Trump’s Folly: Louisiana Core Covid-19 Tracking Data 04 (March 20, 2020)

Louisiana’s first reported Covid-19 case was a patient in Jefferson Parish near New Orleans. He was diagnosed on March 9 and he is officially the Index case for Louisiana, so far as government and public health authorities can tell.

Our Governor has undertaken rapid and comprehensive public health measures since then to blunt the ravages expected from a viral pandemic sweeping the United States. When history is written, the first paragraph respecting US efforts to control the virus will take note of Trump.45’s stubbornly lackadaisical public health reaction for the first 90 days after he was first made aware of the initial surge in China, and the virus landing on US soil in the middle of January.

This is the fourth in the series.

Here is the set of updated core data charts for March 20 for my home state of Louisiana starting almost literally at Epidemic Ground Zero for this state. We are 4.5 million souls. So, our state is a kind of unintended real-life experimental petri dish about what might help to blunt the epidemic curve, or prove that we acted too late to stem the tide.

There are five core tracking tables, starting from the Week of March 8, and updating daily. The first set of two presents Louisiana’s Cumulative Reported Cases of Covid-19 by date, and the comparable US Cumulative Reported Cases of Covid-19 also by date. The second set of three tables shows the extent of Louisiana’s Covid-19 Lab tests Completed by date, the number of Louisiana’s Covid-19 deaths by date, and the Louisiana Covid-19 Case Rate per million population by date.

These five simple charts provide basic tracking values for the initial upsurge in the pandemic in Louisiana. The data are generated and publicly released twice per day on the official website of Louisiana’s Department of Health. The US national data are taken from the magnificent Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Tracking Database project.

These primary tables can be used to follow in a simple way granular changes in Louisiana over time, day by day, and week by week as we sail into the teeth of the pandemic. Observations can be made by inspection or simple chart comparison.

For the time period where information is available for both, you can see how Louisiana stacks up compared to the whole country. Today Friday March 20 Louisiana has reported 537 cumulative cases compared to 19,352 in the United States as of 5 PM and 9 PM respectively. Louisiana has 4.65 million residents while the US population is 334.35 million.

Louisiana is 1.4% of the US by population but is experiencing 2.78% of reported Covid-19 cases in the country. So, Louisiana right now has twice the national average statewide burden of diagnosed Covid-19 cases. This is a decrease from 2.98% as of yesterday.

The most informative metric is to present case rates per a standard population unit (for example cases per 1,000,000 population).

The diagnosed rate of infection in Louisiana is 115.6 per million as of Today. Two days ago it was 60.28 per million. Last Saturday it was 16.6 per million. The observed risk has risen 6-fold in the last five days since the Governor took strong executive action. The kind sorely missing from the current Administration in Washington.

Our positive test rate is 28% as of today, a welcome decline from 46% yesterday and the average of about 36% for the previous several days. The rate may finally be diluting a bit as testing of less acutely ill patients is obtained as the testing chokehold is abating. We see this reflected in the commercial lab test contribution of 847 tests reported to the State DOH. This is the first day such data have been available.

The latest nationwide US positive testing rate is still almost 12% after a major increase in total tests to more than 100,000, a national rate little changed in the last two weeks. This is a gut punch to the Happy Talk broadcast from the Daily Corona Briefing about the good news from testing. The nationwide positive rate is stubbornly high, and gives lie to the dishonestly repeated notion that Washington was prepared and the all the necessary tests have been available when needed. Rubbish.

Remember that the cases seen today are the result of exposure and infection 1-2 weeks ago (incubation time to overt symptoms averages 5 up to 12 days delay). And we are just beginning to get out from under the massive chokedown on testing, such that the Louisiana positive test rate is still nearly 30%, indicating a large reservoir of undiscovered infections circulating among us.

The cases we diagnose today are the fixed result of exposures mainly suffered from March 4 to March 11. The disease burden is like a slow-motion car wreck. You know it’s coming, but you can’t stop it. The measures we instituted largely beginning March 10 and more strongly Monday March 16 will only play out starting next week and the week after.

The national test information is drawn from the COVID Tracking Project, another wonderful private volunteer public health transparency data effort. Oh, that our taxpayer funded federal informatics from might be of similar quality and rapid disclosure. This is the worst form of Trump.45 science constipation. Lives are at stake.