05-25-2020, 10:18 PM
(05-25-2020, 07:17 AM)Mikebert Wrote:(05-24-2020, 01:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The graph compared the two zones, showing the rest of US now has a higher rate than the hot zone, but you say one trend line is 10X the other. The graph might be less confusing if it compared the two lines on the same scale.
Another observation from my daily observation of the stats: MD, VA and DC are also part of the hot zone.
The scale on the left is 1/10 the scale on the right. If both were plotted on the same axis it would make it hard to see the shape of the rest of the country.
I chose the top 7 states in terms of total deaths as the Hot Zone, when I started to track these. CA has since bumped CT to 8th place, but because CA is so large, its per capita death rates are very small, so I wouldn't include them any way. The next two states in the total death ranking are LA and MD, so if I chose to expand the Hot State category they would be next. Next after them would be FL, which I would exclude based on size, like CA. Then comes OH, IN, and GA, followed by TX (which I would exclude like CA and FL). Then comes CO and only then VA. So VA is not really part of the hot zone.
DC is hot in terms of per capita deaths, but has a small number of total deaths, like RI. Consider how this graph is constructed. The Hot Zone is the sum of dealths in seven states with the highest deaths. Adding in more states with small numbers of death will not significantly change the plot, they will only serve to divide the total deaths by a bigger population and water down the finding.
A key thing to remember is NY accounts for 29% of the deaths in the whole country and 45% of the deaths in the hot zone. I chose the other six states partly to reduce the dominance of NY in the data set, while removing their dynamics from the national data. When you plot the national data you see a peak and decline afterward. But this is misleading. It is an artifact of including NY and a handful of other states in the total. Take those out (i.e. the Hot Zone) and you get the profile in a majority of the country. There was no peak, no "first wave". It's just a steady progression. As states open up, the state and local health departments will be working to isolate infected people since we now have MUCH more testing that we did in March. There will probably be no "second wave". The flat trend may be replaced by a slowly rising trend, but that is a lot less scary.
I would point out that the shape of the hot zone profile is also shown by 4 hot zone state that are not NY. Two are adjacent to NYC (NJ, CT) and so are really part of the NYC outbreak. Another state (MA) may are may not have its own outbreak. Then there is my state (MI) which likely got its own innoculum from Europe or maybe even Wuhan because of the links between the auto industry and suppliers there. So I consider MI to be a separate outbreak, like the early ones in WA and CA. These outbreaks were crushed by the authorities, keeping these states from becoming part of the hot zone.
LA may have had its own outbreak too, I am not very familiar with their experience.
It's a good graph and method. THere's a difference between the "hot" states and the rest of the country.
I might think of the hot zone as the eastern seaboard from VA to MA, a contiguous territory being a "zone." VA and MD are hot because their # of new cases is frequently among the highest now. I would call that entire area the hot zone.
It has been hot because of its location and its demographic.
I don't think we still do enough testing. With so many infected people and newly infected people out there, a second wave could develop after too much opening up. Trump is pushing for a second wave. But predicting this thing is hard just based on what's happening and the surface stats.