Very true, most of the cases here spiking are under age 24, just look at CDC facts by age. Flu and non covid related pneumonia has killed more folks under 24 this year than covid. For the very young flu is 3-4 times more likely to result in death. Very low risk for that age group. Doesn't mean they cannot spread it and should not be careful. But as individuals, there is really no reason to panic.

College Hills Elementary just reported a case in a student. No further details.


[Back on topic. -Staff]

Death was a male in his 70s who was hospitalized.

I've noticed that the number of cases released each day is not necessarily the number of 'new' cases. Looking at the spreadsheet, I guess it's the daily increase in the number of "PCR Cases Total". What I don't understand are the negative numbers that often appear in the daily change of the age group numbers. If I sum the increase or decrease in numbers given for each age group, the result will (usually) equal the increase in "PCR Cases Total" (which is the number released by the BCHD).

Questions:

• How come the numbers don't add up to 63 today? -1 (80s) -4 (70s) +3 (60s) +3 (50s) +6 (40s) +8 (30s) +28 (20s) +16 (15-19) +3 (0-14) = 62
• If the number of cases for people in their 80s has gone down by 1 and the number in their 70s has gone down by 4, then it follows that, if there were no new cases today, the "PCR Cases Total" would have decreased. How can something be called a "total" if it goes down? Or is "PCR Cases Total" just another way of saying "current active cases"? And if it's actually the number of active cases, why is it always going up? Do we really not have days where the number of recoveries exceeds the number of new cases?

If my assumption is correct, then we might actually have had 163 new cases today.. with 100 recoveries.. right?

I apologize if this has already been explained elsewhere.

theNetSmith said:

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Questions:

• How come the numbers don't add up to 63 today? -1 (80s) -4 (70s) +3 (60s) +3 (50s) +6 (40s) +8 (30s) +28 (20s) +16 (15-19) +3 (0-14) = 62
• If the number of cases for people in their 80s has gone down by 1 and the number in their 70s has gone down by 4, then it follows that, if there were no new cases today, the "PCR Cases Total" would have decreased. How can something be called a "total" if it goes down?

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The BCHD only gives 9 out of 10 age ranges and I have to subtract from 100 to get the last range. Unfortunately, they also only give the data to the 0.1% detail for age ranges. For example, 9.95% and 10.049% would be reported as 10.0%. 5569 * 9.95% = 554.12 people and 5569 * 10.049% = 559.62 people. So there is a range of 5 people in each age category. I try to massage the data from one day to the next when it is obvious and easy to do. I guess rounding caused 62 cases for today, I'll fix that to match...

PCR Cases Total should never go down, I'm not sure where you are seeing that. The Daily Change line can be negative, as it is showing the change from yesterday for that column. So PCR last 7 days being -40 means that our last 7 days as of today is 40 cases lower than our 7 days counting from yesterday.

theNetSmith said:

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If my assumption is correct, then we might actually have had 163 new cases today.. with 100 recoveries.. right?

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Assumption is not correct, there were only 63 new PCR cases today. The recoveries are just the cases from 2 weeks ago. The BCHD doesn't actually track recoveries and just assumes after 14 days people are recovered or dead. Total recoveries are the number of total cases minus deaths minus the last 14 days cases.

5569 total cases -58 deaths - 594 last 7 on 9.10.2020 - 425 last 7 days on 9.3.2020 = 4492 recovered

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PCR Cases Total should never go down, I'm not sure where you are seeing that.

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Didn't say it went down. I suggested that, if (a) the number of infected 80-somethings went down by 1 (79 -> 78) and (b) the number of 70-somethings went down by 3 (143 -> 140), and (c) there were no change to any of the other age group numbers, then PCR Cases Total would have to have gone down by 4. No?

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The Daily Change line can be negative, as it is showing the change from yesterday for that column.

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Yes, I get that the number of 80-somethings today is 1 less than it was yesterday, and the number of 70-somethings is 3 less than it was yesterday. That still doesn't tell me where the negative numbers are coming from. If, between yesterday and today, there weren't 4 deaths of COVID patients aged 70-89, then I assume that the net differences between new cases and recoveries for those age groups are negative.

What am I missing?

Thank you for your patience.

A number can go down because the BCHD will report 9.9% of cases were in their 80's on Monday and then report 9.8% were in their 80's on Tuesday. In reality it could have been 9.86% then 9.84%. They don't give us enough detail to be accurate. 0.1% is about 5 person resolution/accuracy

The sum of all age ranges should always equal the number of daily cases for that day. Thx for catching that it was off by 1 today, I fixed it.

Question about the antigen tests... I'm assuming that the numbers who are currently in the antigen category will make their way over to the confirmed daily case counts once they take the PCR test and come back positive?

So if the 43 tests we see today will show up over the next week or so in PCR positive cases, I wonder if there will ever be a stat that pops up how many of the daily PCR positives are retests from the anigen positive category. Or maybe that's too deep a dive for the county to keep up with.

Belton Ag said:

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Question about the antigen tests... I'm assuming that the numbers who are currently in the antigen category will make their way over to the confirmed daily case counts once they take the PCR test and come back positive?

So if the 43 tests we see today will show up over the next week or so in PCR positive cases, I wonder if there will ever be a stat that pops up how many of the daily PCR positives are retests from the anigen positive category. Or maybe that's too deep a dive for the county to keep up with.

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My opinion is antigen cases should not be probable... I don't believe they are less accurate for positives but are less sensitive for negative.

Second opinion is I bet most with an antigen positive do not also get PCR test done. They assume positive and deal with it.

Agree on both counts

Today's numbers: 37 new confirmed cases, 15 new probable cases, 382 tests (or 2,382), 0 deaths

http://www.brazoshealth.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/9.12.20.pdf

But there is a difference in the number of tests between the graphic and the 'node' site

http://www.brazoshealth.org/node/94?fbclid=IwAR0jk3zLYBLAKPSQ8Qe9ckMyZ3FCYyirad0FaZ28X2uU41Q1oZE56OuGg80

Thanks, Mimi. Nice trend here lately.

Spreadsheet updated

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11DhOiIPQwUQ5teJsvOV_JYp-zDkE4Eq5bQ91fud7y9Q

Charts tab auto updates


The number of tests and zip code data is wrong on English portion of graphic. Spanish portion matches the other page.

Spreadsheet updated

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11DhOiIPQwUQ5teJsvOV_JYp-zDkE4Eq5bQ91fud7y9Q

Charts tab auto updates

Well that's absolutely fantastic!

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From KBTX:

The Texas Department of State Health Services said it will now "primarily rely" on a new calculation of the daily positivity rate defined as the share of tests that yield positive results that takes into account the date on which a COVID-19 test was administered.

All that to say, they're attempting to make a more accurate snapshot of what the true positivity rate is by accounting for certain variables that the old way just wasn't providing.

To get a better idea of what that means and how it will affect the way we handle COVID-19 moving forward, we sat down with Dr. Seth Sullivan, the Brazos County Alternate Health Authority.

"The advantage is that it's a daily rate," Dr. Sullivan explains.
He says the new way of reporting the positivity rate will help avoid backlogs of tests from becoming outliers that skew the data.
"We talk about the positivity rates as an important determinant to policy," Dr. Sullivan says. But he says it's a challenge to use that metric when it's not being monitored in real-time.
That's where the new system comes into play.

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"This new system will allow it to be reported on a daily basis as opposed to all of these that have come in almost in a backlog situation. So our policy, our system here which is getting through these cases as quickly as possible we try to avoid backlog cases that have occurred multiple times we just have more cases than we can get through and nobody wants to be in that situation so a lot of work up here at the health district of ensuring that we have enough individuals to get through these cases and we can get them reported in a timely manner."
Dr. Seth Sullivan, Brazos County Alternate Health Authority

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Dr. Sullivan explains that this won't change the way information is reported at the county level. Instead, he said this new system will take the existing data that the state is receiving from counties and maximize its potential to tell the most accurate story of what's going on in our community and our state at-large.
But Dr. Sullivan says this is not a condemnation of the old method for calculating positivity rates.
"The way we calculate the rate is still the same," Dr. Sullivan says, "the numerator is the positive tests, the denominator is still the tests that have been done."

He says the new method will cause the positivity rate will be more volatile than before, but he says that's a good thing because it will more accurately reflect the current status of COVID-19 in our community.

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https://www.kbtx.com/2020/09/16/experts-say-change-in-positivity-rate-reporting-will-create-more-accurate-data/