[FRIAM] Fwd: COVID-19: What data can tell us. And what it can't.
Tom Johnson
tom at jtjohnson.com
Fri Mar 27 16:11:25 EDT 2020
Per this morning's presentation and conversations
============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
*Check out It's The People's Data
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
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---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Marjorie Childress, New Mexico In Depth <nmindepth at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 1:17 PM
Subject: COVID-19: What data can tell us. And what it can't.
To: <jtjohnson555 at gmail.com>
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=da4a59b4e5&e=a69158e1ca>
What data can tell us. What it can't.
*"The safest message is that a single case can lead to further spread."*
By Marjorie Childress
New Mexico’s COVID-19 cases increased to 136 yesterday, 13 people are
hospitalized, one person has died. And now, the governor wants the U.S.
Department of Defense to set up a staffed 248-bed combat hospital in
Albuquerque.
Lujan Grisham wrote it’s “urgently needed” in a letter to Defense Secretary
Mark Esper because COVID-19 might overwhelm New Mexico’s medical
facilities.
That’s where New Mexico stands at the moment, and the combination of those
stats, not to mention all the data and modeling that’s swirling around the
internet, might make you anxious.
Many turn to data to help them understand the world. But the big problem
with data about COVID-19 is the gaps. There are many. Still, as
insufficient as available data is, what we do have may provide much-needed
perspective.
New Mexico In Depth compared U.S. Census bureau state population numbers to
data compiled
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=595d4832de&e=a69158e1ca>
by the Covid Tracking Project
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=7a0cdd27d4&e=a69158e1ca>.
There’s some data missing, due to gaps in what individual states are
reporting. But there’s enough to show New Mexico in the top tier of states
for tests conducted per 100,000 people, according to our analysis and that
of others
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=2f66494d92&e=a69158e1ca>.
Even
though the state hasn’t near enough testing capacity, leaving most who want
one high and dry, it seems to be doing as many as it can. The more testing
we’re able to do the better, because that helps officials trace and
hopefully contain the virus.
New Mexico also has one of the lowest positive test rates. In other words,
the percent of tests in New Mexico coming back positive is very low
compared to other states. Once the numbers were updated yesterday
afternoon, New Mexico’s positive test rate had increased to 2%, still very
low comparatively. It was one percent before that.
In an interview Thursday, Dr. Chad Smelser, deputy state epidemiologist,
agreed New Mexico’s positive test rate is low.
One possibility for that, he said, is the state tests a greater range of
people.
“In the state of New Mexico, we’ve taken the approach of testing more
people than other surrounding states,” he said. “If you focus your testing
only on the very sickest patients who have no other explanation for their
illness, you’d expect to have more of those test positive in that
population. When you expand to a greater number of people, people with
milder symptoms, on occasion we had people tested who had no symptoms, you
would expect the rate at which your test is positive to be lower.”
Another possible explanation for the low rate, he said, is that there’s not
an “overwhelming” amount of the virus in New Mexico, right now, although
officials are seeing it throughout the different regions of the state.
Smelser noted that there are models circulating on the internet with
projections about how many people may eventually get the disease, and how
many could be expected to die. He said he and his colleagues evaluate those
models for applicability to New Mexico but cautioned that they can’t be
applied in cookie cutter fashion. The state is geographically large with a
small population. Mashing it up in the same models as hyper-dense New York
City doesn’t help New Mexicans understand how COVID-19 will spread in their
state. The DOH and its partners are working to come up with New Mexico
modeling, he said, that takes into account density, demographics, and other
factors specific to the state.
In the end, available data and models at our fingertips about COVID-19 are
insufficient. We simply lack the data we need, which is unnerving for
people who turn to data--many of us --to make sense of the world.
But there is one data point Smelser sounded very definitive about.
“The safest message is that a single case can lead to further spread,” he
said.
With more testing there will be more positive test results. Looking at
cumulative numbers reported by the New Mexico Department of Health shows
how the number of tests and positive results have swerved skyward since
March 4.
It’s that curve upward that authorities are so diligently trying to flatten
through social distancing and isolation policies for the general public.
It’s the data we are urged to take to heart.
Studies have shown that New Mexico has fewer hospital beds than the
national average
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=fda1442dde&e=a69158e1ca>.
Given that, even if New Mexico’s infection and hospitalization rates
ultimately are low compared to other states, its hospitals may still not
have enough capacity for very ill patients who will need ICU beds and
ventilators for survival if there’s a need all at once.
That’s a likely reason Lujan Grisham began very early ordering businesses
closed and urging New Mexicans to stay at home, so as to slow the rate of
infection. And why now, she’s called for an Army hospital in New Mexico.
*Covid-19 Resource Pages ---- Please let us know what we should add to our
resources page. *
- New Mexico In Depth is mapping the outbreak in New Mexico. Here
is our resource
page
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=e9759d7bba&e=a69158e1ca>
.
- The State of New Mexico resource page
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=f3b25fa04a&e=a69158e1ca>
.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resource page
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=167de958af&e=a69158e1ca>
with information about the disease, prevention and containment efforts.
*This week from New Mexico In Depth*
*Domestic violence:* NMID’s Celia Raney wrote about the increased risk of
domestic violence
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=25fb0f217a&e=a69158e1ca>as
New Mexicans find themselves enduring stay at home orders with no end in
sight.
*Spring semester goes online:* State officials reported today
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=3e4a7878fe&e=a69158e1ca>
that all public schools in New Mexico would move to online instruction
through the end of the semester.
*Working from Home:* The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reversed
course
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=74e4c20c5b&e=a69158e1ca>to
allow some administrative staff to work from home during the COVID-19
pandemic one day after New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica reported that the
federal agency had banned such telework authorizations.
*Lack of protective equipment: *Officials confirmed to Bryant Furlow that
frontline clinicians in Albuquerque — the hospital workers most likely to
come into direct contact with contagious patients — face rationing of
personal protective equipment
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=babb938c2c&e=a69158e1ca>,
or PPE, and are not being tested for COVID-19 unless they start to show
symptoms.
*Community spread:* New Mexico is experiencing community transmission
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=165409441c&e=a69158e1ca>of
COVID-19, which is more worrisome to public health experts than
travel-related transmission of the virus. Bryant Furlow explained why.
*Las Cruces: *Positive cases of COVID-19 are stacking up in Southern New
Mexico’s population center. New Mexico In Depth fellow Leah Romero reports
on what the city has done so far
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=212f658532&e=a69158e1ca>
.
New Mexico In Depth is mapping the outbreak by county.
Click on the map below for an interactive map of New Mexico by county.
<https://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=140d4a9da8&e=a69158e1ca>
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*Copyright © 2020 New Mexico In Depth, All rights reserved.*
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