Week 24's COVID-19 Report

Week 24:

Week 24 of Covid Data Reporting has me more cautious than ever. Between Backfilling and Adjustment of Definitions (case, test, death, etc.) there is no wonder that people seek out others to review the data. While I am committed to see this through the end of 2020, I appreciate how careful I have to be in putting plots out there that are (choose one or more): not completely clear, not perfect for all time including the distant future, and not perfect for all versions of fb. Today's subject is Fatalities and the effect of Backfill.

At the end of July, the DSHS changed over from plotting a death from the date of the report to the Death Certificate time stamp. This coincided with an upgrade to the Hospitalization Reporting Protocols which substituted HHS requirements for those from the now bypassed CDC.

As you remember, Cases and Fatalities data peaked towards the end of July and early August. However, the changes could not have come at a worse time. With delayed Fatality Data and "Lost and Found" backlogs, I became somewhat disoriented as to where we were exactly with respect to Texas Regions, the "Surge", and all my previous results, presented here. While I was not going to go back and recalculate, I needed closure for this unprecedented Summer of 2020.

The Fatalities Plot, posted below, shows that Texas reached Peak Fatalities during the 3rd and 4th week of July. Peak Cases were two weeks earlier. So, reported results were not too far off - regardless how harried some of us were at the time. The tailing off (mustard colored bars) is not fatalities going to zero. Instead, this period is in a state of flux while Death Certificates come in. Even though such documents need to be filed within 10 days of Death, the Medical Examiner/DSHS official transfer of information takes some additional time. In future posts, we will see whether Texas data plateaus or whether the COVID numbers continue to go down.

It goes without saying that present Weekly Case Load numbers, while lower than a few weeks ago, are orders of magnitude higher than what we saw during Phase 1 and 2.