Update 08 Jan 2021: COVID TRACKING PROJECT

On Monday, January 11th  there's a presentation in front of a Mesa City Council Study Session - QUESTION: Is the city's response using $93.4M in federal funds working ??? or WORSE

PLEASE NOTE THIS: ARIZONA HAS SURPASSED THE SUMMER SURGE

The PRESENTATION IS 38 POWER-POINT SLIDES

This is Item 4-a

File #:

21-0012

Type:

Presentation

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council Study Session

On agenda:

1/11/2021

Title:

Hear a presentation and discuss an update on the City's response to COVID-19, including the COVID-19 vaccination and City of Mesa employees, and an overview of the programs within the 2020 Mesa Cares Program.

Attachments:

1. Presentation

SURPOur latest tweets about Arizona

Our twitter handle is @COVID19Tracking

Hospitalizations in CA and AZ are increasing at an alarming rate. AZ has far surpassed their summer surge.

January 9, 2021

 

 

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STATE OF ARIZONA https://covidtracking.com/data/state/arizona 

State’s dataset was last updated January 8, 2021 12:00 am ET

 

Get the data as:

CSVAPI

Current data quality grade:

Summary charts

Solid line represents Arizona 7-day average

New tests (Notes)Total PCR tests (specimens)

New tests is changing up. The most recent value for New tests was 66243 on Jan 8, and the earlist value for New tests was 10105 on Oct 11. The highest recent value for New tests was 95560 on Jan 1.The lowest recent value for New tests was 15761 on Dec 28.

New cases

Cases is changing up. The most recent value for Cases was 11658 on Jan 8, and the earlist value for Cases was 597 on Oct 11. The highest recent value for Cases was 17234 on Jan 3.The lowest recent value for Cases was 1296 on Dec 27.

Current hospitalizations

Hospitalization is changing up. The most recent value for Hospitalization was 4907 on Jan 8, and the earlist value for Hospitalization was 630 on Oct 11. The highest recent value for Hospitalization was 4920 on Jan 7.

New deaths

New deaths is changing up. The most recent value for New deaths was 197 on Jan 8, and the earlist value for New deaths was 0 on Oct 11. The highest recent value for New deaths was 297 on Jan 7.0

Cases

Arizona cases Historical data

Total cases

596,251

Confirmed cases

564,537

Probable cases

31,714

New cases today

(Calculated)

11,658

Change over 7 days

(Calculated)

12.4%+

Viral (PCR) tests

Arizona viral (PCR) testing Historical data

Total tests
(in test encounters)

Not Reported

Total tests
(in specimens)

5,482,297

Total tests
(in people)

3,017,154

Antibody tests

Arizona antibody testing Historical data

Total tests (specimens)

395,565

Total tests (people)

Not Reported

Hospitalization

Arizona hospitalization Historical data

Now hospitalized

4,907

Now in ICU

1,122

Now on ventilator

799

Ever hospitalized

42,718

Ever in ICU

Not Reported

Ever on ventilator

Not Reported

Hospitalization (HHS data)

See this HHS hospitalization data on a map.

Now hospitalized (confirmed + suspected)

5,094

Now hospitalized (confirmed only)

4,538

Now in ICU (confirmed + suspected)

1,090

This data is published by HHS.

Data as of Invalid DateTime

Outcomes

Arizona outcomes Historical data

Recovered

83,095

Total deaths

9,938

Probable deaths

1,020

Confirmed deaths

8,918

Long-term care (LTC)

Arizona long-term care data More data

Total cases

7,842

Total deaths

1,791

Number of facilities affected

0

Percent of state deaths
from LTC facilities

(Calculated)

18%

New cases since Invalid DateTime

(Calculated)

5.5%

New deaths since Invalid DateTime

(Calculated)

3.5%

View historical totals

Data as of Invalid DateTime

Race & ethnicity data

We compute the number of cases and deaths per 100k people for each race and ethnicity.

These numbers show the scale of outcomes compared to the size of each group’s population. These are not the number of cases or deaths, rather the proportion of each demographic group who have been affected.

View more racial data for Arizona→

Get shareable graphic for Arizona'sof racial data→

Race & ethnicity: cases per capita

Cases per 100,000 people

American Indian / Alaska Native

9,424

Asian / Pacific Islander

2,996

Black / African American

5,623

Hispanic / Latino

7,514

White

4,964

(All data is calculated)

Data as of Invalid DateTime

Race & ethnicity: deaths per capita

Deaths per 100,000 people

American Indian / Alaska Native

321

Asian / Pacific Islander

39

Black / African American

89

Hispanic / Latino

122

White

114

(All data is calculated)

Data as of Invalid DateTime

Notes:

Arizona combines PCR and antigen tests in the total tests figure reported on the state’s dashboard

Arizona regularly reviews and removes duplicate records which may occasionally result in minor decreases of cumulative figures.

The Recovered data point we report for Arizona reflects the number of COVID-19 patients discharged from the hospital and therefore does not represent the total number of people who have recovered from COVID-19, since many people with COVID are never hospitalized.

Negative test results reported in our API and CSVs are calculated by subtracting Confirmed cases from Total PCR tests (people) in the absence of better data.

On December 28, 2020, Arizona noted that due to the holiday weekend, multiple days of case reviews were completed, resulting in the data for December 28, 2020 being higher than usual. As a result, they reported a larger increase in Confirmed cases than Total PCR tests (people), which caused their Negative PCR tests (people), which is calculated as Total PCR tests (people) minus Confirmed cases, to decrease.

As of December 10, 2020, Arizona's total test results are drawn from our totalTestsViral field instead of calculated via positive+negative. We backfilled the data for March 2 2020 through December 8 2020 using the time-series posted on Arizona's dashboard as Diagnostic Tests Conducted.

On December 1, 2020, Arizona announced that figures reported on December 1, 2020, would be higher than normal due to a delay in case review and reported over the Thanksgiving weekend.

On October 6, 2020, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced that they were removing cases who had been admitted to a hospital but had not been hospitalized from their total hospitalization counts. This results in a decrease of Arizona's cumulative hospitalizations.

On September 18, 2020, Arizona reported a policy change in the way they count people with positive antigen testing results to comply with CSTE case definitions. This appears to have resulted in a large increase in probable cases and also likely the reason where a decrease in confirmed cases was observed.

On September 16, 2020, Arizona added antigen testing into its main totals figure. This appears to have raised its Total Tests (PCR) number more than usual.

From July 18–August 5, 2020, Arizona’s dashboard stopped displaying confirmed and probable breakdowns for Cases and Deaths, so we could not update Confirmed Cases, Probable Cases, Confirmed Deaths, or Probable Deaths during this period. We were still able to update the total data points for Cases (confirmed plus probable) and Deaths (confirmed plus probable). We will backfill the separate confirmed and probable case and death data if Arizona provides historical numbers.

On June 23, 2020, we updated our historical data for Cumulative hospitalized to match Arizona's dashboard data for "hospitalized by date admitted." Data for this metric is not typically reported until several days after admittance. Our daily updates will continue to compile Arizona’s overall number as of cumulative hospitalizations, regardless of date admitted.

Our latest tweets about Arizona

Our twitter handle is @COVID19Tracking

Hospitalizations in CA and AZ are increasing at an alarming rate. AZ has far surpassed their summer surge.

January 9, 2021

But some small states have severe problems, too. Alabama, Arizona, and Nevada have very high hospitalization rates per capita.

January 8, 2021

The COVID Tracking Project collects and publishes the most complete data about COVID-19 in the US.

Every day, our volunteer teams compile the latest public health data from official US state, territorial, and federal sources

January 7, 2021

Record Hospitalizations Point to Trouble in California and the South: This Week in COVID-19 Data, Jan 6

The lingering effects of holiday data reporting are still making most COVID-19 metrics hard to contextualize this week. Hospitalization reporting remains relatively steady and suggests that outbreaks are lighting up across the US South. In Southern California and Arizona, the situation remains dire.

Read the article →Record Hospitalizations Point to Trouble in California and the South: This Week in COVID-19 Data, Jan 6

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Data as of

January 6, 2021Notes:

Arizona combines PCR and antigen tests in the total tests figure reported on the state’s dashboard

Arizona regularly reviews and removes duplicate records which may occasionally result in minor decreases of cumulative figures.

The Recovered data point we report for Arizona reflects the number of COVID-19 patients discharged from the hospital and therefore does not represent the total number of people who have recovered from COVID-19, since many people with COVID are never hospitalized.

Negative test results reported in our API and CSVs are calculated by subtracting Confirmed cases from Total PCR tests (people) in the absence of better data.

On December 28, 2020, Arizona noted that due to the holiday weekend, multiple days of case reviews were completed, resulting in the data for December 28, 2020 being higher than usual. As a result, they reported a larger increase in Confirmed cases than Total PCR tests (people), which caused their Negative PCR tests (people), which is calculated as Total PCR tests (people) minus Confirmed cases, to decrease.

As of December 10, 2020, Arizona's total test results are drawn from our totalTestsViral field instead of calculated via positive+negative. We backfilled the data for March 2 2020 through December 8 2020 using the time-series posted on Arizona's dashboard as Diagnostic Tests Conducted.

On December 1, 2020, Arizona announced that figures reported on December 1, 2020, would be higher than normal due to a delay in case review and reported over the Thanksgiving weekend.

On October 6, 2020, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced that they were removing cases who had been admitted to a hospital but had not been hospitalized from their total hospitalization counts. This results in a decrease of Arizona's cumulative hospitalizations.

On September 18, 2020, Arizona reported a policy change in the way they count people with positive antigen testing results to comply with CSTE case definitions. This appears to have resulted in a large increase in probable cases and also likely the reason where a decrease in confirmed cases was observed.

On September 16, 2020, Arizona added antigen testing into its main totals figure. This appears to have raised its Total Tests (PCR) number more than usual.

From July 18–August 5, 2020, Arizona’s dashboard stopped displaying confirmed and probable breakdowns for Cases and Deaths, so we could not update Confirmed Cases, Probable Cases, Confirmed Deaths, or Probable Deaths during this period. We were still able to update the total data points for Cases (confirmed plus probable) and Deaths (confirmed plus probable). We will backfill the separate confirmed and probable case and death data if Arizona provides historical numbers.

On June 23, 2020, we updated our historical data for Cumulative hospitalized to match Arizona's dashboard data for "hospitalized by date admitted." Data for this metric is not typically reported until several days after admittance. Our daily updates will continue to compile Arizona’s overall number as of cumulative hospitalizations, regardless of date admitted.

Read more state notes↓

 

 

Smart Cities of Tomorrow?

Let's get right to the points made in this report yesterday

6G Hype Is Already Getting Stupid, When 5G Hype Hasn't Even Finished Disappointing Us Yet

Wireless

from the maybe-just-stop-talking-for-a-bit dept

Fri, Jan 8th 2021 6:35am — Karl Bode

We've noted repeatedly how fifth-generation wireless (5G) was painfully overhyped. To spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales, carriers, equipment makers, and the lawmakers paid to love them spent years insisting that 5G would change the world, ushering forth amazing new cancer cures and the revolutionary smart cities of tomorrow.

But while 5G is an important evolutionary step toward faster, more resilient networks, it's not some magical revolution, and US 5G speeds so far have proven to be much slower than overseas counterparts, and in many instances actually slower than 4G.

You'd think industry and experts would view this as a sort of cautionary tale about hype. You'd think pundits and industry would understand that by over-promising what 5G is capable of, they've associated the branding with empty hype and bluster in the eyes of the public. You'd be wrong.

Some wireless industry executives have already started insisting that 6G will be a lot like The Matrix (it won't). And this week, telecom trade magazine Light Reading cited a few companies and experts who are already arguing that 6G will somehow enable Star Trek-esque transporters and the ability to taste and smell things over the internet. Seriously:

"But what if future virtual reality systems allowed their users to taste, touch and smell as well as to see and hear? Seated in their New York or London homes, executives could effectively teleport themselves to Barcelona's gothic district for the full gastronomic accompaniment to their deal-making banter."

To be clear, 6G isn't even a thing yet. It's a future standard that hasn't been developed yet . . .

With net neutrality dead (for now), and US carriers already discovering creative new ways to nickel-and-dime consumers (like charging you extra for HD, or charging you extra to have your games and music throttled), there's really not much doubt that providers would love to charge you extra to enjoy simulated scents and smells over your wireless connection. But at this juncture, fresh off 5G hype, it's just kind of silly to take seriously.

The whole premise appears to be little more than a thought exercise by a few academics working in concert with industry on ways to justify higher rates, though it's obviously dressed up as something more noble and intellectual than all that:

"This is not just a university having a bright idea," said Hendon. "Vodafone and BT and Telefónica have all signed up to this – they understand it as well as we do, and we are responding to what they say." Putting the operators' commercial interests and pressing need for a growth story ahead of the technology considerations could help this particular initiative to stand out."

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with creative thought exercises that try to envision the technologies of tomorrow. But fresh off of consumer disappointment with 5G, caused directly by three straight years of bullshit and hype about what the standard is actually capable of, you'd think folks would be a little more careful about tempering expectations moving forward.

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–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: 5g, 6g, hype

 

 

TIME TO RE-THINK: Mesa A Smart City

For more than two years now, that's been the push for an initiative to transform Mesa. Bonafide results or real reliable data is hard to find no matter what city officials say,

Here's a book published in February 2020 to make the argument that the smart cities project was largely launched - and continues to operate - without the input of urban planners and urban planning. . . THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE. Rethinking the boundaries and scope or urban planning and re-centering the smart cities project on the city, not just the technology, is an exciting challenge.

Q&A: Jennifer Clark on Uneven Innovation

“Uneven Innovation problematizes the smart city project, showing us the many ways that it continues—rather than disrupts—underlying patterns of inequality, precariousness, and powerlessness. Clark’s insightful critique is not only a call for action, her work draws to light the ‘operational standards’ that all cities should be pushed to uphold when engaging the latest urban development fad. An essential read for practitioners, activists, and scholars seeking to understand and shape the role of technology on the future of cities and the urban workforce.”

~Nichola Lowe, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In yesterday’s post, Jennifer Clark considered the roles of policy and technology in urban planning and the smart cities project. We continue this conversation today, with a Q&A in which Clark discusses the arguments is her new book, Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities.

Q: In one of the last articles marking the end of The Guardian Cities six-year project, the editors presented the case making low-tech ‘dumb’ cities instead of ‘smart’ ones, is there a good case for low-tech rather than high-tech cities?

Jennifer Clark: The assumption that all tech is good tech enabling improved outcomes is naïve at best and manipulative at worst. That said, there is also a tendency to fetishize the familiar as simpler and safer. Here is where things get complicated: different communities will want, and perhaps should have, a different array of high tech and low tech systems. There will be variation. How we determine the mechanisms by which local tailoring occurs and under what conditions has profound implications for urban planning and economic development.

Q: Your book challenges the assumption that the distributional consequences of urban innovation will be, on the whole, positive. Instead you suggest that uneven innovation is the likely outcome of the smart cities project. Why can’t smart cities be good?

JC: The question is whether we are designing smart cities for customers or for citizens.Urban innovation is, on the whole, likely good. There is a dramatic need for significant investment in urban infrastructure and a sustained upgrading of urban public systems. However, these are public systems, public spaces, public services. The addition of novel technologies does not alter the fundamental terms of a longstanding debate about the extent to which the private sector can or should be relied upon to provide services to citizens, regardless of their economic status.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

Building the Mesa Smart City -
Citizen Innovator Workshop Oct. 25

October 16, 2018 at 4:55 pm

Residents, entrepreneurs, innovators, students, large companies and City leaders are invited to join in a conversation about building a smart city in Mesa.

 The City will host "Building a Mesa Smart City: A Citizen Innovator Workshop" Thursday, Oct. 25 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St., to engage citizens in the local smart city conversation.

"The term "smart city" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Ultimately, a smart city collects and uses data to efficiently manage assets and resources. Smart cities make decisions based on data that help communities become safer, economically prosperous, educated and diverse while offering affordable housing and a great place to live, work and play."

The City of Mesa is developing a Smart City Strategic Plan which will serve as a guide for decisions related to the expansion of technology to deliver improved services.

_________________________________________________________________________

BLOGGER NOTE: Hold on just a minute!

Let's have a reality check backed up with real data >

Here in Arizona MESA RANKS #29 out of 44 cities in Smart Cities

 

02 September 2018

No More Jivin' + No More Happy-Talk: Mesa Ranks #29 Out of 44 Here In Arizona For Smart Cities

Let's get the low-down - the real low-down - from experts not from politicians where Mesa ranks for intelligence, job opportunities - not promises in the over-hyped media of job creation promises.

Is Mesa a Smart City?

Instead of public performance-pieces by our mayor who's better leading a high school marching band instead of leading the city to professional skilled opportunities, affordability and quality of life that's equitable and fair for everyone.     
Absolutely no doubt about it now - the data and the facts are in to show that the City of Mesa schools (and millions of taxpayer dollars spent on the largest public education system in the entire State of Arizona) is falling behind NOT moving ahead to the next level when it comes to intelligence and job skills. With a huge budget employing thousands it's the Big Patronage Gravy Train (with some exceptions) that's failed for generations to deliver satisfactory outcomes to educate students on every level across the board. Taxpayers are getting short-changed . . . Just keeping you informed as usual here on this blog. It's all in good faith to encourage overdue changes; take some action, folks > it's up to you!

__________________________________________________________________________________

"Cities around the globe are making efforts to become smart cities and Mesa is on the front edge of this next technology era."

"We are thrilled to host this open discussion for citizens to share their ideas in the development of a smarter Mesa," Mayor John Giles said.

"Technology can be a tool for us to improve the lives of Mesa residents, and we want residents to be a part of the process."

 

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