People often complain that I'm looking at cases instead of some other metric: hospitalizations, deaths, contestants on the Bachelor who test antibody positive, whatever. "Positive cases are determined by testing." "You can't compare April to June." "Deaths are what matter."
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I look at cases for two primary reasons. 1) They are a leading indicator. Deaths lag cases by 2-3 weeks, at which point it's too late. 2) Cases are the causal drivers of new cases. Cases now are the best predictor of cases in a week.
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It's true that changes in testing make it difficult to directly compare case numbers between early April and late June. But that's not what I'm interested in. I don't all that much care whether we're above the peak of the initial spike. What I care about is where we are going.
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So what I want to do is compare cases in Florida today with cases in Florida a week ago. Barring extraordinary circumstances, testing doesn't ramp up exponentially the way that cases have. On the timescale of a week, testing changes are usually a wash.pic.twitter.com/6vRjC6oB14
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"What about deaths? Why shouldn't we care about these at least as much as cases? Deaths are not increasing in Florida." Not yet, that's true. But deaths are a severely lagging indicator or at least three reasons.
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1) It takes 2-3 weeks to progress from infection to death. 2) It often takes a week or more for deaths to be registered. 3) If the leading edge of a spike is driven by younger people, you need one or more rounds of transmission to reach a vulnerable population. But you will.
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So the trajectory of deaths tells me about how who was infected a month ago was changing, a month ago. I want to know how who is infected now is changing now, and what that bodes for the future.
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1 week in review, if the Monday dip in new cases holds true, then I am very worried about what comes next in Florida
pic.twitter.com/W0J3roarM5
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Mondays normally a dip because they are reporting Sunday data with reduced test centers and lab hours. See the regular dips (US but states create this pattern).pic.twitter.com/VEqO7HdemG
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This is the Leroy Jenkins strategy.
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