Jay Wiedwald's Graphs on "Johnstown" and "Halo" Counties and Coronavirus

 

A follower of my blog named Jay Wiedwald shared some graphs showing how the counties immediately surrounding Cambria have been adversely affected by corona virus.  Jay is a former resident of Johnstown who lived in Moxham.  He includes Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Indiana, and Somerset counties as Johnstown and the surrounding counties ad "Halo" counties.  

In the graph that he created above, he computed the excess death rates from coronavirus for the "Johnstown" Counties, the "Halo" Counties, and Pennsylvania overall.  Excess death rates compared death rates for last fall and winter to death rates from previous years on the same day.  It shows that the Johnstown Counties had higher death rates after the Trump rally on October 13 compared to PA and the "halo" counties.

The graph above also shows a steady increase in case mortality rates for Cambria County after the Trump rally indicated by the yellow dot.  These are changes in the cumulative rates since the beginning of the pandemic.  Currently Cambria's rate (2.89%) is 33% higher that Pennsylvania's and 77% higher than the U.S. case mortality rate.  Recently the rates for Cambria, PA and the U.S. have declined due to the number of cases rising faster than the number of deaths.  The decline for PA and the U.S. has been steeper than Cambria's.

The table below summarizes the "Johnstown" and "Halo" counties for COVID mortality as of this writing.  I only have date for the PA 'Halo' counties. The 'Johnstown' counties indeed do have higher case and population adjusted mortality than PA or the "Halo" counties.  The "Halo" counties have a slightly lower case mortality rate than PA (2.07% for halo vs. 2.17% for PA) but the population adjusted rate is slightly higher for PA (222.60 for halo vs. 221.15 for PA).  The "Johnstown" counties have a 28% higher case mortality rate (2.78% for 'Johnstown' vs. 2.17% for PA) a 33% higher population adjusted mortality rate 293.6 for 'Johnstown' vs. 221.25 for PA.

Thank you Jay for Bringing this to my attention.  

Johnstown Counties	Cases	Deaths	Case mortality	Population	Deaths/100000
Bedford	5,045	144	2.85%	47,888	300.70
Blair	14,126	346	2.45%	121,829	284.00
Cambria	15,570	449	2.88%	130,192	344.88
Indiana	6,928	184	2.66%	84,073	218.86
Somerset	6,561	220	3.35%	73,447	299.54
Total 'Johnstown' Counties	48,230	1,343	2.78%	457,429	293.60
PA	1,308,284	28,325	2.17%	12,801,989	221.25
Halo Counties	Cases	Deaths	Case mortality	Population	Deaths/100000
Armstrong	6,434	151	2.35%	64,735	233.26
Centre	17,766	231	1.30%	162,385	142.25
Clearfield	9,264	166	1.79%	79,255	209.45
Fayette	14,231	335	2.35%	129,274	259.14
Franklin	16,925	381	2.25%	155,027	245.76
Fulton	1,513	18	1.19%	14,530	123.88
Huntingdon	5,502	137	2.49%	45,144	303.47
Jefferson	3,568	100	2.80%	43,425	230.28
Westmoreland	36,940	802	2.17%	348,899	229.87
Total ‘Halo’ Counties	112,143	2,321	2.07%	1,042,674	222.60
PA	1,308,284	28,325	2.17%	12,801,989	221.25

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