Fun with COVID-19 reporting in MA (and elsewhere)

Let's take a moment to compare rates from this summer to those of the second half of 2020: First, let's just note that the July 4-10 average rate of 117.4 cases per day or 1.7 cases per 100,000 people per day was lower than any week since all the way back before the first wave peaked... we hadn't gotten back down to that point last summer.  The best we did was a week where we reached 156.6 cases per day or 2.3 cases per 100,000 people per day.  This wasn't even the lowest we'd seen this summer... we actually got down to 65.9 cases per day or 1.0 cases per 100,000 people per day the week of June 20. Ok, so, July 4-10 was 3 weeks ago... 2 weeks ago we were up to 263.4 cases per day or 3.8 cases per 100,000 people per day.  In terms of the summer of 2020, this equates to late July/early August. when we fluctuated right around averaging 270 per day for a few weeks (3.9 cases per 100,000 per day). 1 week ago... last week... last week we've reached 472.6 cases per day

It's been a couple weeks so let's take another 14-day comparison of how states are doing. One quick note, when doing my outside MA reporting, I always use the "report date" instead of the more accurate "test date" data that I use for the MA reporting ("report date" data are just easier to locate). Adding in the color coding for cases/100k Green  - Less than 4 cases per 100,000 people per day Yellow   - Greater than or equal to 4 and less than 8 cases per 100,000 people per day Orange  - Greater than or equal to 8 and less than 16 cases per 100,000 people per day Red  - Greater than or equal to 16 and less than 24 cases per 100,000 people per day  Maroon - Greater than or equal to 24 and less than 40 cases per 100,000 people per day Purple - Greater than or equal to 40 and less than 64 cases per 100,000 people per day Black   - Greater  than  or equal to 64  cases  per 100,000 people per day Explanation of Data Points: The first number is the curren

Green  - Less than 4 cases per 100,000 people per day (note: 1.43 cases per 100,000 people per day is the lower limit on " Moderate " spread from the CDC) Yellow   - Greater than or equal to 4 and less than 8 cases per 100,000 people per day Orange  - Greater than or equal to 8 and less than 16 cases per 100,000 people per day (this is approximately the " Substantial " spread from the CDC) Red  - Greater than or equal to 16 and less than 24 cases per 100,000 people per day (this and above is approximately the " High " spread from the CDC) Maroon - Greater than or equal to 24 and less than 40 cases per 100,000 people per day Purple - Greater than or equal to 40 and less than 64 cases per 100,000 people per day Black   - Greater  than  or equal to 64  cases  per 100,000 people per day Information right next to the city/town name is the most recent information and the furthest to the right is the furthest back.  Each number is the outcome of taking this week&