When I can’t fall back asleep at 3am these days, I’ve found some comfort – but also some confirmation of my fears – in analyzing data about how the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding here in the Upper (Connecticut River) Valley. I thought I would share some of findings. 1/n
First, Grafton County continues to have the largest number of COVID-19 cases per capita in NH. That’s right, focusing on case counts may make us feel like we’re doing better than southern parts of the state, but that would be misleading, since Grafton County is not as dense. 2/n
As of yesterday, Grafton County had 31.2 cases per 100k population, compared to Rockingham County’s 27.8. The next closest place in NH was Manchester, at 17.9. (NH overall is at 15.8; see 1st panel of Figure 1.) 3/n 
In addition, Windsor County, across the river, looks a bit worse than Grafton County. (See 2nd panel of Figure 1.) As of yesterday, Windsor had 32.6 cases per 100k population. Windsor’s case count per capita surpassed Grafton’s on 03/24 and has remained higher since. 4/n
In national context, our per-capita case counts are an order of magnitude lower than the latest numbers from New York. But San Francisco had a per-capita case count yesterday of 34.8; across the bay, in Alameda County, it was 15.4... 5/n
...and the Bay Area has been subject to a shelter in place order for weeks, whereas NH’s stay at home order came only at the end of this week. Confirmed cases undercount true cases – and NH has done a pretty good job at testing – but this suggests that we should STAY AT HOME. 6/n
Second, growth rates in confirmed per-capita cases are stable - not slowing down. (This is implied by the steeper slope for VT in Figure 2, which moves to a logarithmic scale.) Growth rates locally may be slowing down, but this could change at any moment. (STAY AT HOME!) 7/n
Third, NH has done more tests per confirmed case than VT. Under 5 percent of tests come back positive in NH, and this has been pretty stable, compared to 9 percent of tests at last count in VT, and the share positive among tests continues to rise in VT. 8/n
So our situation here isn't great. STAY AT HOME! n/n
