Dispatch from Coronaville: Narrowing the Focus

Once again I recorded my numbers last night, but was too exhausted to complete the blog. Now as I go back to finish up this post the reality on the ground has changed in the last 24 hours.

Good times in Florida gone, last summer in the Time Before

As we continue to weigh possible plans for the summer, I've started narrowing my focus to the county level. It's useful to know how the specific place where I live and the place I might like to visit are doing in regards to the virus.  The highlight of each summer for our family is our visit to Florida to spend time with my mom and siblings. My boys love playing their cousins and they look forward to this trip all year.

 The only way we'll be able to do it is if cases have been consistently decreasing for awhile.  A comment on my last Dispatch awakened me to the idea of looking at the counties instead of state as a whole. After all if the major outbreaks are in one corner of the state while the numbers in your neighborhood have been declining for weeks, then maybe a visit isn't out of the question.

The good news was that Lake County in Florida, where my mom and sister live has only seen 342 cases of the virus and 15 deaths.  They did not add any new cases or deaths  yesterday.  However, I checked again today and Lake County appears to have joined the Florida Surge, with 41 new cases added today, bringing the county total to 383.

The bad news is that Franklin County where we live has the highest rate of infections and deaths in the state of Ohio.  We added 74 new cases since yesterday, and another 177 new cases added today. 

So for now, the annual trip is on hold.

As of yesterday, the total number of cases in the United States now exceeds 2 million, as I predicted.  Still, I was about 7000 over the actual number, 2,033,467 total cases, a 3.2% increase. On the other hand the total deaths were higher than I predicted by about 1300: 113,961 total deaths, a 3% increase. Based on these numbers I would expect 2,098,538 total cases by Sunday, June 14 and 117,380 total deaths. With about 25,000 new cases added in the 24 hours since I made this prediction I have a feeling my projection is too low.

Florida launched off the chart again with 4165 new cases over the previous three days. (I checked today and the state has since added almost 2000 more cases in the last 24 hours). Ohio showed a slight uptick (with another 420 cases added today) and Nebraska stayed flat with another 378 new cases.

Total Cases as of yesterday:

Florida: 69,061 total cases, 0.32% of the population

Ohio: 40,004 total cases, 0.34% of the population

Nebraska: 16,130 total cases, 0.83% of the population

New deaths in all three states are up over the previous three days.with Nebraska documenting it's third highest three-day total of new deaths since I began tracking the data in that state.

Total Deaths as of yesterday

Florida: 2,847 total deaths, a rate of 4.1%

Ohio: 2,490 total deaths, a rate of 6.2%

Nebraska: 211 total deaths,  a rate of 1.3%