intubation continue to increase but now we can report lower numbers by avoiding counting some part of the group we were counting before.  And these changes aren't highlighted by changing the names of things but instead only by comparing the report yesterday to the report today.
• Baker is doing everything he can to make you think we're doing ok when, in fact, we really aren't.