A glimpse at COVID-19 cases in some Maryland ZIP codes

A publicly-available MD COVID-19 metrics that I didn’t investigate much is cases per ZIP code. I created a dashboard where you can highlight one zip code at a time. Tyler Fogarty built a cool Treemap Explorer. Silver Chips has a nice heatmap of all zip codes as part of their extensive dashboard (a bit like the MDH dashboard). How can we make sense of all this? A classical way to see it is to look at the daily number of positive cases, similarly to what I did for counties or the state. ...

May 31, 2020 · 2 min · jepoirrier

Will it be the end of Stage 1 in Maryland?

Since May 14, 2020, Maryland is carefully reopening from an easy lock-down caused by coronavirus spreading thru the community (and all over the world). In this post, I’ll go through all the variables we have on the MD Health Department dashboard. But first, the official data comes from the MD dashboard and if you want scientific information about COVID-19, please consult the CDC website. If you are interested, you can read my previous posts on COVID-19 in Maryland from this page. ...

May 30, 2020 · 5 min · jepoirrier

No visible impact yet of different COVID-19 Stage 1 strategies in Maryland

In my previous post, I was wondering if Maryland was ready to reopen, ready to enter Stage 1 of COVID-19 recovery. I also mentioned, in the end, that if Gov. Hogan announced the reopening of Maryland, he also gave counties the power to “fully” open, to be partially open or even to remain closed. You can see more info about Maryland Strong: Roadmap to Recovery: there is a map of what Counties decided. ...

May 21, 2020 · 4 min · jepoirrier

Is Maryland ready to reopen?

A visual analysis of Governor Larry Hogan’s decision to enter Stage 1 of reopening Maryland. (This will be a post based on a thread of tweets I posted on May 14 with updated graphs for today - one days after the start of Stage 1 - and more) Maryland is in state of emergency since March 5, 2020 due to COVID-19. Governor Larry Hogan announced on May 14 that Maryland will " gradually reopen with flexible community-based approach" ( the official declaration is here). The MD Strong plan said " a 14-day downward trajectory of benchmark metrics - or at least a plateauing of rates - is required before recovery steps can begin". This Phase 1 started yesterday, May 15, 2020. So, are we there already? ...

May 17, 2020 · 3 min · jepoirrier

MD counties COVID-19-specific death rate

Since a few weeks, I report the raw number of COVID-19 deaths in Maryland counties. If this gives an idea of the cumulative number of deaths - which is interesting - it doesn’t reflect the fact that some counties have more inhabitants than others. That’s why I plotted below the number of COVID-19 deaths adjusted for the population (i.e. the COVID-19-specific death rate): Today (May 16, 2020), in terms of absolute number of deaths, Montgomery, Prince Georges and Baltimore County are the top 3 counties (this is the same for cases but not in the same order). In terms of confirmed deaths per 100,000 population, the top 3 counties are Kent, Prince Georges and Montgomery. ...

May 17, 2020 · 2 min · jepoirrier

MD counties COVID-19 cases adjusted for population

Since a few weeks, I report the raw number of COVID-19 cases in Maryland counties. If this gives an idea of the cumulative number of cases - which is interesting - it doesn’t reflect the fact that some counties have more inhabitants than others. That’s why I plotted below the number of COVID-19 cases adjusted for the population: Evolution of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Maryland counties, adjusted and not adjusted for population, on May 11, 2020 ...

May 12, 2020 · 1 min · jepoirrier

Trend in Coronavirus cases in Maryland (3)

Following up on my two previous posts ( here and here), I am writing a third post on COVID-19 in Maryland because I believe we enter a new phase. Before continuing, please note that the same disclaimer as in my previous post applies here (in short: read the CDC and MDH websites for official information). In the first phase, the importance was to detect and make sure COVID-19 patients were treated (also: make sure not to overwhelm the healthcare system, flatten the curve, lower the baseline, & stay at home!). My two previous posts were following these efforts, thanks to daily data released by the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) on its dashboard. My second post will still be updated with the latest data from there, go read it! ...

April 27, 2020 · 3 min · jepoirrier

Trend in COVID-19 cases by Zip code in Maryland

Since the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) started to display number of COVID-19 cases for each Zip code in its dashboard, I was wondering how to display this information in a nice way. The MDH display the information as a map - very nice but it lacks from where each Zip code came from: is the number of cases increasing or decreasing? Following on my busy chart with the evolution of all Zip codes (and highlighting just one of them - that may not be the one you are interested in, see previous post), I created a simple dashboard where you can select the Zip code you are interested in and see how cases are evolving. You can play with it here: https://jepoirrier.shinyapps.io/md-coronavirus-zip-app/ (screenshot below). Enjoy! ...

April 27, 2020 · 1 min · jepoirrier

Trend in Coronavirus cases in Maryland, USA (2)

This post was last updated on April 26, 2020. A new post from April 27, 2020 is here. Following up on my previous post, here are updated trends in Coronavirus cases in Maryland (USA), the state I live in. I am writing a second post because the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) updated its dashboard with way more data than before (more on this below). Before continuing, please note that the same disclaimer as in my previous post applies here (in short: read the CDC and MDH websites for official information). ...

March 29, 2020 · 12 min · jepoirrier

Trend in Coronavirus cases in Maryland, USA

Disclaimer: Although I work in infectious diseases, I’m not a specialist in Coronavirus. For the most up-to-date information on Coronavirus in the US, please visit the CDC website. For the most up-to-date information on Coronavirus in Maryland, please visit the Maryland Department of Health. That being said, now you can proceed at your own risk ;-) This post was updated by one post on March 28 and another one here on April 27. Read the latest one here. ...

March 16, 2020 · 4 min · jepoirrier