COVID-19 Scorecard 3.31

The delta of US Daily New cases is slowing. As a result the curve is flattening slightly. The USA Delta of Daily New Cases is now included on our daily report and can be reviewed below.

The collection of data may cause variations in the results. Reports may not consistently be sent or received by the collecting services. This may cause variations such as the one seen on March 21 when new cases dropped 763 from the previous day.

The increase in numbers does appear to be slowing. The data is not consistent enough to raise hopes too high.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.30

 It is too soon to tell for certainty but there is a glimmer of hope in the US numbers. The increase in new cases seems to be slowing down. Hopefully this indicates the widespread social distancing is working to slow this thing down..

COVID-19 Scorecard 3-29

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.28

COVID-19 is spreading fast in the United States. The rate of spread is climbing. We added the USA New Cases chart to monitor daily changes. We can only hope for the increase in numbers to slow and start reversing. This can take several weeks. Our bodies have no genetic memory of this virus and as a result many will be infected with minimum exposure. The stress this will leave on hospitals and medical personnel is just beginning. This is why Social Distancing is imperative as it is the only tool to slow the spread.

Stay safe and be smart.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.27

United States passes Italy and China to become the country with largest amount of confirmed COVID-19 cases. It will likely be several weeks of climbing numbers before we reach the peak. Once that happens we will see the curve flatten. It is imperative to continue social distancing to slow the rise and spread this out. Our hospitals will be overwhelmed for the duration but without social distancing and cautious behaviors they would be crushed under the wave of sick.

During this time if you know any doctors, nurses, medical staff any and all first responders it would be nice to share with them some form of gratitude. Send them a meal, dessert, gift, flower, offer to cut their lawn anything even a roll of toilet paper. They need to know the country cannot thank them enough as they risk their well-being to take care of us.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.26

United States About To Pass Italy
Tomorrow they will likely pass Italy with total number of cases. The US is expected to become the new epicenter of the virus.

Data Data Data. 
John Hopkins is becoming the defacto Corona Virus data collector. They, like Worldometers also have live updates but their collections and sources are better known then Worldometers. We added them to this scorecard and also included the United States numbers.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.25

The numbers are changing every hour as the virus continues to spread.

A couple changes to the Corona Virus Scorecard.  We added data from two sources. There is no 'official' data. We thought it best to include both sources until one is determined to be an 'Official' count.

1. The worldometers.info site. This is an excellent site that provides statistical data on world populations, government spending and of course the COVID-19 virus. They also update live. The source of their data is not known and can be multiple sources.

2. The World Health Organization publishes the number of cases and deaths in their daily Situation Reports. The WHO daily reports are one day behind.

News Analysis: Fake News or Not

On March 18, 2020 the CDC COVID-19 Response Team published a report titled 'Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Corona virus Disease 2019'. News agencies and journalists immediately began twisting the contents of the report to formulate a message that would heighten their readers emotions. This is an effective tactic to cultivate loyal followers. Unfortunately it does little to accurately report the news.

The New York Times led the pack by releasing their spin with a 'breaking news' article titled, "Younger Adults Make Up Big Portion of Coronavirus Hospitalizations in US"

The article was written by Pam Belluck. It started with, " New C.D.C. data shows that nearly 40 percent of patients sick enough to be hospitalized were age 20 to 54. But the risk of dying was significantly higher in older people"

At first one may get the impression younger adults are impacted by the Corona virus worse then originally thought.  Let's take a closer look at the statement and figure out what is being reported.

The author combines "younger adults" and  "aged 20 to 54". This should immediately sound some warning bells.

The term 'younger adults' is relative. A 54 year old adult could be considered a young adult compared to an 84 year old. The average life expectancy in the USA is just under 79 so perhaps anything less then half that can be considered a younger adult. Bottom line there is no definitive meaning of 'younger adult' but very few people over 40 or probably even 30 would consider themselves a 'younger adult'.

The Aged 20 to 54 accounts for 149,602,000 million people or approximately 46% of the total population. It is only natural for a large portion of them would be infected.

The author's hype is diminished when one observes the facts behind the statement and puts things into perspective.

Population of the United States by age groups:

2018

Age       Pop.

 20-24     21.87

25-29     23.56

30-34     22.13

35-39     21.56

40-44     19.72

45-49     20.74

50-54    20.89

2018 Total Population 327.29

(All numbers in millions)

Go back to the articles and you will find

"The CDC analyzed the cases of about 2,500 patients in the United States whose ages were known. Of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 20% were notably younger - between ages 20 and 44, while 18% were between ages 45 and 54, the report says."

The author is reporting a 'federal study' has made these conclusions. This report is gaining media attention both written and televised. The messages are similar so one would naturally believe the 'federal study' contains this message as well. 

CNN released a piece by Faith Karimi shortly after the NY Times released the Belluck piece. Published in CNN health the article is titled "Young adults under age 44 make up a big part of coronavirus hospitalizations in the US" .

This CNN journalist tries to capitvate her audience with the lead: " Up to 20% of people hospitalized with corona virus in the United States are young adults between ages 20 to 44, a new federal study shows"

Notice the age grouping is different and slightly but still ridiculous from a statistical perceptive. An intelligent reader has to start having serious concerns about the adeaquecy of this government report based on the vague techniques used even though the report has not yet been viewed by the reader.

Later in the article Karimim states:
"The CDC analyzed  the cases of about 2500 patients in the United States whose ages were known. Of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 20% were notably younger — between ages 20 and 44..."

When a report is used by the media as a source a reader must obtain a copy of the report. The contents of the report will reveal the message the reporter is trying to convey and quickly exposes the biases of a reporter.

 After reading these two articles and additional news reports I am left with the believe the report itself is ridiculous. Lets go to the actual report which a quick search on Google will locate a pdf version of the report. Reviewing the report a reader will quickly realize as he report states throughout the report. One thing that sticks out in the media report is the age group 20-54. This should never be considered a group statistically. The UN published "Provisional Guidelines on Standard International Age Classifications" and there is nowhere in the guidelines where the age group 20-54 or 20-44 is ever used.

The CDC report explains the data is preliminary and or missing. In other words there was not enough data to correctly and accurately form a positive conclusion. The media reports never stated this limitaiton of the CDC report.

The CDC report also states there were 4.226 reported cases in the United States. Among them only 2449 had a confirmed age.

The report goes on to declare conclusions based on 508 patients known to have been hospitalized. They found the percentage of hospitalized cases increased with age.

The CDC report can only be considered preliminary and incomplete. It is in other words just a beginning as is much of the COVID-19 data collected this far.

The media is counting on their public not to read the report. So they take the liberty of wording their reporting to heighten their readers emotions. Some may say this is "Fake News" and blame the media outlets. In reality it is twisted facts to gain your abstention. I do not blame the media I blame you and myself because we have become complacent and lazy. We rely on these news blurbs, Facebook posts, tweets from Twitter and memes found on multiple social media platforms. We do not take the time to review the source or research the history and facts behind these messages targeted to enrage us with emotions.

Be careful reacting to the news especially when it comes to emotional situations such as the one we are currently experiencing. A person cannot trust any one media outlet or reporter. It is imperative to: listen to everyone, trust Nobody and investigate information from all sides with an open mind and you will find yourself one step closer to the truth.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.24

Notice the scorecard has changed. The Countries field has been replaced with CFR (Case Fatality Rate).

CFR is calculated by taking the total deaths, divide by total cases and multiply by 100. Based on these numbers the CFR equals 4.37%.

It is important to understand the Cases field reflects current known and confirmed cases but it is by no means complete as many cases have not been identified so the CFR reflected is likely higher then actual rate.

This week in Wuhan, infectious diseases experts using up to date and more accurate case numbers calculate the CFR to be 1.4%. These numbers are specific to Wuhan but the hopes are these number are more accurately reflective of the COVID-19 actual CFR.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.23

Key Dates

November 17, 2019: 55 year old from Huei province in China suspected to be first person to contract the Corona Virus. Evidence now indicates the virus may not have begun at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. It is suspected the virus came from a bat whih infected an anteater before infecting people in Hubei Province.

December 31, 2019: China reports several cases of pneumonia in people who were at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in the Hubei Province in China. China neglected to state the virus had begun on Nov 17 and by Dec 31 there were 266 known cases.

January 7, 2020 Health authorities in China confirmed these cases of pneumonia was from the novel coronavirus named "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronvirus 2". China also provided the complete genetic sequence of 2019 -nCoV to the National Institutes of Health GenBank database.

January 20, 2020: First confirmed case in United States. The 35 year old man returned to  Washington state from Wuhan, China on January 15, 2020

January 31, 2020: Trump imposes travel ban on any foreign national who traveled within China in the past 14 days. Any US citizens who traveled to in China would be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.22

Corona virus continues its assault. We are working on a new chart to track the trending in hopes of being able to find a slow down when it finally occurs.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.16

Hopes of the virus being contained in warmer weather is not holding up. Testing equipment is rapidly being improved, manufactured and distributed. We can expect an increase of confirmed cases as a result.

Nothing Wrong In Admitting We Just Don't Understand

It is important to understand the simple premise "we do not understand". The COVID-19 virus is new. Our bodies have never dealt with it before therefore there is no existing antibodies within our systems to combat it. Our bodies are learning and will adjust naturally. This way if there is a next time those exposed will have a better chance of fighting it off the next time around.

The Corona is a new virus. We have seen some like it but this is its own and we unfortunately are forced to learn as we grow. We are in such a better situation then 20 or even 10 years ago with our capabilites to isolate he virus.  except that which we are trying to learn each day. We do know washing hands keeping hands away from our faces using

Coronavirus (CoV) Family

Family members of the Coronavirus include the
       1. Common Cold
       2. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV)
       3. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV)
       4. COVID-19

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS): outbreak occurred in 2003. It had a fatality rate of 9.6% and reached 29 countries. There have not been any new cases identified since 2004.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS): was identified in 2012. It reached 28 countries and had a fatality rate of 34.4% . MERS was first discovered in Saudi Arabia and was believed to have come from an animal source.

COVID-19: The corona virus currently sweeping through the world is the COVID-19 strain. This is a new strain of the coronavirus (CoV) family.

We are no closer to curing the common cold then we are COVID-19 or any of the other members of the coronavirus family. There are no meds, anitbiotics, or antiviral treatments to cure any of the coronavirus infections. Medical teams can only treat the patients symptoms and in severe cases work to prevent vital organ function failure.

The Corona Virus Numbers

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

-Albert Einstein
***************

We will likely notice substantial fluctuations in the number of Corona Virus cases. We can blame the evil China empire or incompetent governments but the truth is as usual somewhere in the middle.

Beware of the 'Stat Man'

For any type of new infection or disease a standard test or method to identify who is infected has to be established. This is often challenging. In the case of the Covid-19 virus the Chinese began counting people only people with pneumonia. This neglected those who had mild symptoms but were also infected with the virus. Once they changed their standard test the numbers rapidly increased. Did the virus growth increase or were the methods to identify the virus improved and included more victims. This change in methodology gave the appearance the virus was spreading. In reality we were more accurately identifying victims.  We saw this in the early 2000 when health insurance companies and medical teams began increased testing and education of identifying diabetics. Suddenly the number of people with diabetes was doubling but in reality the number of diabetics were increasing at the same rate we were just more accurately identifying those with the disease. When looking at the raw data after a data collection standard or method had changed, one could incorrectly conclude the virus is spreading faster then originally indicated. 

Since the Corona virus is new the sample size is still small so any change in standards or data collection techniques will have a larger impact on the numbers. This should not negate the collection of data but one has to understand the potential inaccuracies within the data. 

Another concern that must be understood is the potential for deliberate manipulation of the data in order to sell or manipulate an audience. Business wants to sell more products and services and will use stats to their advantage. The media wants your attention and they want you coming back for more so they will use statistics to achieve their means. Politicians need to sell their usefulness and make their opposition look bad or wrong so they will use stats to their advantage. This leaves you. And you are stuck in the middle. You want to do what is right but you also must step back and research for yourself the data. Finding multiple sources when possible and using historical and proven events to create your conclusions instead of relying on business, media and politicians for their self gaining spins. 

When developing conclusions with statistics from raw data it is best to err on the side of caution  especially when those conclusions lead to an extreme.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.15

The Corona virus is successfully circulating throughout the globe. The United States is hoping to slow the spread through isolation and the latest buzz word " Social Distancing". This is the only way to slow the spread at this point.

The southern hemisphere has not been hit hard yet and fingers are crossed this indicates the spread will be slowed with warm and humid temperatures much like the seasonal flu. This best case scenario will give our scientists and medical personnel the needed time to properly study and develop vaccines to fight it.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.4

The virus has been reported in 81 countries and continues to spread.
The recovery rate has improved from 50.717% to 54.353%.
The percentage of those actively fighting the virus has dropped from 50.7% to 42.2%.
The death rate remains constant at approx 3.4%.
We can only hope the recovery rate continues to rise.

Giants Shock and Awe With First Pick in 2019 Draft

It did not take long into the 2019 NFL draft for the drama and controversy to begin for Giants fans. It started six minutes after the Tampa Buccaneers selected LB Devin White with the 5th overall pick of the 2019 NFL draft. The New York Football Giants were on the clock. Big Blue fans were ecstatic. An immediate need for the Giants was a pass rusher. Josh Allen one of the top-rated pass rushers was on the board. The stars seemed lined up for the Giants to walk away addressing a key need with top prospect. Welcome to NJ Josh Allen! It was an exciting moment. Extra exciting because the Giants also held the 17^th pick of the 1^st round acquired from the Browns with the shocking trade of Odell Beckham. There was a very good chance a top rated QB would be available with the 17th pick. The Giants are in a great position. Fill a desperate need and prepare for the future with a top tier quarterback at 17 or even pass and make a deal for Arizona’s Josh Rosen. As a Giant fan I certainly felt the Giants are finally back!

In the first-round teams are given ten minutes to make their pick. It seems every team uses all their time in this round to make their selection. Perhaps it’s to build up suspense or maybe they are waiting for a last-minute phone call from another team with some crazy trade offer. Either way The Giants were sitting pretty. With the full 10 minutes I thought there was time to fill up my guests’ drinks and bring out some more chips and dip. Maybe even set up a round of shots and why not the Giants defense is set to return to greatness.  As I am filling the drinks, I hear the announcer abruptly interrupt a report Devin White and state the Giants the pick is in. Five minutes barely ticked off the clock. WTF! Well, I guess Giants GM Dave Gettleman is also excited. And why not we're BACK. The legendary Giants defense is BACK!

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announces, "with the 6th pick of the 2019 the Giants select Daniel Jones". Suddenly I feel as though the tv is moving away and getting smaller and I begin some weird out of body experience. I thought I just hard it wrong. He didn’t say Josh Allen. I heard it right, he said Daniel Jones. I am stunned not sure what to say or do I curse, I shout and repeat. I am distressed and confused. I must sit down but I can't. I shout and curse some more. I don't know what I am doing. Slowly that all too familiar Giant darkness settles back into my soul. I plop down on the couch staring down at the floor silent and still. Daniel Jones is a solid prospect. Hopefully Eli an stay healthy this season so the Giants won't need Jones this year which will give the kid a chance to get his feet wet. Josh Allen could have started for our defense this season. This was a genuine and immediate need. He could have contributed the first game of this season.

Moments turn to hours then days and weeks before slowly some form of possible optimism starts to replace the numbness inside. Reports start emerging. Phil Simms says Jones would not have been there at 17 and the Giants were right to get the man they wanted. I loved Simms as a player. I have no love for him as an announcer or analyst. But I will take his words here and try to feel positive. There is hope perhaps. For Giants fans born in the 60's there is always hope we were raised on the stuff.  The hope also brings a cautious memory. In my head I start replaying an old comic. Its Lucy convincing Charlie Brown to kick the football. She promises this time she will not pull it away. And just like Chuck I start to believe. But lets face it Eli is getting ready to retire a QB of the future is a definite need for the Gmen. And if you look at Daniel Jones and hear him you might actually think he is the 5th Manning. 

Now we make it to training camp. I am feeling good about this team. There are many positive reports about Jones. Until this morning when I read John Schmeelk's article "Practice Report: Quarterbacks Own the Day" In the article Daniel Jones is quoted,

“I think part of the challenge for me is seeing the defense and understanding the defense. As we’re putting in stuff, they’re putting in stuff, too, so it’s kind of a lot of stuff that I haven’t seen before, and for me it takes me a little bit longer to recognize. So, those are things that require more preparation, seeing it more, and learning from them.”

To most this might sound like nothing more then an honest personal assessment. An open truth about the young quarterbacks transition into the pro level. It would have been that way for me as well except it reminded me of a scouting report I read about Jones before the draft. Suddenly I started experiencing what I imagine Charlie Brown feels when he crashes flat on his back trying to kick the damn football. The bitch Lucy yanked it away again. Its exhausting being a Giants fan but I would have it no other way. So here I lie on the ground trying to catch my breath. Once again trying to restore my hope and optimism as I have done since the late 60's. I will be honest its going to take me awhile to trust again. 

After reading Daniel Jones quote I remembered David Syvertsen from Ourlads NFL Scouting Services assessment of Jones from his "New York Giants 2019 NFL Draft Preview: Quaterbacks" 

"Jones has enough arm strength, touch, and athletic ability. But there isn’t a quick mind here, he doesn’t see everything a top tier QB does whether it is coverage or pass rush based. After a long time scouting him, he is a pass for me."

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.3

Today's Scorecard

Click image to Enlarge

In one day the total number of corona virus cases has increased by 2456. It has spread to 7 new countries and territories while deaths have increased by 62.

Although there has been an increase in the numbers there is a positive and hopefully these numbers continue to trend this way.
The number who have recovered from the virus has increased by 2904.
Active cases dropped 510
Serious or critical have dropped 277.

We can expect the Total cases numbers to increase as testing across the world is also increasing. The numbers to watch are the Total Recovered. Hopefully that number increases rapidly as well.

COVID-19 Scorecard 3.2

March 2, 2020
I woke up this morning listening to CNN state Corona Deaths in the US doubled. My heart skipped and then they said US deaths is now at 2. Media sensationalism to gain viewership or whatever their intent is infuriating. Decide to develop a working data scorecard representing the Corona Virus. This is just the draft. More to follow before the end of the day.