Coronavirus, by the numbers, as I see it. Mid August.

Coronavirus, by the numbers, as I see it.  Mid August.

It has been 2 weeks since my last update.

The number of active cases continues to grow by less than .75% per day for the entire month of August.  For most of July the number was around 2%.  But I have reason to suspect that .75% is actually too high.  There are many states that lose track of “recovered” cases, and as such, their number of active cases are inflated.  The most obvious is Florida, 506,000 active cases, only 53,000 recovered.  Worst offender percentage wise is Maryland, current active count is 90,000 and recovered 6,000.  Since Florida currently represents about a quarter of all active cases, it is skewing the numbers quite a bit all by itself.  (Shades of Benjamin Harrison’s election of 1888)

This has a side effect of inflating the mortality rate.  Nationally around 5.6%

If I put corrections in for the top 5 most highest mortality rate states, the nationwide total of active cases drops by 600,000, which means nationwide the numbers have been dropping all of August.  And probably most of July.  Since I am regressing a sudden change into numbers that were not also regressed, the percentage drop is somewhat in error, but is close enough to draw a downwards vector regardless of the actual angle. 

The states I believe are most out of whack are:

State     Mortality Rate

Maryland             34.40%

Rhode Island      34.40%

Virginia                 15.00%

Florida                  14.33%

Arizona                 14.08%

 

Any state with a mortality rate over the national average of 5.6% has an active case number that is certainly out of whack; the list above are just the worst offenders.  The true national mortality rate is certainly lower as the number of recovered is undercounted.  For contrast, California, its 4.3%, which is lower than the national average, and California only has half her cases resolved, so I suspect her numbers are inflated a bit as well.  Some states have a mortality rate below 2%, Including North Carolina, Kansas, and both the Dakotas.

This observation on the uncounted recovery rate seems to have been noticed.  The CDC web site just started today reporting it as part of their standard grid. 

 

In other good news, 21 states now are showing fewer cases now, then 2 weeks ago.  When I first started tracking “Current vice two weeks ago”, there were 12 states, and that number reduced to just 6 by the end of July.  But since then new states have been added.  They are by order of reduced percentages:

NewJersey          -43.64%

NewYork             -31.45%

Louisiana             -24.39%

Utah      -24.02%

NorthCarolina    -19.32%

Connecticut        -18.67%

NewHampshire -18.43%

Ohio      -18.29%

Vermont              -16.44%

Mississippi          -13.46%

Wyoming             -11.27%

Maine   -10.05%

Iowa      -9.91%

Montana             -7.94%

Wisconsin            -6.89%

Texas    -4.53%

Pennsylvania     -4.44%

Arkansas              -4.30%

Minnesota          -3.78%

Tennessee          -1.90%

Indiana -1.66%

 

Harder numbers to find are ratios of the dead vs. crippled with lung, heart and kidney damage.  Mortality is rather Boolean, you either are, or you are not.  Damaged for the foreseeable future is harder to identify.  At the moment, my broad ass guess is that about 6% of the identified cases require hospitalization.  About a 1/3^rd of those die.  And of the recovered, most are showing damage either to lung scaring, heart damage, and kidney damage.  If anyone has better counts, I would appreciate the feedback.

Not numbers related, and slightly political.

Since I have the time, the inclination, and the numbers for the last few months I have been amusing myself by countering arguments against anti-maskers.  I made that my mission as the most valuable thing I can do to help in the situation.   

The tactics I use are to be respectful to the anti-masker, but also to never let a claim or counterclaim go unmet.  Following the axiom, a charge unchallenged, is a charge believed.  So, when I commit to battle, I must see it through. You cannot let them have the last word.  A win means the anti-masker retires from the field and anyone visiting the conversation thread sees a cogent rebuttal all the way through.  Convincing the anti-masker they are wrong is an unrealistic expectation.  Their objections are rooted in things other than science and they will not be swayed.  The battle is for the hearts and minds of everyone else. 

It’s not a satisfying victory.

Have I made a dent?  I think I have, albeit a very small one.  I have actually had 3, comments back about how respectful my arguments were and were appreciated. 

And, from my perspective, the number of vehemently opposed, anti-masking arguments has dropped considerably on the forums I peruse.

I attribute that drop to the rapid increases in the number of infections in states that had natural barriers to the initial spread of the virus due to low population densities.  The political nonsense counterpoints have dropped to near zero.  Or maybe I’m just filtering them out.  I recall one comment about the rapid rise in the number of active cases in Idaho, from 500 in June to over 10,000 mid July, “If it wasn’t for Boise ( a Democratically controlled city), we’d be all right.  The mentality that that fueled anti-masking sentiment took joy when the most infected states were Democratically run, has lost traction now that 4 of the top 5 most infected states are Republican.  The same people are that promoted anti-masking have switched to the pointing to the riots, which I am not getting into.

For full disclosure, I was a lifelong registered Republican until last year. 

Also, on 5 of my last 6 shopping expeditions, I noticed no mask violations at all.  No nostril flares, no lifting the bottom to talk.  Not one.  Some of this is behavior improvement, but I also noticed a lot of decorative masks you can buy now are designed so that you cannot wear them incorrectly.  Good going to the small businesses. 

Despite that however, yesterday, there were 60,000 new cases, 1,100 have died.  California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia lead the way with half of them. 

These are the cases we know about.  The amount of testing, the most important tool we have, week by week, has been going down for four weeks now.  And it is taking longer to get results.  My son went in for testing on Wednesday, and they told him he won’t have the results for a week or more.  It used to take 3 days.

If you want to blame politics for something, this is it.