New Coronavirus Cases Spike to Over 1,000,000 in One Day
The Coronavirus shattered another record yesterday (Jan. 3) as more than 1,000,000 new cases were reported in the US in a single day. If you follow any kind of news you've probably already seen/heard this reported multiple times. Tuesday's tally of 1,017,376 cases nearly doubles the previous one-day record of 585,013- set just 4 days earlier, on Dec. 30. (Specific numbers sourced from The New York Times' Coronavirus in the U.S., retrieved 4 Jan 2022.)
But what does this spike mean? It turns out, as I expected, that the spike really is a spike. Here's a chart from the same NY Times page showing day-by-day rates over the past 90 days, along with the 7-day moving average:
As you can see in the chart there's a periodic up-down to the daily numbers. The low daily figures correspond to weekends and holidays; some states don't report data on those new days. The spike days tend to be Monday and days following holidays, when some states that skipped a day combine 2 or more days cases into one number.
I point out the chunkiness of the data to make it clear that "A million cases a day!!!" is not happening every day now. It's a bit of a statistical anomaly. But just because it's anomalous doesn't mean there's no cause for concern. The 7-day moving average is 486,658. That's double what it was just one week early and almost 7x the rate from two months ago. And if the surge doubles from here, 1,000,000 new cases a day will become normal. 😨
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/167905.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
But what does this spike mean? It turns out, as I expected, that the spike really is a spike. Here's a chart from the same NY Times page showing day-by-day rates over the past 90 days, along with the 7-day moving average:
As you can see in the chart there's a periodic up-down to the daily numbers. The low daily figures correspond to weekends and holidays; some states don't report data on those new days. The spike days tend to be Monday and days following holidays, when some states that skipped a day combine 2 or more days cases into one number.
I point out the chunkiness of the data to make it clear that "A million cases a day!!!" is not happening every day now. It's a bit of a statistical anomaly. But just because it's anomalous doesn't mean there's no cause for concern. The 7-day moving average is 486,658. That's double what it was just one week early and almost 7x the rate from two months ago. And if the surge doubles from here, 1,000,000 new cases a day will become normal. 😨
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/167905.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]