Posted by I’m going to show you one example of how King County Public Health is intentionally trying to show COVID-19 is “under control” by showing you two side-by-side charts of the same data that has appeared on KCPH’s website: The left side is from May 5th, and shows positive COVID-19 cases on a logarithmic scale. The right side is the same data (slightly updated) as it is shown today. Same data… VERY DIFFERENT CHARTS!
The left chart was used to show that the growth in COVID-19 infections “wasn’t too bad.” Because it is a logarithmic scale, it takes an exponential increase in infections to show up meaningfully on the chart. Especially in mid-March, they loved this chart because the rise in infections wasn’t as stark. Then, starting in April, it looks like that curve flattened very quickly. Time to pat KCPH on the back.
Then, suddenly, on June 1st they changed the scale. If you go to KCPH’s website now, you see a linear scale like this. Now, it looks like there’s a big trend down in infections (vs. the logarithmic chart which looks pretty flat). Now, King County is trying to show that they are reducing infections and manipulating graphs to achieve their means.
Anyway, as if you needed another reason not to trust the numbers and the talk track from “experts,” there you go. Use your own brain!
OK, enough of that – time for the prediction. The past few days have been slightly above where the model predicted, but no big spikes in infections. However, we’re still catching up over the weekend and a lot of test results are not in. AND, infections are up as a % of total tests: We had gotten below 1%, and now we’re steadily above 2%.
We’re low enough to enter phase 2: 23 cases per 100k residents over the past 14 days vs. the target of 25. I expect we’ll officially be in Phase 2 by next week. But you never know – things change, usually on the whim of however Jay Inslee is feeling that day.
The prediction for tomorrow is 18.
