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8/26/2020 0 Comments

Honolulu CCC Analysis

Today (8/25) is the second day of the fall 2020 semester. Fortunately, any violent increase in the Honolulu CCC did not happen, but instead, the CCC time-series become abnormally linear. In the last seven days, the daily new cases reported are on the average 215 with a standard deviation of 34.
On 8/15, when the Honolulu CCC widely increased, we forecast that the number will reach 7,000 by 8/23 and 10,000 by 8/31. Today, the state CCC reached 6,984, and the Honolulu portion is more than 91% percent of the state CCC.
From 5/14 to 5/27, Honolulu had zero new cases, maintaining the CCC equal to 414. Now, we have 15 times more total confirmed cases. The 7-day moving average method is often used to smooth the fluctuating data series. No mathematical function can perfectly fit the past data and accurately predict the future. In my opinion, the pandemic trend of COVID-19 is away from both the capability of analytic models and data-driven predictions.
Will Honolulu CCC mimic the same peak trend of 4/27 and start global slowdown, or make another jump after a few weeks of a less active period?

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8/24/2020 0 Comments

Honolulu CCC Analysis

Given the state order was made 2 weeks ago closing public parks and loitering on beaches, we will start to see its effects on the CCC of Honolulu county as it should decrease.
On 8/15, we forecasted that Honolulu CCC would reach close to 7,000 by today, and we now have 6, 031. A primary reason for the difference is that our forecasting was done when the Honolulu CCC was increasing the most rapid rate ever. During the last two weeks, three independent models did not show the same trend. Instead, the HICOVID model and the semi-log linear model alternatively be on top of each other.
Now, the Honolulu CCC seems to increase linearly, having almost the same number of new cases per day, which is between 200 and 250.
Three models show that the Honolulu CCC may reach around 8,000, which seems to be a reasonable estimation. The recent restriction can reduce the pandemic spread, but opening schools may impact it oppositely.
What we should understand is not the fact that the Honolulu daily cases or its rate are decreasing, but the Honolulu CCC was 659 on 7/1; today (8/23), it is 6031. Approximately we have ten times more cases than two months ago.

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8/22/2020 0 Comments

Is this decline a real decline?

Honolulu and Maui's weekly trends, from 8/16 Sunday to 8/22 Saturday, show a unique, linear pattern that rarely happened in the past month (except Maui CCC on 8/19 Wednesday). As a result, the semi-log linear regression is below the HICOVID model.
If we follow the 7-day linear regression trend shown below, one can expect that Honolulu CCC would reach a little over 6,000 by 8/23/2020. In this stage, all the extrapolating models of linear and semi-log linear regression, and the HICOVID models show similar trends within a narrow range. The hyperbolic tangent model still significantly underestimates the forecasting values in comparison to the other three models. The Honolulu CCC is still in a growing phase, influenced by the previous causes, which have not been fully identified.
What about next week and next month? The weekly increaseof Honolulu CCC show how many new cases are reported this week (0), two weeks ago (-2), and so forth. Honolulu has 1,416 new cases in this week from 8/16 Sunday to 8/22 Saturday (today). In the last week, the number is 1,426. In the semi-log plot (in red), the difference of 10 is not noticeable; but the linear plot (blue) shows a small decrease. It would be terrific if the Honolulu CCC would decrease in the opposite manner of its growth in the past weeks: for example, next week, it drops to the level of 8/8. Comparing this week and the last week, we have ten less in new cases: and comparing the last week and the week before the last week, we had 1, 426-1,122 = 304 more cases. Therefore, one can interpret that the Honolulu CCC starts increasing slowly by having lesser daily new cases in the following weeks.
On the other hand, the semi-log plot (in red, on the left-hand side) gives us a possibly opposite conclusion. There were two instances when the weekly new case number decreased, i.e., weeks of indices -8 and -5, indicating 8 and 5 weeks ago from now. A week later, in each case, the Honolulu CCC increase much more than the previous weeks. There is a high probability that the Honolulu CCC will rise again, which we hope not to. It is tough to forecast next week's increase in the Honolulu new cases. It is also possible that the re-rising would not be so severe, because the weekly data of this and the last week are very similar.
It is too early to conclude that the Honolulu situation becomes better by analyzing the two-week data until now. If you look at the red semi-log plot, it does not show that the Honolulu CCC has stopped increasing exponentially in the last ten weeks. UH instruction will be almost 100% online, which fundamentally prevents social interaction. K-12 schools should also pay close attention if any in-person instructions are planned. The recent restriction announcement is very timely, but at the individual level, staying home as much as possible without interacting with anybody except people living together is the best and only option, and it should be systematically done without too many exceptions.
Students' view:
1. The CCC data for the Honolulu county seems to be following the 7-day semi-log linear regression rather than the prediction curve 1st, 2nd, and 3rd curve as if it was following the orange curve the daily CCC would be starting to plateau today.
2. The slope of Honolulu's weekly trend graphs linearly increases with a constant slope except for a minor dip in the line on Tuesday.
3. While the number of cases between Saturdays is staying constant for Honolulu (about 1,400 cases), the number of cases between weeks on Saturdays for Maui has significantly been fluctuating. From 8/15 - 8/22, there was an increase of about 70 cases. We observe that Maui also is entering a new spreading phase. More analysis comes.

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8/21/2020 0 Comments

Honolulu CCC now entered a different stage than last week, when we had an upsurging increase, which is, in our opinion, possibly ascribed to extra social gatherings near July 4th, 2020. If this hypothesis is correct, it takes three weeks to start CCC upsurging after increased social gatherings. The upsurging continued for more than three weeks (after 7/24) to start slowing down (on 8/20). Today (8/20/2020) and yesterday, the semi-log linear forecasting moved down to our hicovid-model prediction level. One can interpret the overlapping trend of these two independent models as follows. First, the effects of July 4th gatherings became less significant than last week because the number of new cases per day in Honolulu slightly decreases in the previous few days. However, the data interpretation above can be easily misleading. Near July 4th, the number of new cases per day in Honolulu was around 20, and now it is about 200, which is a ten-times increase in 7 weeks. A few days of relaxed restrictions by a fraction of individuals made a huge difference. If people in Hawai'i were better guided and self-controlled, the total number of confirmed cases in Honolulu now could have been below 2,000 with a low, increasing rate of around 20-30 new cases per day. The latest restriction by the Hawai'i state government is essential. On the other hand, each individual should keep the restriction guidelines as minimum mandatory rules to follow. The 28 days of the restriction include the Labor Day. If we were not careful enough, the second upsurging is visible, which will mimic what happened after July 4th.

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8/20/2020 0 Comments

Honolulu CCC Analysis

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8/19/2020 0 Comments

Honolulu CCC Analysis

This weekly graph will be here to show the overall weekly increase in Honolulu and Maui CCC over time. Maui seems to enterred a serious situation. Below are the daily updates of Honolulu CCC, which do not show noticeable differences to yesterday's trends. A more in-depth analysis will come soon.