This site tracks Rt, the value that measures how many people the average infected person infects, in each of the American states. An Rt greater than one (depicted as red in this interactive chart) means the virus is spreading to more people. A value less than 1 means it’s on track to die out. Note that we still don’t know the the extent to which people who’ve had the virus…
From the Wall Street Journal: At a March 10 church choir practice in Washington state, 87% of attendees were infected, said Lea Hamner, an epidemiologist with the Skagit County public-health department and lead author of a study on an investigation that warned about the potential for “superspreader” events, in which one or a small number of people infect many others. Members of the choir changed places four times during the…
Based on the number of people I saw at Wal-Mart who were not covering their faces, sadly this won’t last long. NEW: Pennsylvania is one of three states recognized by the CDC for having the most COVID-19 case reduction success. Pennsylvania has had a downward trajectory of COVID-19 cases for more than 42 days. Hawaii and Montana are the other two states to accomplish this. — Cody Carlson (@CodyCarlsonNews) June…
Andrew Gelman of “Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science” writes: Peer review is fine for what it is—it tells you that a paper is up to standard in its subfield. Peer reviewers can catch missing references in the literature review. That can be helpful! But if peer review catches anything that the original authors didn’t understand . . . well, that’s just lucky. You certainly can’t expect it. I…
Sobering report from the New York Times, providing evidence that COVID-19 deaths have been over-reported. Mortality data in the middle of a pandemic is not perfect. In most places, the disparities between the official death counts and the total rise in deaths reflect limited testing for the virus rather than intentional undercounting. Officially, about 355,000 people had died worldwide of the coronavirus as of Thursday. But the total death numbers offer a more…