Indiana just moved to Category 5, just about fully open! because we're doing so great at containing Coronavirus. Well, actually, we're not. Governor Holcomb is just using changed data and flashy graphics to pretend we are. We used to talk about lying with statistics. Here, let's just lie with graphics! Hide the statistics because they aren't that great.
Case in point: Indiana used to only report individual case positivity rate (so if you tested the same person 3x it only counted as 1 person being tested.) Under this rubric, we have 6.8% positivity rate, but if you use all tests, including the many tests to athletes and students where you don't think they're sick, positivity rate is 4.1% or under 5, so magically we're doing great. Another problem with positivity rates is it is reported for a week ago because data come in slowly over the week. So you are even one week behind understanding how the virus is spreading or is not spreading. But we know that timing is important, so why throw out the most recent week of data?
Second, Indiana used to report cases by county like this:
But that's so many big numbers, and gee, every week they get bigger, so now the default is now shown on the right, using the newish "Weekly Score".
Looks a lot better, doesn't it. Looks like we're doing great. Many other states who have had success lowing their COVID-19 rates use um a different rubric. They look at weekly cases per 10,000 residents. OK, how do we report weekly cases/10,000 residents? Like this:
Wow, this looks pretty darn good. Most of the state is at "1", whatever that is. OK, "1" is 11-99 weekly cases per 100,000 residents. Is this really that good?
We are on a QUARANTINE LIST for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts and I don't know what other states, and to get OFF that quarantine list, we have to have under 10 cases per 100,000 residents (shown in the map above as "blue"). Marion County, for example, has 99 cases/100,000 residents, 10x the amount needed to not be quarantined to go East, and YET per Gov. Holcomb, hey, we're doing great, we score a "1".Mayor Hogsett is a bit more cautious. And how do I know Marion County's rate? You have to hover over the map to get individual county rates for the last week.
What's the big deal? Why not tell Hoosiers we're doing really well, we're handling this great, remember to vote for Holcomb in the election? Well, if you look at which states are actually handling Coronavirus and getting case rates down, it's the ones who are pretty strict about things like positivity rates and cases per 100,000, and being cautious. Funny, that also worked in Europe. But the political will to overcome COVID-19 is just not present in Indiana right now.
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