Finally, at least in Minnesota, we’ve got some better data from 3856 tests of which 115 were positive. With a population of 5,680,000 (2018) we’ve got about one case for every 50,000 population. The counties in the Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) are about 75% of that population but accounted for 73% of the cases, well within the margin of error for a sample of 115. But the two core counties of Hennepin and Ramsey in the MSA with about 1/3 of the states population have over half the cases! Minnesota has 3 much smaller MSAs each with a population of around 200-235 thousand population so they should have around 4-5 cases each. But the Rochester MSA punched way above it’s weight with 13 cases, St.Cloud MSA met quota with 5, and WTF with Duluth MSA reporting 0? Clay County (Moorhead) on the left border is in the Fargo MSA and it’s population suggested 1 case, and that’s what they got. Two other counties- Polk and Houston- Are in neighboring states MSAs but their population would predict less than one case. The rest of the state outside the MSAs AKA rural Minnesota accounted for all of 8 of 115 cases while it’s population suggests it should have had 28!
So what’s goin’ on? Well, MN’s Health Department admits the data needs improvement, and on a Coronatech online forum today they were discussing ideas for better contact tracing and that would need way better stats and geo data than we’ve seen so far. It’s notable that the “overperforming” counties each have major research hospitals and attendant high rates of international travel. Of the 8 cases in rural counties 7 are in counties on Interstate highways. And while the Duluth MSA with 0 cases is on an Interstate, that’s where Interstate 35 ends. There’s a similar pattern in Iowa and North Dakota while South Dakota is still behind in testing.
The takeaway? Remoteness may be buffering the spread of Coronavirus to rural areas and buying valuable time to prepare. Some are belatedly using that time well- town of 1300 nearest me shut down City Hall and Marshall 20 miles away moved their council meeting to a really big fire hall and televised it. But the city council I serve on was unenthusiastic about my attempts to get them all set up for online video for our next council meeting… Progress takes time or a present threat.
Any opinions?
And here's a link to yesterday’s diary which has a bunch of links to rural state Coronavirus case stats.