Back to the pandemic - surprising stats
Jun. 6th, 2020 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkIt was kind of a relief to be distracted from one horrifying crisis by the next one, but now that my city is no longer actively on fire I am back to following the COVID crisis in detail. Looked at the latest stats for Minnesota for the first time in a long time. The results are interesting. Our state has now reached the astonishing numbers of 26,980 confirmed cases and 1,148 deaths, numbers that seemed inconceivable a couple of months ago. Those numbers continue to climb, of course, because they are cumulative counts. Numbers of new cases hop around a lot from day to day but are fairly linear when viewed over the long haul from late April to the present. This could be looked at as discouraging or encouraging, depending on what your expectation was. Clearly the measures that have been taken haven't stopped the pandemic, but arguably have "flattened the curve," which as I recall was the point. A linear increase is far preferable to an exponential one.
There is some surprising good news. Rate of new cases confirmed has fallen off some over the last week, but that's what you would expect when testing is interrupted by civil chaos, right? But oddly, the percent of positive results has also dropped - from just over 10% to 8%. That indicates that we are doing plenty of testing, not just testing people that are obviously sick. That is so counterintuitive at a time when it is suddenly harder to get tested that I wonder if there is a data collection problem. It's not the most important number any way, but worth watching.
But the good news is that the numbers currently hospitalized for COVID have plummeted from a high of 606 on May 28 to 478. The number in ICU has dropped proportionately. This is, IMHO, the single most important number to track over time to determine how things are going in a particular locality. Number of confirmed cases is dependent on testing availability, so always shaky as a measurement. But the number of people who are carted off to the hospital because they suddenly can't breathe gives you a day to day measurement of the public health experience. This looks promising to me. Maybe we really have turned a corner.
Now, of course, comes the really confusing period for statistics. Measures to "open up the economy" are coming right on top of major public protests. If there is a spike in new cases it will be practically impossible to determine which factor is more important. And if there is NO spike? Either public health officials have been wrong about what constitutes infection risk or we have somehow inched up far enough towards herd immunity and/or permanent behavior changes that we really have turned the corner. Time will tell.
There is some surprising good news. Rate of new cases confirmed has fallen off some over the last week, but that's what you would expect when testing is interrupted by civil chaos, right? But oddly, the percent of positive results has also dropped - from just over 10% to 8%. That indicates that we are doing plenty of testing, not just testing people that are obviously sick. That is so counterintuitive at a time when it is suddenly harder to get tested that I wonder if there is a data collection problem. It's not the most important number any way, but worth watching.
But the good news is that the numbers currently hospitalized for COVID have plummeted from a high of 606 on May 28 to 478. The number in ICU has dropped proportionately. This is, IMHO, the single most important number to track over time to determine how things are going in a particular locality. Number of confirmed cases is dependent on testing availability, so always shaky as a measurement. But the number of people who are carted off to the hospital because they suddenly can't breathe gives you a day to day measurement of the public health experience. This looks promising to me. Maybe we really have turned a corner.
Now, of course, comes the really confusing period for statistics. Measures to "open up the economy" are coming right on top of major public protests. If there is a spike in new cases it will be practically impossible to determine which factor is more important. And if there is NO spike? Either public health officials have been wrong about what constitutes infection risk or we have somehow inched up far enough towards herd immunity and/or permanent behavior changes that we really have turned the corner. Time will tell.
