CA people: corona case rates on blueprint

[sonrisa]

Has anyone else run the numbers for their county and find that they are completely messed up?

On the state website, they say we have an unadjusted case rate of 5.9 but if you look at the actual numbers of cases reported on the county website, and apply the state's criteria (7 day average, 7 day lag) it's more like 11.5. WTF? that is a drastic difference.  

(oh - and looking at that criteria, we were never anywhere under 7 for the past month. So even if you cherry pick the date you run the numbers from *we never qualify*)

[konapoppy]

I stopped checking the data since they weren’t reporting accurately for so long. Can’t get it to load on my phone now, but can try late. Basically I assume everything is still terrible 🤷🏻‍♀️

[HRH Queen Dick I, Orphan]

[Roc A Bee]

Yeah our data hasn’t seemed accurate to me in months. They did a big data dump where they reported 1500 cases but they were backdated sometimes up to 6 weeks. We are in the purple. I’m confident in that. But our county’s health dashboard makes no sense.

[sonrisa]

Sept 2, 2020 23:15:55 GMT -5 HRH Queen Dick I, Orphan said:

I told you I need an edible! Quarantine has sent me off the already rocky rails. I need to see a real human adult who doesn't live in my house. 

lol.



Sort of. 

[abs]

Texas data isn't reliable either. There is just such a big back load of cases and things from months ago will get reported in a big data dump. I look at the Houston Medical Center data daily. I trust it and gives me a much clearer picture of where we are.

[mmmomof2]

I'm in OC, and I've been obsessed with the stats since the beginning. I believe the state is doing all the calculating based on the data the county sends to them. I also believe it's based on specimen collection date, not reporting date. So if you don't have that information from your county than you can't come close to calculating it. Also, the state throws in a testing adjustment factor, but I don't think they've released how exactly it adjusts. This seems fair, if not transparent, since a county that does greatly increased testing should not be penalized for their higher case rate.

The whole switch last Friday annoys me for a few reasons. There used to be a "county data chart" the state released where you could see where your county was everyday. Now they'll only release it on Tuesdays and for some reason they skipped Sep 1 so we have to wait until Sep 8. I'm pretty sure our county dashboard will say the 5.6 until Sep 8 when the state deigns to give us our new rate.

[sonrisa]

Sept 3, 2020 14:26:07 GMT -5 mmmomof2 said:

 I also believe it's based on specimen collection date, not reporting date. So if you don't have that information from your county than you can't come close to calculating it. Also, the state throws in a testing adjustment factor, but I don't think they've released how exactly it adjusts. This seems fair, if not transparent, since a county that does greatly increased testing should not be penalized for their higher case rate.

Our county has a graph with all the positive tests by date. So I have that. And if you go to the state's website, they explicitly give the criteria for adjustments and the amount. Our county qualifies for a .88 adjustment.  But the state explicitly gives a 8/18 7 day average rate, both the base rate and the adjusted rate, and the actual data are wildly out of step with the rates cited.

Our 8/18 unadjusted is listed at 5.9  with a lower adjusted rate. But the actual data averages out to 7.8. Even adjusted it's higher than 5.9. So some one is fucking with the numbers and not admitting it. The state officially excludes prisoners, as does my county. I think they may also be excluding people in residential facilities *but that is not stated in the criteria for calculations published by the state nor county.* The county only gives those numbers on a "reporting date" basis so I can't get an acurate number.

Or they've just fucked up the numbers. Which our county HHS has done many times before.

[pinkdutchtulips]

I don’t trust the numbers for my county (east bay) but I’m optimistic bc more things are starting to open up

[mommin]

I don't know if this is helpful or not but do you have any state or federal prisons or detention facilities in your county? We have six that I can think of off the top of my head and they tend to have a very high positivity rates (a facility a few weeks ago had a 75% positivity rate ). My county counts them as positives but the Blueprint website states that any tests being reported from a state or federal prison will not be counted in their numbers. I don't know that impacts you at all but thought I'd mention it.

Eta- I see that you mentioned this in a previous post and it may include any type of detention facility. I feel like this is one of those areas that is clear as mud so people are getting upset about it and rightfully so.

[sonrisa]

And the answer is..... They messed up on the math. 

I bitched here and emailed them midweek to basically say "Look, here is the case data you give. Here is the equation. Here is your answer. What happened? If you are using a different data set or different calculations, just tell us."  

The county emailed me back midday yesterday and basically said "yup, I guess that's right. CA must be using different data. Can't tell you what, why or where to find it"

Then this morning, the county sent out a frantic "Actually, the state messed up the math and so everything we said last week about reopening today is wrong."

So apparently no one in the county HHS thought to run the numbers themselves and say "Hey, California, your calculations look waaayyyyyy off. Can you let us know why before we send out a million press releases and meetings talking about how excited we are to reopen on Sept. 8th and start school on the 22nd?"

[waverly]

Ours is off too. Various sites give me different percent positives. Plus we had a backlog of tests. And in the beginning I’m sure cases were way undercounted.

I do trust them more than most states though.

[mmmomof2]

sonrisa, That's really interesting there is so little communication, or even questioning, from the Health Departments and the state. Have you seen the California Blueprint Data Chart - it's an excel file linked on the page below. I found it super interesting. Of course you'd need to know the source data to know if it's correct.

www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID19CountyMonitoringOverview.aspx

[formerlyak]

sonrisa do you mind sharing what county you are in?

[sonrisa]

Sept 8, 2020 17:46:33 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

sonrisa do you mind sharing what county you are in?

PDQ:

I won't give specifics (my husband works for the county HHS but not on the public health policy side), but I'll say enough that someone who cares should know:

This morning's county press release was very pass-the-buck "the state has these new calculations and that is why we can't reopen like we said we would" blah, blah, blah.

And yes, the state did change the date of calculations (last week, they had said the next case rates would be as of 8/25. It changed to 8/22 and 8/29.)

But the drastic change is *not* just because of the date change. (from "calculating" an unadjusted 7 day case rate on 8/18 of 5.9 and predicting it would still be low when calculated from 8/25, to an unadjusted case rate of 10.5 on 8/29) 

You could look at the county daily case data and see that on 8/25 you would get a rate pretty similar to 8/29, because cases had been increasing overall in the interim (8/18 have been a low point). Even so, I think the state is working with slightly out of date data because their numbers run a little low. (ie. what had been collected at exactly 7 days out, no updates for new info about older test dates.) 

No one could look at the county data in good faith and expect us to move to tier 2 today. (We need a daily average under 21 cases to get to tier 2 and there are plenty of 40+ case days). So someone was clearly running faulty calculations, using different data than advertised, or couldn't read math. And that was what was really pissing me off last week. The false hope.

But there's a lot of blowback locally. So now our county is challenging the new calculations. (hint). Which is bullshit. Because even if you subtract all residential facility cases we are still in tier 1.  (and the county is blaming this on a nursing home spike).

---

I don't have any illusion that I'm why the state recalculated. I think the state recalculating might be why, on a holiday weekend, the county read and responded to my email entitled "why are CA case rates completely inconsistent with your publicly available county data?"


---

ETA: and I just added today's data to my spreadsheet to see if we'll be tier 2 as of Sept. 5.

Spoiler alert: *still too high, don't qualify* (almost, but not yet. and that is when we don't yet have full test results for that week).

But yeah, let's pretend it's all a little data glitch and argue with the state.

[sonrisa]

Sept 8, 2020 17:43:01 GMT -5 mmmomof2 said:

sonrisa , That's really interesting there is so little communication, or even questioning, from the Health Departments and the state. Have you seen the California Blueprint Data Chart - it's an excel file linked on the page below. I found it super interesting. Of course you'd need to know the source data to know if it's correct.

www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID19CountyMonitoringOverview.aspx

I'm so glad they put that out today. I looked at it this afternoon and it's much, much closer.

[formerlyak]

sonrisa Got it. Thank you. I hope I didn’t sound stalker-y asking. I’m just fascinated by how different counties in our state are dealing with COVID. I’m in LA and our health department seems to be stricter than state requirements on a lot of things. But then right next to us in the OC, it’s quite the opposite. And inland, where the case rates are still worse than us, they seem to be pushing the limits as well.



@@
We just learned that LA county has cancelled Halloween activities this year. No trick or treating allowed. I totally understand the reasoning, and announcing early lets people plan other activities. Halloween is huge in my neighborhood. Think UCSB Halloween, but for families. It’s insane! I’m waiting for the whining on local parent FaceBook pages.

[mmmomof2]

Sept 9, 2020 8:26:37 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

sonrisa Got it. Thank you. I hope I didn’t sound stalker-y asking. I’m just fascinated by how different counties in our state are dealing with COVID. I’m in LA and our health department seems to be stricter than state requirements on a lot of things. But then right next to us in the OC, it’s quite the opposite. And inland, where the case rates are still worse than us, they seem to be pushing the limits as well.



@@
We just learned that LA county has cancelled Halloween activities this year. No trick or treating allowed. I totally understand the reasoning, and announcing early lets people plan other activities. Halloween is huge in my neighborhood. Think UCSB Halloween, but for families. It’s insane! I’m waiting for the whining on local parent FaceBook pages.

I saw that - Barbara Ferrer does not care about popularity, does she? I don't understand how this is enforceable or that people will follow it. I mean you probably won't have the huge turnout as usual, but who's to stop you from turning on your light and answering your door? 

ETA - formerlyak, it looks like they amended the order to say ToT is not recommended versus not permitted. 

[Roc A Bee]

Sept 9, 2020 15:58:46 GMT -5 mmmomof2 said:

Sept 9, 2020 8:26:37 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

sonrisa Got it. Thank you. I hope I didn’t sound stalker-y asking. I’m just fascinated by how different counties in our state are dealing with COVID. I’m in LA and our health department seems to be stricter than state requirements on a lot of things. But then right next to us in the OC, it’s quite the opposite. And inland, where the case rates are still worse than us, they seem to be pushing the limits as well.



@@
We just learned that LA county has cancelled Halloween activities this year. No trick or treating allowed. I totally understand the reasoning, and announcing early lets people plan other activities. Halloween is huge in my neighborhood. Think UCSB Halloween, but for families. It’s insane! I’m waiting for the whining on local parent FaceBook pages.

I saw that - Barbara Ferrer does not care about popularity, does she? I don't understand how this is enforceable or that people will follow it. I mean you probably won't have the huge turnout as usual, but who's to stop you from turning on your light and answering your door? 

I was just thinking I’d be comfortable letting the kids trick or treat. It’s an outside activity, they’d wear masks, interaction at each house is short. We wouldn’t go to our original Halloween party.

[mmmomof2]

sonrisa,they updated the chart today! Does your calculation match now?