Thread by @fascinatorfun

We’re Sharing Coronavirus Case Data for Every U.S. County - The New York Times

No single Government agency in the USA collates and verifies all the data on #CV cases and deaths, remarkably. V patchy.

So the ⁦@nytimes⁩ is doing it for them. nytimes.com/article/corona…

This should be really interesting when you look and see how they are setting about it.

They are using multiple sources of data over and above state agencies and John Hopkins - and - presciently - they started in late January.

Locations. Ages. Dates

And more

By yesterday they had tracked more than 85k cases and the more than 1200 people who have died.

They have been able to track how a single known case in Louisiana mushroomed into an uncontrolled outbreak.

A small cluster in New Rochelle in New York led to the discovery of thousands more cases in nearby cities and states.

The virus does no spread. We spread the virus.

This way it is possible to track measures to slow the virus and what happens in places where these measures are not undertaken.

Given the likelihood of COVID being with us for years in waves rather than months we need to understand our part and the state’s part in prevention.

Not only are they puttting their own team of journalists on it. They have linked up with freelancers, journalism students (what a way to set out!) from Universities of N Western, Missouri and Nebraska Lincoln, plus working with the University of California.

Including tracking patients across state boundaries.
So when the US Gov flew back American’s exposed to CV in China and Japan, the @nytimes tracked them back to the states where they were subsequently treated, altho’ local health departments did not.

Other data anomalies tracked

This accounting is an attempt to record how and where the coronavirus has spread across the US. But it is a product of a fragmented American public health system in which overwhelmed officials at state or local level have sometimes struggled to report accurately & consistently

Because, behind every official statistic is a human being, a family and a life story.

Estimates of how the disease could spread with no intervention

Some control measures

Severe control measures

But as long as people can move pretty freely within the USA (internal flights still operating) severe measures in one state can be undone by little in another

June 1st is just over 2 months away.

Meanwhile in NY City (pop 8.4 million) the number of coronavirus cases in New York City had climbed above 26,000. The city’s death toll was 450.

Altho’ 1.7% v test positives, scaled up to U.K. pop that is the equivalent of 3465 deaths.

If New York City includes Long Island (& I am uncertain for the purposes of these stats whether it does or does not) then the population is 11.3 million, then scaled up to the U.K. that is still equivalent to 2655 deaths in a frighteningly shirt space of time.

But in one the areas where there has been a severe cluster there is some oreder Andy maybe some hope.

Drive thru’ testing centres have been set up and increasingly vigorous suppression measures put in place.

The @nytimes will be tracking the effect.