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canyonwalkerIt's been a few weeks since I charted Coronavirus statistics. Coincidentally it's also "Tier Tuesday", the day when California publishes a weekly update of county level statistics and color-coded risk categories. Here's I chart I adapted from https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/:
The big news in comparison to my last chart three weeks ago is that the population in the lowest risk tier (yellow) has increased to almost 44% of the state population. Three weeks ago it was 28%. The geography in the chart can be a bit deceptive.... If you just eyeball the area covered by each color it looks like most of the state is orange. But several of the biggest, densest population centers— specifically Los Angeles, Orange County, and half the Bay Area— are in the yellow tier.
"But wait," one of my Covid-skeptic colleagues said after a moment. "All those pretty colors mean nothing if they're just made up. What's the data behind them?"
"That's the great thing," I explained. I walked through how the site a) defines a set of several key metrics being measured, b) specifies the numerical thresholds of those metrics for each color category, and c) provides a clickable map county-by-county showing how each county scored on each metric.
No other state I'm aware of has anything like this. And it's not like it's even hard. Months ago in Florida a single state employee starting putting together statistics like these. The state fired her. Then she continued the effort as an unemployed volunteer. The state sued to make her stop. Florida is, of course, led by staunch denialist Governor Ron DeSantis. The denialists complain that policies without data are bunk, but they're the ones thwarting the collection and publication of data so they can make up rubbish and claim it's just as valid as science.
The big news in comparison to my last chart three weeks ago is that the population in the lowest risk tier (yellow) has increased to almost 44% of the state population. Three weeks ago it was 28%. The geography in the chart can be a bit deceptive.... If you just eyeball the area covered by each color it looks like most of the state is orange. But several of the biggest, densest population centers— specifically Los Angeles, Orange County, and half the Bay Area— are in the yellow tier.
Winning at Data Transparency
In chatting with colleagues today I was reminded how special this level of data access is. California has been publishing these charts weekly for several months now so I've grown accustomed to having them. I take them for granted. But other states have pretty much nothing... nothing publicly available and so easily accessible, anyway. When I shared a live view of https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/ on my screen in a meeting people living elsewhere in the country oohed and aahed."But wait," one of my Covid-skeptic colleagues said after a moment. "All those pretty colors mean nothing if they're just made up. What's the data behind them?"
"That's the great thing," I explained. I walked through how the site a) defines a set of several key metrics being measured, b) specifies the numerical thresholds of those metrics for each color category, and c) provides a clickable map county-by-county showing how each county scored on each metric.
No other state I'm aware of has anything like this. And it's not like it's even hard. Months ago in Florida a single state employee starting putting together statistics like these. The state fired her. Then she continued the effort as an unemployed volunteer. The state sued to make her stop. Florida is, of course, led by staunch denialist Governor Ron DeSantis. The denialists complain that policies without data are bunk, but they're the ones thwarting the collection and publication of data so they can make up rubbish and claim it's just as valid as science.
