Thursday, March 19, 2020

Day 48: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

The international case count has exceeded 222,000, with over 9,000 deaths and 84,500 recovered. Italy is approaching 36,000 cases and 3,000 deaths. Iran, Spain, and Germany remain in the teens, and the US, at nearly 9,500 cases and 157 deaths, is now on the wrong side of both France and South Korea.

Massachusetts has dropped to 8th in the nation in case counts. We still have no deaths, though 23 states have at least one already. Many Massachusetts grocery stores have implemented senior hours, and daycare centers will be shut down on Monday, except in certain circumstances involving essential workers.

The Sun Chronicle reports a hospitalized case in Attleboro from an unspecified nursing home, as well as the first case in Mansfield. As of yesterday, there were twelve cases in Southeastern Mass: five cases in Bristol County, five in Plymouth County, two in Barnstable County (the Cape), and none on the islands.

PlagueBlog recommends a New York Times opinion piece from Tuesday about the public health consequences of lying to the public about the need for face masks.

P.S. BBC News reports Italy's death toll has exceeded China's.

P.P.S. Our numbers are out for today: 328 cases total in Massachusetts, up 72 cases (including 4 in Southeastern Massachusetts), with 8 more cases of local transmission, 8 more travel-related, and 56 still under investigation. Hospitalizations went up from 27 to 43 (with a large number still unclassified).

The state lab found 37 of the new positives, the commercial labs (only LabCorp today) found 18, and the underspecified other labs found 17. Total test rates are still unavailable for the other labs, but the state and the commercial labs are still holding at 13% and 4% positive, respectively.

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