Parallax View - part the thirty eighth

Another week's up, so here are today's numbers:

  >= 1,000 -   957 
100 to 999 - 1,760

(New) grand total of counties reads at 3,132. While I've not gotten into an argument with the Topo folks over this re-definition of 'affected' counties, it certainly looks like a move to bolster wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's perpetual lying.

Something of a mixed bag. The Topo map shows a marked decrease in the total for upper groups, and remarkable thinning out of 100+ counties in the Northern Plains. On the other hand, the Johns Hopkins derived map (per capita) continues to show that area deep in disease.

The CNN map, also per capita, continues to show the Northern Plains still quite hot.

Yet, on the next hand, the NYT map, again per capita, shows the Northern Plains abating, but the mid-south from Tennessee on west pushing ever upward. Of course, The Times admits the obvious:

Holiday reporting quirks will likely blur the country's data. Testing was expected to decrease around Christmas and New Year's, and many states have said they will not report data on certain days. More typical reporting patterns were expected to resume in early January.

Is this data showing we're around the curve, or just cheering for finding a lode of fool's gold? Fauci:

And the reason I'm concerned and my colleagues in public health are concerned also is that we very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas, New Year's, surge, and, as I have described it, as a surge upon a surge, because, if you look at the slope, the incline of cases that we have experienced as we have gone into the late fall and soon-to-be-early winter, it is really quite troubling.

My bet goes to significant under-reporting over the holiday, since the last Topo map before Christmas had the 1000+ group at 979 and the 100-999 group at 1,760. The bottom two groups totalled 26. The chances that the two ends of the spectrum would shift so fast isn't likely. We'll see what happens to the data during the week. If there's been under-reporting, it may catch up. Or reporting will continue to be spotty until at least 11 January 2021.