US COVID Update (08-04-2020)

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I had hoped to have better news tonight. It isn't all that bad, but it isn't good, either. One real problem is that late, after midnight GMT at least one site dropped an additional 2000 new cases in the NY data. I can't find it anywhere else, and neither the NY Dept of Health nor the NYT showed the new cases about 30 minutes ago when I looked. It's worrisome.

However, even if I accept those new cases there were only 33,000 new cases today, which would be a slowing of the flattening, and not unexpected. It's not going to be a linear process just yet. But if the 2000 extra new cases in NY are a glitch of some kind, the the data really is pretty flat. It will be at least late tomorrow I think, before I can tell.

So, instead of flat, NY is up 2000 (of the 3000 more new cases today than yesterday). Weird. There are also suggestions out there that NY is trying to include some portion of home deaths (which are up from 30 or so a day in NYC to 200 plus) as COVID even in the absence of a confirming test. I don't like that idea, if it is true, because it blows the previous consistency of the data trend and it can't be shown to be accurate at all. That is an adjustment that should be made much later and not on the fly in my opinion.

However, we must work with the data we have, not the data we wish we had.

NY is up either 1550 or down 1450, depending on the accuracy of that added number. It still really looks to me like the high number is wrong.

Other than that, MI is down 1500 cases (I'm really dubious on that number, too, but it's from the MI site), Georgia is up 1250 or so, CA up 450, CT down 350, NJ down 250 (which means a 2000 increase in NY is really going against the trend in the NYC area), LA is down 450, FL down 150, TX down 200, TN up 150, VA up 200, all other states are up and down in double digits.

Absent that weird extra 2000 in NY I'd call the whole thing up very slightly/flat.

As for deaths, as you can expect them to lag behind the trend in new cases as always. They are up 700 from yesterday to over 10,000. NY, NJ and GA are the only states with 100 or more -- 130 for NY, 140 for NJ, and 100 for GA. MA with 70 and CT with 55. (again, over half the new death increase is in the NYC area. It's still the major hotspot.)
Other states varied from 40 down to a few with minor decreases.

Overall I'd call this a slowing of the flattening of the epidemic. Not good numbers but not very bad either.
Oops. Now the MI website is saying new cases up more than 1500. There is something weird going on.
That's all I can say now. Not real good, not real bad, not much change from yesterday overall.

Be serious, practice good health, don't get hysterical.



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