Every few weeks, my mom forwards me an email from the Town Manager in my hometown, Glastonbury, Connecticut. This email comprises the Town Manager’s Weekly COVID-19 update, including data for the town, updates for the state, and the occasional public service announcements. The most recent email, sent on October 7, includes Halloween best practices, information on flu clinics, and absentee ballot resources.
Read MoreFeatured sources for Oct. 11 include mortality data, superspreading events, risk levels, and college campuses.
Read MoreThis newsletter is about to step up its game in a big way. I am absolutely honored and thrilled to announce that I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program.
Read More
The county-level testing dataset published by CMS has become a regular topic for this newsletter since it was released in early September. As a refresher for newer readers: CMS publishes both total PCR tests and test positivity rates for every county in the country; the dataset is intended as a resource for nursing home administrators, who are required to test their residents and staff at regular intervals based on the status of their county. This past Monday, October 5, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new update posted on CMS’ COVID-19 data page.
Read More
Abbott ID NOW tests are in use across the country. 11 million of them have been distributed since March. But where are the tests being used, how many of them have returned positive results, and are they being used correctly—to quickly diagnose patients with COVID-19 symptoms? Without these data, it is difficult to determine whether Abbott’s test should be part of America’s testing strategy going forward.
Read MoreFeatured sources for Oct. 4 include search trends, aerosol transmission, and COVID-19 legislation.
Read More
This past Monday, September 28, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updated the county-level testing dataset which the agency is publishing as a resource for nursing home administrators.
Read More
The COVID-19 At The White House Contact Tracker is attempting to trace over 200 contacts in connection with the President and his staff, after the President tested positive for COVID-19. The team behind it includes Benjy Renton, independent reporter on COVID-19 in higher education, Peter Walker, data visualization lead at the COVID Tracking Project, and Jesse O’Shea, MD, infectious disease expert at Emory University.
Read More
Emily Oster, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Brown University, collaborated with software company Qualtrics and several national education associations to build a COVID-19 school dashboard which focuses on case rates, not counts. I spoke to Oster this past Tuesday, only four days after the dashboard’s public release. She explained more detail about the project’s methodology and her future plans for tracking COVID-19 in schools.
Read More