It's intentionally confusing because they cherry-picked odd data so they could show a "line going up" under their headline.
They are comparing the percent change in opentable diners during a two week period 2019 to a two week period in 2020 state-by-state and correlating that to percent change in COVID cases in the last two weeks
So June 10-24 2019 lets say 100 people made a open table reservation in NY. in June 10-24 in 2020 it would be 0, because restaurants are closed so -100% change.
in Arizona there is about -55% change (so opentable diners are down 55% comparing two week in 2020 to same two weeks in 2019).
They are NOT measuring actual in-person diners or numbers of restaurants open by state. They are measuring change in usage of a dining app.
Restaurants choose to be on this app. I know in NYC nearly every restaurant (other than super small places) is on the app. In other states and towns it may not be used at all.
They are also NOT measuring acutal number of cases but PERCENT CHANGE in cases over two weeks.
So in Arizona:
June 12 = 1654 cases
June 24 = 3056 cases
That's a 184% increase, but its only 1432 new cases in a large state.
"Cases" also do not indicate if these are people with no symptoms who got tested, or if they are very ill.
It's intentionally confusing because they cherry-picked odd data so they could show a "line going up" under their headline.
They are comparing the percent change in opentable diners during a two week period 2019 to a two week period in 2020 state-by-state and correlating that to percent change in COVID cases in the last two weeks
So June 10-24 2019 lets say 100 people made a open table reservation in NY. in June 10-24 in 2020 it would be 0, because restaurants are closed so -100% change. in Arizona there is about -55% change (so opentable diners are down 55% comparing two week in 2020 to same two weeks in 2019).
They are NOT measuring actual in-person diners or numbers of restaurants open by state. They are measuring change in usage of a dining app. Restaurants choose to be on this app. I know in NYC nearly every restaurant (other than super small places) is on the app. In other states and towns it may not be used at all.
They are also NOT measuring acutal number of cases but PERCENT CHANGE in cases over two weeks. So in Arizona: June 12 = 1654 cases June 24 = 3056 cases That's a 184% increase, but its only 1432 new cases in a large state. "Cases" also do not indicate if these are people with no symptoms who got tested, or if they are very ill.