Arizona Is the New COVID-19 Hotspot

Yeah ... I know ... you already knew this. But I don't think you know as much about it as Ironman writing at Political Calculations. He knows the data better than politicians and the media, and he does the stats more insightfully than most dashboards.

This chart is interactive. Go and play with it here. Do note that the vertical scale does not need to be logged because it is a rate. Even so, I'd prefer it if it was, since the rate is cases divided by population, and the latter isn't really changing over the sample period.

Oh ... and where's Utah? It's the 4th highest pink dot on the far right. Uh-oh.

Death rates lag case rates, so Arizona merely has a high death rate, but it doesn't stand out yet. However, he estimates a 20-28 day lag between policy changes and deaths, and the uptick in deaths in Arizona starts 23 days after the state re-opened on May 15.

He also estimates a 13-16 lag between an event and it showing up in cases. That makes the above look like a George Floyd protest spike. Not sure why it's worse in Arizona (other than the virus was already heavily seeded into the state through the spike on the Navajo reservation in early May).

One thing that's new about Arizona is the proportion of young people being diagnosed. It's up in all groups, but has more than doubled for people between 20 and 44.