Graphs are showing spikes

Lately, when I pull coronavirus data from Wikipedia, I noticed that data are coming in later in the day, so I do most of my updates after 9 pm to try to get the latest data. Maybe people are now backed up with work or just tired of keeping track. The latest data though are not looking good – the South and parts of the West are surging. Fortunately, some Republican governors are starting to reconsider their re-opening strategy and slow things down or maybe do some reversals or require wearing masks.

Here’s where we stand as of yesterday. The death cases look like their might have been an uptick in the last few days:

This international comparison data comes from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic.

Below is a comparison by regions. You can see the South really surging and parts of the West, too. Ohio in the Midwest might be on the cusp of surging because I see a little uptick.

These state comparison data also comes from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_data/United_States_medical_cases.

Here’s a new series of graphs. I’m trying to create something that would tell me very quickly which states are facing surges. Below are mini-graphs of all 50 states plus DC. I’m going to try these graphs to see if they help me spot anything new.

Source – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_data/United_States_medical_cases.

I still have to work on the formatting of these graphs because some of the graphs kind of look like they were created with different sizes; the graphs just popped up the way they did, even though all of the graphs have the same format, except for the colors. As for the colors, I was using the same colors for those states that I had already been tracking thus far. At some point in the future, these graphs will change.

Lately, the news have been about Arizona, Texas and Florida and mentioned that the governors have reversed some of their positions such as now requiring masks. That’s good news.

But, those moves may be too late because the infection rates of today relate to infection caught two or three or four weeks ago (there’s usually a time lag of 3 to 14 days before the symptoms show up and then a time lag before someone gets sick enough to get tested). So, in the two, three or four weeks’ interim, the infected person is walking around unwittingly ejecting the virus. And the virus is VERY contagious. The latest metric is that the actual infection rate may be 10 times greater than what has been captured through tests.

These surges seems to be driven by the younger age, such as those in their 20s, 30s and 40s. There have been pictures of crowds in restaurants and bars with few wearing masks and no obvious attempt at social distancing. Those in their 20s – I regard their actions as due to “the stupidity of youth”, but those in their 30s and 40s should know better. I don’t know if those in their 30s and 40s are mainly Republicans – polls have indicated most Republicans do not believe in wearing masks or social distancing. Whatever the case may be, the fear is that the younger generations could end up infecting their parents and grandparents who could face dire results. Even some of the younger generations are facing hospitalizations, although their outcome generally is better.

Here’s an image of generational infection which I sourced from Wall Street journal which sourced from CDC.

Today, I read that the Republicans in Congress still haven’t got the message; they still won’t wear masks. With all of those surging cases, it’s hard to imagine why they won’t wear masks. This virus is REAL!

It seems to me that the Republicans don’t learn except the hard way. They have to be punched in the face before they wake up and realize that this is real. The Republican state governors had to see the case surges and the rising hospitalization occupancy before they would enforce wearing masks and slowing down the re-opening, although it’s at a point where it’s probably too late.

The Republicans in Congress probably won’t learn until they catch the virus. I think they are going to have to catch the virus, and get so sick that they end up in the hospital fighting for their lives before they start to demand wearing masks. That’s the only way I see them learning this.

To wrap up this post, I’m going to end with an advance view of a new set of graphs that will show hospitalization rates and positivity rates. I have succeeded in finding a source for these data and in wrangling the data in Power BI (well, somewhat). You can see in the image below that Florida does not track hospitalization data. And also, Georgia is starting to rise. Previously I’ve been wondering why that state was not surging and speculated that it may be because of “deceptive” data. It could very well be due to a lag in testing. Georgia and Florida look like their are going to spike steeply.