COVID-19 Pandemic: News, Updates, Discussion

Tracking COVID-19 Across States
Mon, Mar 30, 2020

With the United States now the single-largest country for COVID-19 confirmed cases at 143,055 (as-of this writing), keeping track of state-level breakouts is becoming increasingly important for tracking the evolution of the disease globally. In the table below, we show statistics by state that include: deaths, change in deaths day-over-day, cases, change in cases day-over-day, tests, and the change in tests day-over-day in both raw numbers and adjusted for state population. We also show the percentage of tests that come back positive, as a percentage of new tests that day.

There's a huge amount of diversity across states both in terms of the severity of outbreaks (deaths), best-guesses at size and growth (cases and case growth), and state response (test count growth). That's true both on a raw basis and adjusted for population. New York looks by far the worst based on both absolute and per capita outbreak numbers, but it's testing a lot of people. Unfortunately, almost half of the tests are coming back positive, which is not an encouraging sign in terms of stemming the outbreak. The opposite sort of state is Hawaii, which has had no deaths, only 150 confirmed cases and has seen only 1.2% of tests come back positive despite testing almost twice as many people per capita as California and running new tests at a per capita rate twice that of New York.

 

same here. no idea if it actually helps that much, but as a precaution i've been wearing an n-95 mask along with some glasses (i don't ever wear glasses btw ) anytime i got out in public, food shopping, etc. worth noting that i've been doing this weeks in advance, not just when this outbreak started getting bad recently. but even now, like last last week for example, i was a bit surprised to see hardly anyone was wearing a mask in the stores. oh well.

i run a lot of errands throughout the day, mostly for my parents who are elderly. like food shopping, etc. the last thing i'd want to do is transmit this virus to them unknowingly.

sucks that it's gotten to this point really. but what can you do.

while a part of me feels like some of this is overly hyped in the media, etc. i think we can't downplay this too much. shit really is hitting the fan. but, maybe not nearly to the level that the media proclaims it to be yet, idk... but, i guess we're also not there quite just yet..and maybe we have a few more weeks until things really begin peaking bigly. hopefully that'll be sooner rather than later. really hating all of this

 

Testing Testing Testing
Wed, Apr 1, 2020

We have recently begun publishing a daily look at state by state metrics for the COVID-19 outbreak that includes both the total number and day over day increases in the number of confirmed cases, deaths, and tests performed. In addition to the actual numbers, each day we also include a look at these metrics on a per capita basis to better highlight which states are doing the best and worst. This daily snapshot provides a very useful tool to stay on top of the latest trends in the pandemic.

Through the end of March, there have been a total of 183,935 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus, and of those, there have been 3,727 deaths. Looking just at those numbers, a 2% fatality rate is a very scary number. Almost everyone agrees, however, that the actual number of COVID-19 cases in the United States is probably much higher. The only question is how many more cases are out there? Right now, unless you are a celebrity or an athlete, it seems that you can only get tested if you are showing symptoms or you have been in close contact with someone who has been confirmed to have it. Therefore in order to get a better idea on the scope of the outbreak, testing has to become much more widespread and focus not just on suspected cases, but also on randomized samples.

While there has been a significant improvement compared to a few weeks ago, the pace of testing in the US still has a lot of room for improvement. In the entire United States, we have only just surpassed a total of one million tests which represents just 0.34% of the population. The chart below shows a rundown of testing as a percentage of each state's population. New York currently leads the way with over 205K tests, representing just over 1% of its population. Other states with per capita testing at the high end of the range include Washington, Louisiana, Vermont, and Massachusetts. On the downside, Oklahoma is right on the bottom of the list with just 0.05% of its population having been tested. One notable state where testing has been low is in California. While it was one of the first states to feel the outbreak, only 0.22% of its population has been tested. One of the major factors that will drive when Americans can get back to some sense of normalcy in their lives is to find out how widespread the COVID-19 outbreak has been in terms of who has or has already had it, but until there are some major improvements in the pace of testing, that's going to be a hard trend to get a grasp of.