COVID-19 June 01, 2020

New month, same pandemic.  Nothing really new.  A few states continue to report record or near-record numbers of new infections.  Still, the overall numbers for the country as a whole are relatively flat, which indicates that while some are going up others are going down.  Deaths continue to slowly decrease.

COVID-19 May 31, 2020

There is nothing remarkable on this last day of May.  If I try really hard, I might find a hint of death rates failing to fall as fast as the model suggests that they should.  I'm not going to make this call just yet, but it's something I'm watching.  Since the number of new cases has been falling very slowly, I'd expect the deaths to mirror that with a lag.  Perhaps that's starting to happen.  Perhaps.  I'm also seeing an increasing number of states setting records for the largest number of new cases.  I'm not going to get too excited about that either.  Not yet.  As testing increases, we might expect a larger number of confirmed cases.  On the other hand, it probably also means that the spread of the virus isn't exactly waning.  So, there's a couple of things to watch.

to watch over the next week or two.

COVID-19 May 30, 2020

No surprises today.  Everything continues to follow established trends. That is all.

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. 

COVID-19 May 28, 2020

Last week it appeared that the 7-day average of the new case rate had started to slowly increase.  That was, apparently, just a little bump.  This week the 7-day average has leveled off again and even decreased a bit more.  As of today, the 7-day average has dropped to 20,852 and the best fit 7-day line has dropped below 20,000 cases/day for the first time in a long time. (The equation of the best-fit line is shown in the cumulative case plot.  The slope of the line is equivalent to the case rate and is 19,945.  Algebra.  Again.).  These trends are despite an increase in testing and loosening of restrictions.  Will it last?  I'm not a betting man, but if I was, I know where I'd put my money.

The death rates continue their downward trend, at least when looking at the 7-day average.  The usual peaks and valleys in the daily numbers are still there. Yesterday was an "up" after three days of "down". 

COVID-19 May 27, 2020

Really busy today.  Nothing really new to report.  Things are more or less the same as yesterday, but more of it.

COVID-19 May 26, 2020

I would have thought that we'd be seeing a noticeable upward spike in new cases and even deaths by now.  But, it hasn't happened.  Let's hope it never comes.  I wouldn't bet the farm on it though. 

Daily deaths continue a nice average decrease and are following the Gompertz model.  I didn't expect such good agreement this late into the pandemic.  Per yesterday's post, I note that the data I'm using shows us at ~92,000 deaths which is many thousand away from the grim 100,000 mark.  Your data source may be different.  I have no way of knowing what data set is correct.  They can't all be correct and yet different at the same time.  They're probably all wrong.  What I can say is that my data is fully traceable and verifiable to the source.  Based on the Gompertz model and using my data I show 100,000 on or about June 8.  Rest assured the media will find the most grim data set they can and use that to claim we've hit 100,000.  What they won't do is pay much attention to the reliability of that data.   Nevertheless, 100,000 we will hit soon.

Speaking of media, I continue to see reports about how some state had a big daily increase in the number of cases.  That may be technically true, but given the noise in the day-to-day statistics such daily data are little more than curiosities.  It's the longer trend that matters.  If high numbers continue, on average, it means something.  Beware of media porn.

Here are today's stats and plots.