by James A. Bacon
I have read some speculation that Virginia might see an uptick in COVID-19 cases following the mass protests in defiance of limits on gatherings. Given the delays between the infection of a person, the time at which he or she shows symptoms, and the time he or she is tested and is hospitalized, not to mention the volatility and noise in daily data, it is impossible to address that issue authoritatively. But there are some hints of possibilities….
At the risk of going way out on a limb — we’re talking rhesus monkey here — let me observe that we can discern a flattening in the significant decline in the seven-day moving average of new cases reported. The number of new cases reported this morning, 570, was the lowest in week, but it must be seen in the context of the previous day, which reported 1,284 new cases, one of the highest in recent weeks.
Assuming that the flattening is real, what is driving it? We can get some clues by breaking out the numbers by geographic region.
The Virginia Department of Health website compares Northern Virginia (NoVa) with the Rest of Virginia (RoVa). This graph shows an uptick in the virus in Nova.
But this graph shows a continued downward slope for RoVa.
Could the protest marches have influenced these numbers? On the one hand, a large number of the marchers in Washington, D.C., hailed from Northern Virginia. On the other hand, there are reasons to be skeptical. First, a large percentage of the protesters were wearing masks. Second, the weather most days was warm and sunny, creating a less hospitable environment for the virus. Third, there were plenty of protest marches downstate. Moreover, the protesters were overwhelmingly young and healthy with strong immunological systems.
Still, look at who’s been contracting the disease. The 20-to-29 age cohort accounts for 16% of all confirmed cases. The actual incidence may be significantly higher because young people are more likely to be asymptomatic.
The VDH dashboard breaks down the age brackets for total cases only, which makes it impossible to track age-related trends over time. If the numbers in the 20-to-29 cohort surged in the past few days (allowing time between infection and the onset of symptoms), it would tentatively confirm the protesters-spread-the-disease hypothesis. If there was no surge, we could pretty well discount the theory. VDH has the data. I would love to see an analysis.
