Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 03-Jan-2021 edition

This last week has reached 3,620 average daily cases.  For comparison, the preceding week has reached 3,777 but the Sunday directly following that week it was only 2,782.  If we see a similar climb, we'll be in record territory again as the previous high currently sits at 4,629 (Nov 29-Dec5) with a close second of 4,621 (Dec 6-Dec12).  There are a few options that would explain this but I think the most likely is that of people delaying their being tested while they traveled.  With Dec 25 being the lowest single day increase we've seen since Thanksgiving, it's possible that the people who would have gotten tested last week ended up getting tested this week.  In addition to Thursday being Christmas and people not wanting to get tested on that day, some may have been traveling the couple days before and couple ays after.  This would explain why we see fewer cases on Tuesday, Dec 23 than we do each of the preceding two Tuesdays by nearly 1,000.  That would certainly explain the huge spike on Monday/Tuesday which now have 8,291 and 6,950 confirmed cases respectively (next highest single day is Dec 21 with 6,449) since cases don't just go away and people would likely get tested after returning from their travels.  It also explains why Saturday, Dec 26 is significantly higher than the two preceding Saturdays (more than 1,000 more confirmed cases already and that number is likely to still grow a bit in coming days).  Further evidence of this is that if you take the average for the 10 days starting on each of the Sundays Dec 6, Dec 13, and Dec 20 you get a steady decrease in cases but not a massive drop that you see for the week of Dec 20 if you just take the 7 day average (4,680; 4,563; 4,433 vs 3,777).

Lending further evidence to the above explanation is the matching decreases in hospitalizations that happened on Dec 25 followed by high single-day increases on Dec 26 and Dec 27.

So... we likely have seen a decrease in cases over the last couple weeks as people reacted to the spread seen from Thanksgiving, but we're not quite seeing the rapid decrease we should be pressing for.  At this rate, if nothing else changes, we'll see April levels in about 3 months... just in time for April 2021.  And if it is partially because people were being vigilant so that they could feel better about gathering with family at Christmas, it seems likely the decrease won't continue into the new year.  

Deaths, of course, continued through Christmas because people don't put off dying for their holiday travels.  Overnight we found 108 new deaths and if you take just the first 5 days of this week we have an average fo 65.8 deaths per day (compare to 53.4 the week of Dec 12 and 61.7 the week of Dec 19).  We'll know better on Wednesday what the week's true average was (we got within 2 of the week of Dec 20 with Dec 30's reported numbers).

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.

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