March 31 US Coronavirus Confirmed Cases

Tuesday saw a very slight uptick in the rate of new cases, with 25,423 representing a 15.5% increase over the total infected through Monday. The previous day's rate had been 15.3%, but this change is so small that I don't think it should be seen as being very significant of any trend. If there is any trend, it is that we've had our fourth consecutive day of growth trends below 20%; prior to that we had five consecutive days with the rate of new infections over previous total infections and prior to that mostly the rates were in the 30s.

We did hit a new milestone Tuesday, and that is in number of deaths, which crossed the 4,000 mark. We surpassed China's (and Iran's) death toll, putting us third in the world for fatalities. On Wednesday we should pass two more milestones: 200,000 confirmed cases (this has actually already happened), and 1,000 deaths in a day.

Here's a look at the chart I've been showing every day. As always, this chart shows the number of states that have infection rates by column over seven days. Each grouping of columns represents a doubling of the infection rate of the columns to the left.


And let's take a look at the states list:

Notes:

• New Jersey is now over 200 cases per 100,000.
• Louisiana has over 100 cases per 100,000.
• Massachusetts will be over 100 cases per 100,000 tomorrow.
• Both Washington state and Washington, DC showed very impressively low rates of growth Tuesday, 5.1% and 2.4% respectively.
• California's ranking in this rate of infection chart continues to slowly drop; that seems to both be a vindication of the governor's decision to act very early on social distancing measures, and an indictment of people's inability to understand that measuring the severity of the outbreak isn't just about absolute numbers (more on that in my thought of the day).

And now let's look at the counties list. I think the only one I added was Horry County, SC, due to my cousin reporting a friend's comments on how spring break festivities there seemed undiminished (this is Myrtle Beach's county):

Notes:

• We have a new county to have crossed the 300 cases per 100,000 threshold: Bergen County, NJ. Bergen is home to a large number of medium-sized towns, the largest of which is Hackensack, and is directly across the Hudson river from northern Manhattan and the Bronx, and is connected to Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge.
• Jefferson Parish, immediately east of Orleans Parish and already hard-hit, had an enormous surge of cases yesterday, increasing over 40%.
• Dougherty County, GA (where Albany is) was even worse: a region that has already been one of the worst in the country sees a 67%(!) increase Tuesday. I have yet to see any explanation of how Albany became one of the hardest-hit communities in the nation, but I suspect the sudden increase in numbers has been because testing there is a disaster; I read a report in the local newspaper of tests taking 8-10 days to get results. If so, watch the numbers continue to climb rapidly over the next week or so.

The top 15 communities of concern are:

1. New York-White Plains-Jersey City MSA.
2. Long Island.
3. Albany, GA.
4. Ski resort communities.
5. New Orleans.
6. Newark, NJ.
7. Bridgeport, CT.
8. Boston, MA.
9. Poughkeepsie, NY.
10. Detroit.
11. Seattle.
12. Shreveport, LA.
13. Indianapolis.
14. Chicago.
15. Philadelphia.

Talking Point of the Day:

Math literacy matters. I started this blog because I was personally curious how the numbers of infections I was hearing related to the numbers of people in an area; I suspected understanding this was a critical component of knowing how bad an outbreak is. And yet I find myself surrounded by obvious signs of math illiteracy, at all levels. One friend posted a list of the various cities of Galveston County (TX) and the number of Covid-19 cases they had. Someone responded that her town, League City, looked like a disaster, not realizing (until others pointed out to her) that League City was the largest city in the county, and one would expect high numbers there. Another friend talked about how well things were going in Austin; I had to point out that the per capita rates made Austin the third-highest rate of infections in Texas, having been first for most of the period.

These are relatively minor issues, but I worry a lack of math literacy can drive decision-making, as well. Monday night on Late Night with Seth Meyers Seth interviewed California governor Gavin Newsom. He introduced the governor, saying that California had been one of the hardest-hit states in the nation. I have railed against this many times, but apparently it bears repeating. While I don't want to minimize the suffering anywhere, CALIFORNIA IS NOT ONE OF THE HARDEST-HIT STATES IN THE NATION!!! In fact, anything but: California is currently 30th in the rate of infections. Then I heard that the USNS Comfort, a US Navy hospital ship, has been sent to Manhattan harbor to provide overflow hospital capability. I'm sure you've heard that, too. But what of the comfort's sister ship, USNS Mercy? Were you aware that three days earlier she was sent to LA harbor? Why? I've mentioned that California has a relatively low rate of infection in the US. Los Angeles County, and the greater LA area, have even lower rates of infection than Northern California. I suspect that the ship would be more urgently needed in San Francisco bay, or better still, perhaps New Orleans.

We have to do better, people.