Weekly COVID-19 Round-up - 10/16/20
River City Data No. 2
Welcome to the second edition of “River City Data,” which offers data-centric commentary on COVID-19 in Missouri. In this week’s edition, we break down the latest COVID stats, talk about ongoing data issues and what’s new on the website, and interview St. Louis City resident Brooke Foster, who is recovering from COVID-19.
I’m planning to branch out to other topics eventually, and there is a section below called “Into the Weeds” that I’ll be using to do so for now. Feel free to drop me a line on Twitter and let me know what you think in the meantime! - Chris
COVID-19 by the Numbers
Total cases in MO: 156,142 (+11,108 from last Friday)
7-day average of new cases per day in MO: 1,915.71 (+300.14 from last Friday)
Counties with the highest per capita rates of new cases per day this past week:
Jasper (107.44 per 100,000), Osage (102.8), Barton (102.47), Newton (98.81), and Madison (93.64)
Total deaths in MO: 2,531 (+68 from last Friday)
7-day average of new deaths per day in MO: 24.43 (-12.14 from last Friday)
These numbers are current as of Thursday, October 15th. Additional statistics, maps, and plots are available on my COVID-19 tracking site.
New on the COVID-19 Tracking Site
In the past week, I’ve been able to add a number of new features to the COVID-19 tracking site:
14-day averages of new cases by ZIP Code in St. Louis (for St. Louis City and County as well as St. Charles and Jefferson counties).
New plots showing patterns by both race and poverty across all four of the same counties by ZIP Code.
Per capita 7-day average plots are now available at the state and metro level as well as for St. Louis, Kansas City, and other regions I track at the county level.
New statewide health disparity plots by race for both morbidity and mortality.
My A+ team of SLU computer science seniors has been working hard behind the scenes to improve our infrastructure, and their efforts are reflected in these updates. We’re turning our attention to Metro East ZIP Code data next!
Summary for the Week Ending October 16th
This week was just plagued by data issues. We saw a massive dump of old cases on October 10th. Even the usually reliable St. Louis Pandemic Task Force saw its numbers temporarily disrupted by computer systems being down at one of its partner hospital systems on the 10th.
According to reporting from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Annika Merrilees, the State has also been taking weeks to post new deaths. This means that what seem like recent deaths may actually be from prior months. And then, on October 11th, we found that that there would not be an update to the DHSS dashboard until Wednesday, October 14th. DHSS, in their announcement, blamed a "database extract error." That is the most clarity we received regarding what went wrong and, I'll be honest, this description doesn't mean a whole lot to me.
The consequence of this is that going back to late September when DHSS's new dashboard launched, we have had very little stability in our COVID data. The State has introduced significant volatility into our 7-day averages in particular. Look at both statewide and "outstate" trends below:
Both trends see pronounced drops right at the end of September and then large up and downswings in the last ten days or so. The challenging thing about these swings is that they are more likely to be "noise" from inconsistent data than a "true" reflection of where we are at with the pandemic. We can see something similar, though even more dramatic, in the 7-day averages for the metro Kansas City area:
Those sharp swings that look like daggers are because of large subtractions of cases, where the New York Times tried to correct to match what the State was posting. For Kansas City specifically, they were also dealing with a decision made in Kansas City to update their city dashboard only once per week. This cropped up amid all the other data issues. I asked the New York Times to switch to the DHSS dashboard, which they did, but then that went down, further affecting numbers.
I don't have a state overview this week because I don't have a clear sense of how much changes in particular counties are "noise" from the dashboard issue. For what it is worth, counties around St. Louis seem to have been the least affected by these issues. I'll have a much better sense when the third issue of "River City Data" comes out next Friday.
The fundamental here is we have not invested in public health data infrastructure in Missouri or nationally, and we're reaping the consequences of that failure right now. We do not have stable, reliable systems for rapidly collecting and disseminating public health surveillance data. Everyone from local hospital systems to county public health agencies and DHSS themselves is building sites on the fly. DHSS has purchased new computer systems, and they're trying to make up for long-term disinvestment. Local hospital systems don't routinely share data daily, so even the St. Louis Pandemic Task Force's reporting is fragile and unprecedented. In that climate, it is perhaps unsurprising that we are going to have significant roadblocks.
We can, and we must do better. This starts with funding public health data infrastructure and investing in short- and long-term solutions to improve the way we collect and share data.
Into the Weeds
It’s election season (in case you had somehow missed this), and that means we’re being inundated with polling data. Most people take polls at face value. Don’t be one of them! Not all polls or pollsters are created equal. Both Pew Research and FiveThirtyEight have excellent guides to reading polls. Pew also has a great article on the often misunderstood concept of margin of error.
Weekly Interview
Brooke Foster is the co-founder of Novella, a woman-owned marketing and design agency headquartered in the City of St. Louis. She is a graduate of Rhodes College and of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and she lives in the Shaw neighborhood with her husband, seven-year-old daughter, and two-year-old son. You can follow her on Twitter.
I asked Brooke for an interview because she revealed a few weeks ago that she had been sick with COVID-19 for much of the summer. Brooke also mentions being a “long-hauler,” which is something we’re still learning a lot about in the science and medical communities.
Chris: First and foremost - how are you feeling?
Brooke: So much better; thank you! While the length of my illness (~8 weeks) classifies me as a long-hauler, my health has returned and I feel so much more fortunate than those who struggle with the virus and its lingering effects for even longer. I feel lucky every single day to be able to take full breaths, be present for my kids, and accomplish complex tasks for work. All three of these felt impossible at the height of my illness.
Chris: What was the experience of having COVID-19 like for you?
Brooke: Quite honestly, it was terrifying. We were incredibly careful, and I haven't been anywhere public (besides to urgent care to get my COVID test and then to the pulmonary clinic for a lung x-ray) since March 13th. I am surrounded by incredible family and friends but I still felt really alone, because COVID made me so tired and compromised my ability to think and communicate clearly. There are days/weeks I barely remember; I just recall the scary monotony of checking my oxygen and my heart rate, taking my vitamins, using my inhaler (first time in my life I've used an inhaler -- it was a huge help in my fight). I deeply missed being present for family, friends, and work. I wondered, to myself as a mother of two young kids, if I would ever get better.
Chris: What has it been like recovering from COVID-19?
Brooke: Recovery from COVID-19 is not linear. I was feeling better after about 2 weeks, and for a week or so I resumed "normal" activities like working and going out for short amounts of time in the summer heat. The heat and humidity (this was early August) were *huge* relapse triggers for me. I came home one day after enjoying an iced coffee outside, collapsed, and did not leave the house for 4 more weeks. After those 4 weeks, I resumed activities slowly, and a break in the heat was a Godsend. My lingering symptoms were chest pressure and a cough. Today, my only lingering symptom is fatigue, but quite honestly I could not tell you if that's COVID or being a full-time small-business owner with a toddler and a 7yo in virtual first grade! :)
Chris: I’d love to hear your perspective on what it is like being a working parent right now, especially one who has had COVID-19. What has that been like for you?
Brooke: I am incredibly fortunate to have a partner who has always been an equal parent, equal home-caretaker, etc. -- and he stepped up in a major way when I was so sick. Despite having his own stressful job, my husband took care of everything so that I could rest and that made a huge difference in my recovery. I also have an amazing business partner who shouldered so much of the work because she knew I needed to get better and could only do so with rest. Thanks to the nature of my work -- PR, design, and marketing with wonderful people in nonprofits and small businesses -- I could be open with almost all of my clients about what was happening, and they were so gracious. The biggest blessing? Recovering right before virtual first grade started, so that I can help out there. Nothing has been easy since March 2020, and COVID made it that much more difficult, but my support system did as much healing work as my vitamins, inhaler, vaporizer, and constant virtual doctor's visits!
Chris: What is something giving you hope right now in terms of COVID-19?
Brooke: 2020 is a bleak year, but the love and support I see among friends and family gives me so much hope. I stay connected at all hours of the day to my people, and even though we rarely see one another, the phone calls and texts are restorative. I think that many in this nation are tired of the politicians who are denying the severity of this virus, and that people are going to vote accordingly. I am moved to tears by how thoughtful my daughter's school is in preparing for their eventual return, and how much effort her first-grade teacher makes in engaging the kids. Educators are giving me hope, healthcare workers are giving me hope, other parents are giving me hope. So many wonderful humans are giving me hope, and the virus has nothing on that.