John Butcher, publisher of Cranky’s Blog, has turned his attention from K-12 education to the COVID-19 virus. In scrutinizing yesterday’s data in the previous post, I asked if the spread of the WuFlu was decelerating. He has answered the call, submitting the graph above, which I shall interpret for you in a moment.
We’re not getting any such analysis from the Northam administration. Indeed, in a press conference today, Dr. Lilian Peake, chief epidemiologist on Governor Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 leadership team, acknowledged, “We don’t have a specific projection now. But we are working on a model, and so we hope to have more information about that later in the week.” (See the video, 28:30 minute mark.)
That’s an extraordinary admission — after all this time the administration has no model for forecasting the spread of the coronavirus! In other words, Northam is making decisions to close schools, shutter non-essential businesses, and otherwise throttle the life and economy of the state of Virginia based on … what? His gut instinct?
The Governor may not have an epidemiological model, but he does have access to the same data that we do (if not more), and, in Cranky’s reckoning, the epidemic is spreading at an exponential rate, which, one can argue, might justify his latest draconian decisions. And any blip, like the one I highlighted in my post earlier today, does not seem terribly significant. The chart above shows the increase on a logarithmic scale in the total number of WuFlu cases in Virginia. The next chart shows the increase in the number of new cases.
There’s a little more variability here, but the trendline is essentially the same. For an informed discussion of what these charts mean, don’t ask me. Leave a comment and ask John.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the people who really understand statistics get their act together in a hurry and finish building that epidemiological model for the Governor.
— JAB
