I've been looking at stats for Harris county, and I've noticed that they're recording recovered cases of Corona. Guess what though? No one has gotten better for three weeks!
In the Houston area, Harris county is reporting a total of 1548 active cases, 239 recovered, and 22 deaths, yeah, that's 1% deaths from confirmed cases. That's 1809 total cases since 3/1. Now, let's talk about that 239 recovered cases number. On the same page, they give a chart with daily new cases. Using that, we had 239 cases by 3/17. You would think all or most of those first 239 cases 3-5 weeks ago would be resolved or dead by now. http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Resources/2019-Novel-Coronavirus
Assuming those early cases have all been resolved by 3/17, it means that since then, there have been 1573 new cases. They're still showing 1548 currently active cases. Now account for the 22 deaths, and that means that they are recording zero recovered cases since 3/17. That's interesting isn't it? Three weeks, and not one of 1548 cases gets better?
The average case resolves in 10-14 days, and 6 out of 7 don't have severe symptoms. That's what I've read. That would be cases between 3/17 and 3/27. You would think most of those would be resolved by now as well. That's 264 - 577 cases that should have resolved between 10-14 days ago between 3/17-3/27. They're showing zero of those have been resolved. Three weeks, 1548 cases, and no one gets better. Sure. Sure.
I expect that the real number of active cases is 971- 1284, with what should be roughly 100 cases resolving per day. And guess what? The number of new cases per day is going down. Yesterday was only 3 cases. The day before, 13, and it was dropping 20% before that. That's Harris county. The most populous county in the state. Outside of Dallas, every other county has three times fewer cases, and they've shut down every county in the state over this.
Harris county is effed up in their recording of cases. Only 3% of tests were positive Monday. On Tuesday, 30% were positive. WTH? Makes little to no sense.
Good research!
As a professional data person, I'd cut them some slack. I'm much more worried about having accurate data on number of new cases and number of deaths than the current count of recovered people.
Why? We KNOW most of the people are recovering. So that will happen. I don't need to know exactly what day/time.
We DON"T (didn't) know how big the problem was going to get. So to make estimates as accurate as possible, you want accurate counts of how fast the thing is spreading and to how many people. That gives you an idea of the scope of the problem (and if the thing is spread by breathing, as opposed to sneezing/hand contact) . So I'm concerned about those numbers much more than the recovery numbers (which are a derivative of the death rate, obviously)
So the systems to update accurately the data on new cases and deaths was implemented and coded and tested - and used. The recovery numbers have less importance.
p.s. excellent monitoring and reporting by OP, however
That's a fair point. Since I've been looking, Harris county has improved their reporting. A couple of weeks ago, they didn't have data from the City of Houston. Harris county is Houston. So they were way under reporting. I have several other sources and they're all different. So yeah, counting is not an exact science. I get that.
Their web page has a great big number in the middle of the page, total number of cases since March 1. It's the principal figure they're presenting. With now over 1800 supposed active cases and likely 100 cases resolving per day, most of those likely never hospitalized, that's a lot of effort to contact all of those people to ask if they got better at home, and they're obviously not doing that. Their website, and what they're reporting through the press, is entirely misleading.
If they wanted to give accurate information, they'd report the number of hospitalized patients and patients that were released from the hospital, along with the new cases. Rest assured, they have those stats. That's what we're all really concerned about, how full are the hospitals. Those that were tested and went home are likely quarantining themselves. They're out of circulation. They're not going to give us the hospitalizations. They know it, but they're not going to share it with the public.
Btw, today, they've reported another 172 cases and 64 more recovered cases, plus one more death. That's more in the ballpark of the 100 per day I would expect. Perhaps over time, they'll improve the accuracy of the recovered cases.
Their response: "So what. Screw the numbers, this just a giant power grab. We are implementing marshal law and the msm-induced fear is causing the sheep to thank us for stripping their liberties away."
In Duval County, Florida we've yet to have a single recovery! They are blatantly not reporting recoveries because they want everything to look as bad as possible. If someone was positive, they go home and rest, and then 2 weeks later they are not back in the hospital, that should be a recovery. Hell, we had Tony Boselli talking about how he got it, spent a little time in ICU and now is all good, but of course no recovery listed for him.
I've about had it with all this data manipulation to stoke fear.
I also made a post on this the other day https://thedonald.win/p/FMSuw7OQ/recovery-numbers-mo-wi/ .. didn't gain much traction though
The Rio Grande Valley (Cameron and Hidalgo counties) has less than 225 positive cases with 2 deaths in a metro population of atleast 1.5 million. They shut it down. Seems legit.