Day 40: Number of Deaths Going Down

• COVID-19 Report As of Friday, April 24, 2020 GA DPH NOON
• Consecutive day #3 of decreasing growth (14 needed) ▼
• Confirmed COVID-19 Cases: 22,147 (+635) ▼
  • Daily Growth Rate: 2.9% (-0.8%) ▼
  • Weekly Growth Rate: 3.7% (-0.3%) ▲
  • % of Population Affected: 0.2111% (+0.0059%) ▼
• Hospitalized: 4,221 (+152) ▲
• Deceased: 892 (+20) ▼
  • Morbidity Rate: 4.02% (-0.03%) ▼
  • IHME Prediction: 36 (off by +16)
  • My Prediction: 32 (off by +12)
• Estimated Numbers
  • Double Number of cases every 34 days (was 27) ▼
  • Total Contagious: 177,176 (+5,080) ▼
  • Contagious (but appear healthy): 172,955 (+4,928) ▼
  • Contagious Ratio: 16 in every 1,000 Georgians (was 16) ▼
• ▼= getting better; ▲= getting worse; ✓ = same

Today’s data seems to tell the story that everyone wants to tell at the same time. The number of deaths (20), is the lowest in 12 days. Both the expert prediction and mine were high (see above) and that means that deaths were less than predicted. It is no good for the 20 people and their families. The weekly growth rate is down again continuing the trend. See Fig 1. I’ve done something to offend The Excel Gods, so my main graph was simply empty and I don’t have the time to fool with recreating it a second time. I have been playing with another metric (like I need another one!) that is the daily change in the average for the whole pandemic. I’ve been using this as a quick proxy for the rate of change in the virus. I put this number in a graph as Fig 2. Like all the charts the data is all over the damned place, but you can see at a glance that the rate of change is trending down of the last few days. Negative means that it is going down really fast while bigger numbers means it went up fast. This COVID-19 data is like Winnie the Pooh in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree where he exercises to a song called Up, Down, Touch the Ground. The data is truly up and down and up and down. Fig 2 makes interpreting all the other numbers easy–if it does not continue to go down, then we have a problem. Today we don’t have a problem. And so far, the Governor’s reliance upon the IHME prediction cannot be faulted either. But to back up the Northeast Georgia Health System complaints, hospital admissions are up more today than yesterday so they get the red. If you are thinking groundhog day, then you are right too. Everybody gets something out of today’s numbers, but nobody gets what they really want and that is a clear end to the pandemic. Friday through Monday are days filled with questionable data. I’ll hold my breath until Next Tuesday.