COVID-19 May 29, 2020

TGIFF.  :)  Numbers from yesterday are right in line with the longer-term trends.  The death rate is slowly decreasing, but we're still losing many hundreds of our neighbors every day to the virus.  Daily infections are decreasing on average as well even while a few states seem to have leveled off or may, possibly, be increasing. 

My data source still shows us under 100,000 total deaths.  I may have found some reasons why this data set is low compared to several others.  First, because it relies on the state data, it does take into account revisions to the data that could be days or weeks old.  For example, in my State of Colorado, there's a note that says, " On April 25, 2020, Colorado removed 29 deaths. All 29 removed deaths were probable deaths which were entered as duplicates."  Were these data removed from the other data sources or is their data locked in once it is entered?  Colorado is not the only state that has these corrections.  I like my data set because all of these modifications are fully documented. Secondly, and this may be the most important, some of the data sources are counting federal prisons as a separate category from the state data.  However, I have a feeling these data are being double-counted.  This is something that requires additional research.  It may also be that my data is missing these data points.  Either way, that could explain some of the difference.  Finally, and importantly, some states only count confirmed COVID deaths while other count confirmed and presumptive COVID deaths.  My data set follows whatever the states do.  Other data sets do not or may not.