Today when I checked Sedgwick County's COVID-19 dashboard, I noticed that active cases outnumbered recoveries. I knew it hadn't been that way in a while, so I decided to check every day. https://sedgwickcounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/7b2b4364a5fa4ba3a015d52450acfe0d https://twitter.com/Jason_Tidd/status/1279890479841230851

I started by checking the page with total cases and recoveries.

Because it takes time for people to recover, I knew active cases would outnumber recoveries at the start of the pandemic. The first three recoveries were reported March 27, when there had been 33 total cases.

April 16 was the first day where recoveries (121) passed active cases (113). On April 19, active cases retook the lead, 142 to 138, but recoveries took the lead back the next day.

I checked the data for the next 77 days, writing it down in my notebook. July 5 is the first time in about two and a half months where active cases outnumbered recoveries.

I worked harder instead of smarter at the start of this analysis. But because of this, I came away with another data point: The percentage of total cases that were recoveries by date.

For the second half of April, recoveries made up a little more than 50% of all cases in Sedgwick County.

As the phased-in reopening started on May 4, about 60% of local cases had already recovered. That number grew as the phased-in reopening continued.

The highest percentage I recorded in my analysis was 76% — meaning more than three-quarters of all known cases in the county had already recovered.

It happened on four consecutive dates: May 24-27.

State and local pandemic restrictions on the economy were lifted May 26-27.

Late May to late June was mostly a slow decline in the percentage of cases that had recovered. The pace quickened about two weeks ago.

On June 21, it was 68%. By June 28, it was 53%. For June 5, it is 48%.

The percentage of total cases that had recovered wasn't what I was intending to find out this afternoon. I don't know that it's an especially helpful data point, but I thought it was worth sharing.

It's worth pointing out that this is similar to other local coronavirus data trends. Active cases had peaked in late April then trended downward for most of May. It has exploded in the last six weeks. The percentage of tests that come back positive has followed a similar path.

I'm going to end this thread on hospitalizations and deaths.

We didn't get the weekly data on hospitalizations today, so we have nothing since June 27. Even if we did, the county doesn't report the number of current hospitalizations.

The local death count may be considered a bright spot right now. While there have been 28 deaths, that tally hasn't changed since June 25.

Of course, deaths are a lagging indicator of a pandemic. But it is good news that it's been 10 days since a local COVID-19 patient died.