24 June 2020 Blog Post: COVID-19 in Los Angeles County: Beware of Those Claiming "More Testing"
Today I am presenting three separate graphs which will show COVID-19 case, mortality and testing rates in Los Angeles County. Hopefully these three taken together will provide perspective about the epidemic in our county.
Case rates continue to rise and are at the highest level we have ever seen. As Captain Jack Ross says in the movie A Few Good Men, “these are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.” We are now at 13.36 new daily cases per 100,000 population on average in LA County. This is the highest rate it has been since the start of the pandemic and is now touching the upwards trendline (see Figure below).
Mortality rates continue to drop and are at their lowest rate since early April (Figure below). At 0.22 daily deaths per 100,000 population, they are now far beneath their trendline.
Testing has stalled and, in fact, rates are nearly 20% lower than they were at their height seen at the end of May (Figure below). We are now performing 137.43 daily tests per 100,000 population in Los Angeles County. At the maximum, we performed 167.38 daily tests per 100,000.
So what can we conclude?
1. We are seeing historic highs in case rates (Bad News).
2. We are performing fewer tests (Bad News).
3. Mortality rates have dropped by 50% (Good News).
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That’s it – that is all we can conclude from the data that LA County Department of Public Health provides. Since the County chooses to publish only cumulative rates by age, gender, ethnicity and location any other conclusions are entirely speculative.
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