Author: chogan@directresearch.com

Masks for sale to the public, 2/11/2021 NY Times Article

Today’s NY Times has an article on small U.S. N95 mask manufacturing startups that are now failing.  The reporting is muddled, at best.  The good part is that they list several small U.S. manufacturers, many of which appear ready and able to sell NIOSH-certified N95s directly to consumers. Continue reading Post #1004: On N95 masks and razor blades

Source for all graphs:  Calculated from NY Times Github COVID data repository, data through 2/10/2021.

U.S. new cases continue to decline. We’re now 58% down from the peak.  But the rate of decline isn’t speeding up.  It’s still averaging just above 20% per week.

North Dakota continues to be an outlier.  New cases continue to fall, and as of 2/10/2021 the new-case rate in ND just slightly higher than in Hawaii.  This graph shows the states, since 1/1/2021, in logs (so that constant growth rate graphs as a straight line).

I really can’t say why North Dakota is doing so well.  I’d like to say that this is the end-game on herd immunity, but the data just don’t support that.  If that were the main driver of ND, then we’d be seeing some sort of changes in all the states with (estimated) population COVID-19 immunity levels near that of ND. Continue reading Post #1003: North Dakota, is this an outbreak threshold effect?

Edit 2/7/2021:  The cat’s now out of the bag.  Today’s Washington Post showed a huge spike in deaths.  A footnote reads:  “The spike on February 4 is due to Indiana’s inclusion of 1,507 historical deaths that were identified through an audit of death records and positive test results.”  I had a reader email me to point out the same thing. 

Using Indiana as the template, I can look at the graphs of state mortality data published in the 2/7/2021 Washinhton Post and spot similar obvious reporting artifacts in other states, including at least DE, SC, IA, NE).  And those are just the ones that are obvious.  That would not count any revisions that were subtle.

Bottom line:  For whatever reason, it seems to take state Vital Statistics departments a month to look over their death certificate accounts and make any adjustments.  And what we’re seeing with the ongoing high death counts.  The resolution of high deaths vs falling new cases and hospitalizations is that the deaths aren’t new.  They’re accounting adjustments.  Give it another week, and the reported daily deaths should plummet.

Original post follows:

The seven-day moving average of reported COVID-19 daily new cases peaked in the U.S. on 1/8/2021.  Every day, I look at the COVID deaths data.  It should have peaked by now, and started following the new cases down.  But it hasn’t.  This caught my eye because I’ve been expecting a decline in deaths, as a simple and direct consequence in the decline in new cases. Continue reading Post #997: Deaths data, the more you look, the odder it gets

Source:  Calculated from NY Times Github COVID data repository, data reported through 2/5/2021.

Cases are now down 50% from the peak.   The faster rate of decline that appeared to start circa 2/1/2021 continues. 

New York leads the way in faster rate of decline.  Not sure if that’s significant or not. Continue reading Post #996: Current trend continues