“In God we trust. All others must bring data.” – Edward Deming.
I saw a social media post that implied COVI-19 is driven entirely by population density. That was true early in the pandemic, but I had not seen that in recent statistics. In my last post that focused on COVID-19, I noticed that among Southern states, those that bordered the Atlantic Ocean were not making new highs in the number of new COVID-19 cases in October, while those that did not were seeing new highs. For example, Alabama, which borders the Gulf of Mexico did not set new records for daily number of cases, while Tennessee, which is north of Alabama, made new highs last month. I have also noticed recently that the new hot spots for covered are in the Upper Plains. Looking at the data, the variation between states in the percent increase in new cases since the beginning of September can be almost entirely explained by average latitude. The more northern the state, the greater the increase in the number of new cases of COVID-19. For example, Wyoming has seen a 19-fold increase in new cases per day in the last two months. Other states that are seeing massive increases in the last two months are Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Connecticut, and Wisconsin. See the graph below for a summary of the continental U.S. and DC.
The more northern the state, the colder the weather. The colder the weather, the more people spend time indoors, which is strongly associated with COVID-19. To me this indicates that as the weather gets colder, southern states will soon be experiencing huge increases in COVID-19 as well. Winter is coming, and increases in COVID-19 cases will hit the entire United States soon.
In other news, my book was published last week, and can now be ordered from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The hardcover is out now, and the ebook for Kindle and Nook will be available on November 23rd. You can also read Chapter 1 for free and watch a 10-minute overview on YouTube.