pandemic in usa, in review

 

For these three graphs, I have plotted data I gathered from various DPH sites between May 20th and this penultimate day of 2020, for the ten states I monitor.

This first graph contains the total number of people who had COVID over that time span.

As can be seen, that sunny yellow of California has been leading the nation for the entire seven months.

Texas and Florida, sporting purple-brown and deep orange, were lagging until the start of summer but have nearly caught up with the West Coast a time or two.

Georgia's dark blue line had been running a distant fourth place with no contenders until early voting began for the 2020 General Election in mid-October.

Within two weeks, Pennsylvania (light blue), Tennessee (purple-blue), and Michigan (dark green), had caught up, all now having more than half a million people who have been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

(My hypothesis is that Georgia will again tower over them as the run-off election here takes its toll on people's health in the coming weeks.)

Alabama (light green), Louisiana (black), and Oklahoma (yellow-orange) are trailing the pack, but don't be fooled: each of them is still a heavyweight.

Alabama leads the charge with more than 350,000 infected people; Oklahoma is giving its best to catch up, with more than 280,000 having added COVID to their medical records.

For those interested in such things, my ten states have a whopping total of more than 8,358,000, representing almost half of the total cases in the entire USA.

That's pretty sobering news.

 

Looking at the rates of infection per 100,000 people is certainly not reassuring that the nation is heading in a better direction.

Remember, the goal is no new cases, and we have not even gotten past the first wave yet in this pandemic.

So, what do the rate curves tell us?

These ten states had less than 1 person per 100,000 that was infected by the coronavirus in the middle of May.

Then, from the middle of June to the first week of August, the rates climbed exponentially toward 3 people infected per 100,000 for all except Michigan and Pennsylvania.

There followed a period of the states maintaining that higher infection rate...

until the onset of early voting for the 2020 General Election.

Another exponential rise followed, one which has affected all ten of my states, one which has continued up to year's end.

The black line of Louisiana held dominance until that second rise; Tennessee has far outstripped it now, with Oklahoma and Alabama vying for second.

Tennessee, home of several people I know and love, will soon have 9 people infected for every 100,000 that live there.

Pennsylvania, seemingly bringing up the bottom, is no slouch, having 5 people infected for every 100,000 citizens.

So, what good news might there be?

The seven-day sums of new infections are starting to decrease, somewhat.

There have been peaks and dips for the most part, with those dips following two weeks after the close of the General Election and two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Only Georgia is having rising numbers of those newly infected.

No surprise there.

I will be so glad when this run-off is done, though I expect another round of folks contesting the results.

Hopefully, the new strain of the virus will still be susceptible to one or more of the vaccines which have been created and have begun making the rounds.

What is that poem I love about hope?

Oh, yes.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without the words

and never stops at all."

Thanks, Emily Dickinson.