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

**Related Posts**

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The Pandemic's 5th Wave

There have been many news reports on Coronavirus surges in the U.S. recently, especially among the unvaccinated in the south.  The graph above shows that Cambria County is experiencing its 5th surge in COVID-19 cases.  The first surge was in the Spring of 2020.  The second was from late July to early August of last year.  The third was after Donald Trump's visits to the area (by Jr and Sr) from October to December and was by far the worst.  The fourth occurred from mid March to mid April of this year.  

 

We are now seeing a 5th surge following super-spreader events such as Thunder in the Valley.  The surge began on July 10 when there was a 7 day new case average of 0.71 cases per day to an average of 10.14 cases per day as of this writing.  The last death in the county was reported on July 1.  There have been 35 straight days with no new reported deaths since then.  The above graph shows that the number of cases hospitalized have decreased to a low of 3 on July 19 but has since risen to 12 as of this writing. As of yet there has been no corresponding increase in the number of cases on a ventilator.   

The graph at the left shows that a similar pattern is occurring in the state of Pennsylvania in the number of new cases.  The graph below shows that there has not yet been a corresponding increase in the number of deaths.  If the rise in the number of cases continues to accelerate, this luck will eventually run out. 

The vaccine rollout being given to the most vulnerable populations first makes it unlikely that the surge in cases and deaths will reach the awful levels seen last fall and winter. The slowing vaccination rate means that smaller surges can happen.  I have no information on how many new cases are due to the delta variant in the county.  The delta variant is not resistant to the vaccines.  The nightmare scenario is that a new variant could evolve that is resistant to the vaccines.  This would put us back to where we started with the pandemic.  Get the shots.

**Related Posts**

100 COVID-19 Deaths in Cambria County Since the Candlelight Vigil

COVID-19 Cases Have Risen in Cambria County but Deaths Have Not Due to Vaccinations (so far)

Mortality in Cambria County: Our Luck Has Run Out Thanks to Trump

Cuba a Failed State?

The news media has recently reported on President Biden's calling Cuba a failed state.  There have been demonstrations there due to the corona virus pandemic.  The Cuban president responded by pointing out that the 60 year embargo of Cuba has exacerbated shortages of medical supplies and other basic resources.  I thought I would compare how Cuba is faring compared to surrounding island nations Jamaica and Haiti and to the U.S.

The graph above is from the Gapminder Institute showing income and life expectancy for the four countries.  We see that while per capita income is much higher in the U.S. than Cuba, life expectancy in years is virtually the same in both countries with Jamaica and Haiti lagging behind.  Infant mortality rates (an indication of the health of the infant and the mother) is actually 40% lower in Cuba (4/1,000 births) than the U.S. (5.6/1,000), as seen in the table below, followed by the Jamaica (13.5/1,000) and Haiti (52.2/1,0000).  

	Income per capita	Life Expectancy (years)	Infant Mortality per 1,000 births	COVID Case Mortality %	Covid deaths per 100,000
U.S.	$56,700	78.6	5.6	1.8	185.61
Cuba	$8,130	78.5	4	0.7	17.35
Jamaica	$8,310	74.9	13.5	2.3	39.18
Haiti	$1,640	65.7	52.2	2.6	4.51

The life expectancy and infant mortality data are from the World Health Organization from 2018 before the pandemic.  Johns-Hopkins University has been tracking mortality and cases for each nation from the Coronavirus.  The case mortality is 2.6 times higher for COVID in the U.S. (1.8%) compared to Cuba (0.7%) with higher rates in Jamaica (2.3) and Haiti (2.6).  The population adjusted death rate from COVID is more than 10 times higher in the US (185.61) than Cuba (17.35).  Haiti so far has a low death rate due to a low case rate.

Some may want to dismiss these numbers from the WHO and Johns-Hopkins due to their political beliefs.  The CIA (hardly a radical leftwing organization) also does estimates of life expectancy for each country in the world.  They estimate Cuba's life expectancy to be 79.41 years.  Haiti's is estimated to be 65.61 years. Jamaica's is estimated to be 73.71 years.  U.S.'s is estimated to be 80.43 years.

You can say what you want about the political system in Cuba, the mortality data do not indicate poorer outcomes there relative to their Caribbean neighbors and the U.S.  The U.S. embargo has given the Cuban government a convenient scapegoat for their problems,  the U.S.

**Related Posts**

Income and Life Expectancy. What does it Tell Us About US?

Corona Numbers from the WHO and JHU

New Life Expectancy Data from the WHO (World Health Organization)