Thread by @TheLawyerCraig

Stories like this are frustrating, though expected.

Yes, we are seeing another rise in Covid-19 cases over the last week. We are also seeing an even greater rise in testing, at least nationally.

Thread
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https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1307967885277564928

The US's 7-day average number of tests as of yesterday (per @COVID19Tracking) was ~846K. The week before? ~688K. Of course, this is expected with increased testing as schools open up.

The 7-day average percent testing positive hit 4.74% yesterday—the lowest since mid-June.

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Turning to state-level data, "more than half" of US states certainly did not show an increase in percent testing positive.

21 of them did. But even that number is misleading. It includes CT, NH, NJ, VT, and NM, all of which are below 3% positive (VT is 0.59%, up from 0.54%)

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It also includes 4 additional states with a percent testing positive increase of less than 1%, which is such a small fluctuation that the week-over-week number could change after today's numbers drop.

So, now we're down to 12 states with >1% increases.

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This doesn't mean all is well, of course. A couple states actually decreased this past week still have high percentages, and had just increased the week before (ID & ND).

The Midwest/Heartland states are primarily the ones currently seeing the large %s and increases.

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Of course, the raw case count in many of these states is quite low, so there is more % volatility. For example, Montana is on the increase list, but 47 fewer reported cases per day this past week would've meant a decrease. Reporting fluctuations can thus cause larger moves.

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Of course we were going to see "rising cases" as colleges and schools started in-person and hybrid models. Testing has risen even faster than the recent growth in cases though.

I was actually surprised we didn't start to see the test/case rise a couple weeks sooner.

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We've gone from a virus that showed the greatest spread primarily in the large coastal cities, especially the Northeast, moved to the southern US, still mostly in the larger cities, and now seems to have gotten to the tertiary cities in lower population states.

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40K reported cases on 1M tests is a hell of a lot better than 35K on 700K tests. Neither is the *actual* number of cases, but the former almost certainly represents a smaller number (notwithstanding the issues with Ct and PCR testing...which is a whole other can of worms).

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So please don't just regurgitate what I'm sure will soon rise to a cacophony of articles and tweets with some kind of "Covid Case Alert!" headline.

Stay safe & informed. You can start by following me for my daily updates, which look like this:

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https://twitter.com/TheLawyerCraig/status/1307805224413941767?s=20