The fallacy of these % maps being shown by CNN. About 35 states' cases are "up 50%"

[George II]

The thing is, if a state's cases were way down, just a few more can put it in that 50% group.

For example, Connecticut has 92 cases, which is "up 26%" over last week. That's an increase of a mere 18 cases or so in a population of more than 3.5 million.

On the other hand, those hospitalized are down 19% (59 from 68) and there were no deaths in the last week.

I wish CNN and others would just put out the raw numbers and not try to be cute with lumping states in % ranges.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. I agree. It's pointless compared to other data when...

... a state already has very low infection, hospitalization and death rates.

A state with a single new infection per day that increases to two, a 100% increase, is much better off than another state with 1000 new infections per day that increases to 1500. Only a 50% increase of daily new cases for the latter, but 500 times the increase of new infections compared to the other state.

Edit: It could give people the wrong impression that a highly vaccinated state like CT is doing no better than a state like MS.
No only that, but several states are barely testing their citizens for Covid at all! CT is currently testing over 250 people per 100k, but there's red states in the single and double digits of people tested per 100k people!

[Scrivener7]

2. Yes, but the rate is significant. If we keep seeing high percentages week after week,

we know Delta is here.

Once it is here (which, just assume it is) it's time to take stronger precautions. For this we should follow the percentages, not the raw numbers. By the time the raw numbers catch up, Delta is already circulating everywhere.

[panader0]

3. I believe the map on CNN I saw this morning shower that 49 of 50 states are trending higher.

Pretty disturbing. In my little town, very few people wear masks anymore, vaccinated or not.
This shit is definitely not over.

[Blues Heron]

4. It is what it is. If that's the percent increase, so be it

It's just a mathematical fact. We know with exponential growth that small numbers can get big fast.

[Dream Girl]

5. They are showing the trend which is more important than raw numbers...shows where we are headed

[we can do it]

6. Exactly, numbers were low all over initially and look what happened.

[George II]

13. But that's my point. In a state that had relatively few cases the % can be "20%" with just a dozen..

...or two new cases.

Then you have a state like Mississippi where there have been more than 120 new cases in a week.

Connecticut has a population of 3.5M, and now at ~ 50% with 26 new cases state-wide, Mississippi has a population of 2.9M and they're ~ 50% with 550 new cases state-wide.

Is rating both at about 50% increase really a sensible way to assess the relative state of the virus in these two states?

[George II]

8. In states that now have very low numbers to begin with, it's statistically irrelevant...

Now, here in Connecticut, we had zero deaths last week. So, if we have ONE this week the increase or upward "trend" would be astronomical.

[Dream Girl]

9. It show that all 50 states are show similar levels of increase, other than that it is kind ofirrelev

[Pobeka]

7. % is the right way to look at it from the stand point of exponential growth

week cases %
1 100
2 150 +50
3 225 +50
4 338 +50
5 506 +50
6 759 +50
7 1139 +50
8 1709 +50
9 2563 +50

There's a simple example of why you really, really need to pay attention to the % growth, if you ignore it, at 50% growth you could have new daily cases at levels 25 times what you had only 8 weeks ago.

New daily cases are going up now in all but 1 of the 50 states.

It's worse in low vaccinated states, but even high vaccinated states it's starting to tic up.

If we were an educated country that cared about each other's individual welfare, we'd be mandating masks again and social distancing *right now* to avoid the inevitable rise in cases. And there'd be vaccine passports to limit unvaccinated idiots from mixing with the masses.

[Peppertoo]

10. I agree. And at this point hospitalizations matter more.

[Ms. Toad]

12. No. They don't.

15% of the country cannot get vaccinated yet - and asymptomatic infections are likely even more dangerous to that population than hospitalization (which at least limits them from spreading it to people not yet able to be vaccinated).

COVID is still an incredibly unpredictable disease. Perfectly healthy, vaccinated, individuals can contract COVID and - even without hospitalization - can have a significant long-term decrease in quality of life if their "mild" case becomes long-haul COVID.

[Ms. Toad]

11. While you are correct that just a few more % will move it into a different band

That is a very short-lived problem.

If Connecticut continues at that pace, in 6 weeks Connecticut will be at around 300 cases. Problem solved.

I am glad they are alerting people to the reality that cases are on the upswing, and not just in red areas. NYC is up 137% over the past 2 weeks (above the US growth of 111%).

If we don't wake up and do something, cases will be around 200,000 by early September.