COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Love how Minnesota, the ultimate good governance, high social trust/compliance liberal haven out of all 50 states in this country is about to take over the top state in 7 day trailing case total.

But it was totally Kristi Noem and anti-mask Dakota Republicans responsible for South Dakota's outbreak, right? Not the normal weather pattern at all!

SD has a positivity rate of 41% (was over 45% at some point). That is third, after ID and IA. MN has a positivity rate of 10.5%. Basically, the outbreak in SD is far worse, even though both states have the same rate per 100K.

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Some of the implied CFR rates by state right now are really bizarre.  Florida is averaging about 5,000 cases and 50 deaths per day (CFR~1%).  California is averaging around 2500 cases and 200 deaths per day (CFR~8%!!).  

Is Florida just much, much better at testing and thus counting cases?  Or much better at vaccinating the elderly?  What is going here?

FWIW, this isn’t really a red state/blue state thing.  NY has CFR ~1% while Texas and Georgia are 3-4%. 

It's not particularly relevant to compare new cases & deaths for the same day. There's always a delay between reported new cases and subsequent deaths. You'll have to look back at the average number of new cases from 2-3 weeks ago in order to get a better picture.