Thread by @chrisprener

Short #Missouri #COVID19 evening update 🧵 for Wednesday, 5/13, covering testing data for MO, #StLouis zip code and individual-level outcomes, and #STL hospitalization data - slu-opengis.github.io/covid_daily_vi….

We’ve got more hospitalization metric improvements today despite… 1/7

… a jump in the number of new admissions ☝️. These jumps have happened before, even when the overall trend is downward. Focus on that trend and not the absolute change. Metrics for sickest patients, ICUs and ventilator use, also continued their downward trajectories 👇. 2/7

Worse news on the testing front, where we are failing to expand testing and have falling from our recent peak numbers on the 7-day average of new tests. On the plus side, our % positive is dropping, but we really need to expand our testing capacity and are failing to do so. 3/7

Evidence of social determinants of health affecting infection rates continues to emerge at both the zip-code level… 4/7

… and the individual level. The fact rates are higher among men may be part of the disease process, but could also reflect social factors based on gender. Variation by race and poverty reflects deeply entrenched structural inequalities and not biology. 5/7

My standard caveats about uncertainty - infections (1) are historical data that reflect infections 2-3 weeks ago, (2) are biased by limited testing, (3) may include probable but unconfirmed cases in some counties, and (4) rates are not individual probabilities of illness. 6/7

Additional maps and plots are on my tracking site - slu-opengis.github.io/covid_daily_vi….

My #rstats code and and data are all available on @GitHub - github.com/slu-openGIS/co…. They're licensed for re-use with attribution, and feedback and improvements are always welcome. 7/7