Today in public health updates, Seattle & King County Public Health recognizes the first day of Ramadan with a post by Mohamed Ali, Ayan Abshir & the Equity Response Team. The local Somali community in Seattle was recently devastated by the first COVID-19 death, which brought to the surface existing challenges for their community. It also showed their resilience. Even while abiding by public health advisories, they maintain a strong commitment to honoring cultural practices. For the full article and report, visit the Public Health Insider.
Otherwise, this daily synthesis of the Public Health data is provided by Will Daugherty of Pacific Science Center. Thanks Will!
Public Health has updated the data dashboard. As of 11:59 pm yesterday, April 22, there were 5,569 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in King County, 120 more than the previous day. There have been 384 confirmed deaths in King County due to COVID-19, 6.9% of all confirmed cases.
The numbers that Public Health reports each day include delayed results from previous days.
Observations
The first graph below shows new cases (blue bars) and the 7-day average (red line). Of the 120 new cases reported today, 80 were confirmed yesterday and the remaining 40 were confirmed in previous days but reported to Public Health in the last day, resulting in restatements of the totals for previous days. The 7-day average has been in decline since April 1, but the downward trajectory is becoming elongated. The trailing 7-day average is 95 new cases per day. This is roughly the same level that it was on March 21 (96) prior to Governor Inslee issuing the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order on March 23. In other words, while we have slowed the spread, the number of daily new cases has only fallen back to the point that it was when the Governor issued the order. We still have a long way to go.
The second graph below shows the total case count. With 5,569 total cases as of 11:59 pm yesterday, the compound daily growth rate during the last 7 days has been 1.8%, less than the 2.6% rate during the prior 7 days. At a 1.8% compound daily growth rate, the number of cases doubles every 38.3 days. One week ago, cases were doubling every 27.2 days. Two weeks ago, cases were doubling every 15.8 days. Three weeks ago, cases were doubling every 8.5 days.
The third graph below shows the trajectory of cases in King County with the total number of cases on the horizontal axis and the new cases on the vertical axis. Each axis is on a logarithmic scale. Each blue dot represents a daily report. The dot farthest to the left is the February 28 report. Time passes from left to right as the total case count grows. The dot farthest to the right is today’s daily report. We can see a clear change in the trajectory since March 28, shortly after Governor Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order on March 23. We can also see tight clustering of the most recent reports. This is consistent with the elongated trajectory in the 7-day average of new cases noted above.
My read of the Governor Inslee’s recent comments is that restrictions will remain in place until 1) the red line in the first graph and the blue dots in the third graph are a lot lower and 2) more widespread testing is available.
Will Daugherty welcomes your questions and comments. His email is wdaugherty@pacsci.org