California County Level Infections & Deaths of COVID-19 Visualized

New York Times has published data about the number of COVID-19 infected cases and deaths in U.S. at the county level.

We’re Sharing Coronavirus Case Data for Every U.S. County - Link

So I’ve got the County level data and visualized the trend for California counties.

Note that the data is refreshed daily (7AM PT).

Number of Cases

These are the number of the cases for those who were tested Positive. Note that we need to be mindful on this numbers. These numbers can be influenced a lot by how many were tested. In general, more tests can produce more positive cases, and the testing criteria might vary by county.

Number of Cases by County

Los Angeles has the most reported cases and it’s dramatically more than other counties. It has four times of the 2nd ranked county, Santa Clara.

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The top county in Bay Area (or Silicon Valley if you will) is Santa Clara where Apple, Google, and many of other tech companies are located.)

Cumulative Number of Cases - Daily

Here’s a daily cumulative number of the cases.

On the left (Non Bay Area counties) you can see a super rapid increase in Los Angeles.

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Number of Cases by County - Map

Here’s a county level map showing the number of cases by color.

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Number of Deaths (Corona related)

To me, the number of deaths is more important and reliable than # of cases.

First, many of us will get infected at the end, just a nature of this kind of virus, and most of us will recover.

But the real problem is the death. In most of the countries, the public policy is to flatten the curve of number of infected people in order to prevent the burden on hospitals and medical infrastructure.

Second, as noted above, the number of the cases can be hugely impacted by how many tests you do. When you do massive test then the number of cases tend to increases in general. This means, we don’t really know the exact number of the cases.

On the other hand, the number of deaths can be counted very reliably because the people at hospitals are required to test for those who died with similar symptoms. It’s harder to not recognize the real numbers.

Number of Deaths by County

Los Angeles is the top county for the number of deaths, too. But here, we don’t see that crazy difference from other counties, there is a difference, but not like 4 times.

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Overall, the numbers are still pretty small (as of writing on 4/1). Most of the counties are less than 10.

Cumulative Number of Death - Daily

And here’s the daily cumulative number of death.

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One thing to note. While both Los Angeles and Santa Clara numbers are increasing rapidly, there is a difference. Los Angeles started the rapid increase trend after 3/22 while Santa Clara started the trend as early as 3/15, about a week ago, and its slope is not as sharp as Los Angeles.

I don’t know what makes the difference as of now, but it’s an interesting difference.

Number of Deaths by County - Map

Here’s a county level map showing the number of deaths by color.

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Put in Perspective

Now, some of the numbers shown above might scare you, but you need to put that in perspective.

Here’s when you compare the number of deaths of California counties against New York City.

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We are not seeing the kind of overshoot happening in New York City here in California yet… I don’t know what that means. Does that mean we will have similar situation soon? Or something California has done so far is different from New York? Or it’s just a different nature of New York that we don’t have it here in California such as the density, temperature, etc.

Anyway, it’s too early to say any conclusion as of now, let’s finger crossed! and do whatever we can do to slow the speed of the epidemic!

Written on 4/1/2020. (The data is refreshed daily, but the writing is not.)