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Lots of new cases, but deaths mostly falling. And excess deaths year-on year near zero. Time to relax all restrictions.

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Thanks for the newsletter as always. These case counts are being used for travel restrictions (or more specifically a 7 day average of new cases per 100,000 people), and I can't seem to find how the states are coming up with the numbers (NY & DC - 10 per 100,000; Chicago/CookCounty - 15 per 100,000; MA - 6; NM - 8; OH & KY - states with 15% positivity rate; not an exhaustive list). I can't find anywhere on the internet where these numbers are coming from. What am I missing?

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Regarding the slight uptick in cases in Arizona: In Maricopa County (i.e. metro Phoenix), the last month has seen an increase in the share of new confirmed cases among age 0-19 from 15% of total cases to 25%. This is almost certainly due to the return to campus at ASU. Whether the numbers represent an actual surge of infections or just a very aggressive testing campaign by the university, I'm not sure. My guess is probably some of both. The good news is that those cases won't (directly) translate into deaths, since we've only had a total of 4 deaths under 20 years old out of about 5,000 total. Also, university students and employees are required to submit to randomized testing, so they're catching more asymptomatic cases that wouldn't be recorded otherwise.

Across other age demographics, cases are pretty flat and pretty low. Our total inpatient COVID census for the state is about what it was in mid-April when the sate started tracking. The ICU census looks even better, about 50% less than even the pre-surge level, and only about one-eighth the mid-July peak.

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