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The IBJ should strongly consider reporting the seven-day average of deaths from the CDC’s COVID-19 data tracker, because it appears to give a much more accurate portrayal of the recent death toll. It indicates that the 7-day average of daily deaths in Indiana increased from 77 to 79.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailydeaths_7daydeathsper100k Just select “Indiana” and then scroll down to click on “Data Table for Daily Death Trends…”
The reason for this vast discrepancy between the seven-day average that Indiana reports on its COVID dashboard (currently 40) vs the figure on the CDC website (currently 79) is that Indiana counts deaths by the actual day they occurred, rather than the day they were reported. This measure typically misses approximately half the deaths that have actually occurred in the last seven days because they haven’t yet been reported to the State. This is why if you look at the graph of the “Statewide Deaths by Day” on Indiana’s Covid Dashboard, it always appears that the amount of deaths is plummeting over the last 7-10 days.
Further evidence of this can be found each day by noting the number of Newly Reported Deaths at the top of the dashboard (104 today) and then scrolling through the Deaths graph and counting how many Newly Reported Deaths occurred on each of the past 7 days (65 using today’s data). Thus, from today’s 104 newly reported deaths, 37.5% of those deaths will never be counted in Indiana’s seven-day average because they were reported to the State more than seven days after the death occurred. Since there has consistently been a lag of more than a week for approximately half of Indiana’s Covid deaths, reporting the seven-day average based on when the deaths are reported (as the CDC’s tabulation does), rather than when they occurred (as Indiana’s dashboard does) would provide a much more truthful depiction of the current death toll and trend. Why Indiana reports it this way would seem to be a good question for a reporter to ask.
Yeah, it seems impossible that the reported deaths here for the last week have been well over 50 each day, but the “7 day moving average” stays below 50…
I’ve been using COVID Act Now for months; they seem to have much better presentation and give a much better idea of what’s actually happening.
https://covidactnow.org/us/indiana-in/county/marion_county/?s=28511730
Thank you for explaining that stat. I have wondered about that for months. I could never figure out how we could have reports of 100+ deaths day after day after day, but have a seven-day average of 30-something or 40-something. What’s the point of reporting a stat if it is wholly inaccurate and misleading?
Good point regarding the 7 day average and how it is reported by the State. Whether IBJ could report your citation each day might be a question. I think that IBJ is probably using software that pulls data from certain spots and then inputs that data into a designated landing spot into a framework of a story. I am not sure that someone is pulling this data manually each day. (That’s an inference from reading these articles and comments; so I will leave to them to confirm.)
Hi Patrick, IBJ does not use software to pull data from the state. We look at the health department’s dashboard after it is updated every day, type in the new numbers and write a short story. We do use the previous day’s update as a template to save time. We might simply stop providing the 7-day average of deaths because it can be misleading. A lot of deaths aren’t reported until after seven days have passed, and those aren’t included in the average. Thanks for your thoughts.