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

Just a friendly reminder to anybody hearing about how we're passed our peak of COVID-19 cases in MA: we also passed the peak back at the start of December when we had our peak of 4,647 cases per day for the week of Nov 29 and then started shrinking to reach 3,794 cases per day the week of Dec 20... then came Dec 27's average of 4,878 and Jan 3's average of 6,078 cases per day... yes, it looks like we may have passed the peak that came on Jan 3 but these things can change quickly, especially when you let your guard down as our Governor is pushing us to do. Weekly Average Progression: Mar 8    -     31.9 Mar 15  -   244.9 Mar 22  -   698.7 Mar 29  - 1183.1 Apr 5    - 1736.6 Apr 12  - 2176.9 (first peak) Apr 19  - 2119.1 Apr 26  - 1773.9 May 3   - 1407.7 May 10 - 1073.6 May 17 -   852.9 (Phase 1 of re-opening begins) May 24 through Sep 20 - weekly averages all below 500 Jun 7 through Au...

Just a friendly reminder that I'm using state numbers for total cases in reporting from each week but using a calculation that is a better approximation of the cases we've seen every 2 weeks by taking the totals from the report 2 weeks ago and comparing to the report of the week.  For an explanation of why this is more appropriate, read over my post about it:  https://funwithmacovid-19reporting.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-weekly-community-numbers-reported.html 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...

NPR's threshold for "red" risk level (their highest risk) is 25 cases per 100,000 people per day and their suggestion is that this indicates "uncontrolled community spread" (higher than "escalating community spread" which is yellow). A couple things about this... First, 45 of the 50 states in the US are in this category. Second, Massachusetts is at 86 cases per 100,000 people per day... so... yeah, that's a bit higher than the 25 cases that NPR uses as highest risk category trigger. Don't worry, Baker has this under control by doing [checks records] ah yes, basically nothing. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

     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 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's data, subtracting the data from 2 weeks ago, and dividing by 14 (to get the per day) and then dividing by the population of the location (to get the per pe...

Just a friendly reminder that I'm using state numbers for total cases in reporting from each week but using a calculation that is a better approximation of the cases we've seen every 2 weeks by taking the totals from the report 2 weeks ago and comparing to the report of the week.  For an explanation of why this is more appropriate, read over my post about it:  https://funwithmacovid-19reporting.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-weekly-community-numbers-reported.html 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...

Well, we're definitely increasing cases again... last week is now known to have had at least a 22% increase in cases over the previous week... and the two of those weeks are current the top two case count weeks.  4876 average daily cases for the week of Dec 27 and 5,988 average daily cases (and rising) for the week of Jan 3. We haven't seen a single day when fewer than 50 people died since December 16 and the average for the last two weeks are 71.14 and 70.28... for comparison, we didn't have a single day where more than 30 people died from June 22 through November 10th... and in that same time frame, we had an daily average of 16.14. Essentially, by doing nearly nothing to crack down on the spread and relying nearly completely on the vaccine, Gov Baker is saying he's ok with all of this death and harm being done to those he is supposed to serve. Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.

Just a quick note for those of you that thought we had reached a new plateau (I was one of you until the last couple days)... we haven't.  We're seeing big increases in cases again.  Already, last week has reached 5,336 average daily cases with the single highest day ever being Monday and Tuesday being the third highest single day.  The fact that last week is now seen to have been close to a 10% increase over the previous week and a 15% increase over the third highest week is particularly problematic given we haven't seen what the final tally will look like, with days before the average stops increasing dramatically.  I said I expected to know that last week was a record breaker by Wednesday because of how the numbers come in over time and it's concerning to see just how badly we already know last week was. The good news in today's report?  So far we haven't seen that last week's death count is increasing above the previous week's (holding steady at an a...