About two and a half weeks ago, we took a look, by state, the death rate (new deaths per million, seven-day average) and at the rate of transmission (how fast the virus is spreading measured by how many people the average infected person infects, where numbers below 1.0 mean the spread is slowing) to get an idea of where the coronavirus was at its worst both on the front and back-end of the infection-to-death sequence, and to compare the two. The date was July 12th. Here was the graph:
Today, we pulled the numbers again, from Rt.live and the COVID Tracking Project. Here’s the new graph:
And here’s the new graph scaled to match the old one, with Mississippi, Texas, South Carolina, and Arizona therefore removed:
The results, of course, are mixed. As we know, deaths have risen, and may still be rising. But transmission rates are down, notably in states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida, which were so newsworthy in their rising case counts a few weeks ago. Transmission rates aren’t below 1.0 in the majority of states, but on the aggregate, they’re better than they were. The situation might not be improving, but it’s getting worse at a slower pace than it was.
It hasn’t been quite three weeks, and we’re using a seven-day average for deaths, so it’s too early to expect the July 12th rate of transmission to be predictive of recent deaths, but we intend to keep checking in on that as we circle back to these metrics and try to hash out the most useful metrics and sources to reference.
