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

Confirmed cases in Boston have been slowly increasing since Thanksgiving.  Of course, this is just the cases that are confirmed in medical facilities. Several thresholds for concern have been reached and then some: Test Positivity rate: Threshold: 5.0% Current:   10.3% Number of neighborhoods with positivity rate >= 8.0% Threshold: 4 or more (of 16 total) Current:   11  Confirmed Daily Adult COVID-19 Hospitalizations (7-day moving average) Threshold: 200.0 Current:     233.9 Thankfully, the occupied adult non-surge ICU beds is still below the threshold, if just barely: Threshold: 95.0% Current:      93.7% Also the 7-day average emergency department visits per day hasn't increased for 7 consecutive days... with that said... November's full-month average: 280.6 (up from 216 last year) December's average so far: 329.6 (up from 261 for the first 22 days of Dec last year) Number of days with average > 300 in November: 9 (only 5 prior to Thanksgiving) (there were ZERO days

From time to time I give Boston's COVID site a bit of flack on Facebook because they show the cumulative count of cases per neighborhood as being from 2020 and 2021 despite our now closing out 2022.  But really, I greatly appreciate that they're as transparent as they are. For instance, today I took a look at their downloadable data and can tell you that since the end of May, Boston's 7-day average hospitalization rate hovered between 130 and 175 people per day... but never reached 175... until this week... and the average from Thursday is 199.28. This roughly mimics last year where the average hospitalization rate was even lower for most of the year and never got to 175 from the end of July through early December and then reached 196 on 12-Dec.  Oh, and their threshold for concern is 200 people per day.... so, not only are we mirroring last year's hospitalization rates but we're also on the cusp of reaching one of their thresholds for concern...   Don't worry t