August 31, 2020 - Wonky
Wonky
August 31, 2020
Apologies in advance for a really wonky presentation today. There is seemingly no way to avoid it.
The daily case count improved today but the test count did not. The good news is there were only 823 cases (incl. 127 probables). Unfortunately, there were also only 4,098 tests, which is the 4th lowest number of tests in a single day in August. Therefore, today’s positivity rate was exactly 20%, which is not good.
But that tells only part of the story. On August 24, there were 1,650 cases and only 814 tests, which made for a one-day positivity rate of 202%. I cannot recall another day in this pandemic when cases outnumbered tests, let alone doubled the number of tests. Well, this data from August 24 dropped out of the 7-day averages today, which causes some weird anomalies.
For instance, although 4,098 tests today are paltry by any measure, that’s 5 times the number of tests recorded seven days ago. Similarly, although 823 cases is a decent decline from yesterday (1,346), it looks spectacular compared to the 1,650 cases seven days ago. Although today’s 20% positivity rate is high, it looks great compared to the absurdly high 202% rate that it replaces in the averages.
Bottom line: the 7-day average positivity rate dropped by a whopping two percentage points - from 17.13% to 15.12% today, which is a good thing. Then again, 15% is still way too high to overcome New York State’s quarantine.
If you are still reading this post after that explanation, then you might consider becoming a statistician. There is nothing new to report from our State’s largest universities. Auburn hasn’t updated its campus data since 8/21 but word has it that Auburn will begin reporting weekly data every Tuesday, beginning tomorrow, on its COVID-19 Resource Center page athttp://auburn.edu/covid-resource-center/. The University of Alabama will update its dashboard next Friday and every Friday thereafter.
Finally, hospitalizations came in after the weekend about where I expected. They rose to 1,002 from 969 yesterday, but there were 106 hospitals reporting compared to only 96 yesterday. It feels like the statewide COVID-19 patient population has dropped well off its peak 6 weeks ago but the drop has levelled off in recent days. The totals:
8/18 - 1,358
8/19 - 1,117
8/20 - 971
8/21 - 1,183
8/22 - 900
8/23 - 528
8/24 - 1,650
8/25 - 532
8/26 - 2,012
8/27 - 1,769
8/28 - 1,162
8/29 - 1,704
8/30 - 1,346
8/31 - 823
Jefferson (143) and Lee (113) counties are the only ones with more than 100 cases. Tuscaloosa Co. inexplicably reported only 29 cases (incl. 22 probables). I was shocked to learn today that Lee County’s case rate of 736 per 100K population is the highest in the state and more than triple the state average (202 per 100K). The next highest counties are Chilton (414 per 100K) and Tuscaloosa (408 per 100K).