Remember we’re still being impacted by Thanksgiving’s aftershocks on #COVID19 reporting. Last Monday, for example, had an abnormally low positivity due to the holiday, so today’s 7-day averages will spike. But last Tuesday had a really high positivity, so they’ll fall tomorrow.
So by report date, MN’s 7-day average positivity rate spiked to over 11% today, the highest all year.

This is to a significant degree artificial, and will fall tomorrow. But even setting aside reporting issues we’re clearly in an upturn right now.
Here, for example, is positivity rate by sample date. This has a lag of up to a week, but all indications are we’re heading upward, driven by post-Thanksgiving infections.

Note this is a near-mirror of a brief spike we had LAST year right after Thanksgiving.
Nearly 7,000 Minnesotans were diagnosed with #COVID19 by cases taken last Monday (not even counting any home tests, which aren’t tracked), the highest one-day figure all year.
The big unknown: how long will this spike last? Is this just going to be a brief post-Thanksgiving spike that will quickly fade? Or is this being driven by deeper factors, and will persist for weeks?
The frustrating thing: we’ve now had two different false peaks in this wave (plus a third period back in early August when growth slowed way down like we were about to peak, before accelerating again).
#COVID19 hospital bed use continues to climb, to nearly 85% of the Fall 2020 peak levels.
Vaccination rates continue to inch upward. We should cross 70% of the total population with at least one dose in a few days.
Vaccinations are still rising for 5-11-year-olds, but they’re very clearly now trailing the rate at which 12-15-year-olds got vaccinated after they first became eligible.
My kingdom for some clean data right now…

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More from @dhmontgomery

7 Dec
The good news in today’s #COVID19 report for MN: as I said yesterday, data issues had artificially inflated our positivity rate; today’s data sorted that out.

The bad news: we’re still (just) north of 10% and much higher than the 9.2% we were at last last week. Image
You can see this spike and fall as a near mirror-image of last year — off by one day, in fact. This isn’t so much seasonal patterns in Thanksgiving *infection* as seasonal patterns in Thanksgiving *reporting*.

The rest of this week will be key to figuring out where we’re headed. Image
That said, seasonal patterns in infections are playing a role here, too. Here’s our sample-date positivity chart (which lags by a week), also closely matching last year. Image
Read 13 tweets
5 Dec
If you’re looking for a new show to binge this month, I can’t recommend @ExpanseOnPrime enough. It’s got politics, intrigue, some standout characters, and some of the most realistic sci-fi you’ll ever see. The sixth(!) season is dropping soon. Binge it and the other 5 on Amazon.
@ExpanseOnPrime This fan-made trailer, part of a (successful!) campaign to save The Expanse from cancellation a few years ago, is perhaps the best way to get a sense of the show:
@ExpanseOnPrime Some people find the first season a little slow going. Stick with it through at least the end of Episode 4 — that’s when it really takes off.
Read 5 tweets
2 Dec
Some minor upticks in Minnesota’s #COVID19 metrics today — 5,313 cases and 9.3% daily positivity, compared to 4,131 and 7.5% a week ago. Overall the trend the past two weeks is encouraging, so there’s no reason to be concerned over one bad day.
An uptick that sustains itself for a week or so isn’t even cause for panic — last year we saw fairly mild spikes in the metrics a week or two after Thanksgiving & Christmas, but they quickly subsided.
The Thanksgiving holiday is still making our data messy. For example, this chart of new cases by sample date shows a HUGE drop. That’s because this data has a one-week lag, so last Thursday just entered the data — and far fewer people got tested last Thursday than normal. 🤔
Read 7 tweets
1 Dec
Another good news day in Minnesota’s #COVID19 reports: raw cases and positivity rate both trended down today. Our 7-day average positivity rate is now down to 8.8%.

A LOT could change, but right now it looks like we might have peaked circa Nov. 15.
That said, remember all our data is still messy due to the holidays. Case in point: deaths, which weren’t reported yesterday due to holiday staffing issues.

That meant @mnhealth reported 100 deaths today — a huge number — but that represents multiple days of data. Trend is flat
@mnhealth Deaths are actually down slightly from our peak last week, but this dataset is messy enough it’s too early to call a peak yet.
Read 9 tweets
30 Nov
Remember yesterday when I said cases were really low, but this was due to the holiday and we should probably expect a bounceback?

Today’s the bounceback. Numbers today will look scary, but they’re not, really — it’s just a consequence of when things are reported.
Yesterday’s report had 4,511 new cases, 4.34% positive.

Today was 12,632 cases & 17.29% (!) positive.

BUT: if you take the two days together, it’s a 9.7% positivity rate, in line with recent trends. Our 7-day average positivity rate is BELOW where it was at the end of last week ImageImage
As of Friday’s report, MN was averaging 4,175 new cases per day, and a 9.19% positivity rate.

Today, after yesterday’s fall and today’s rise, we’re at 3,576 cases per day and 9.05%.

Follow the general trend — smooth out the spikes and it’s one of moderate decline. Image
Read 11 tweets
29 Nov
#COVID19 data is going to be very messy the next week or two because of Thanksgiving. Not only did the holiday mess up when data is REPORTED, it also messed up how the data is collected. Ordinarily MN has tens of thousands of new COVID tests conducted on a Thursday….
Also @mnhealth isn’t reporting any vaccination data today. We’ll see how my scripts handle that…
Case in point of the weird data: today’s MN #COVID19 report has more than 104,000 total tests. That’s double what we reported last Monday, but of course the holiday means it’s not apples-to-apples.
Read 14 tweets

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