Lake Almanor man tracks California COVID deaths

Lake Almanor resident Dale Knutsen is no stranger to tracking data. He contributes a monthly weather analysis to be published in the Chester Progressive. Now he has set his sights on tracking and graphing COVID-19 in the state. Following is his latest analysis:

The State of California collects and posts a variety of daily statistics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are differences of opinion about the importance of some of those statistics, and there often are substantial variations in the numbers from day to day, all of which can lead to confusion among many in the non-medical community. But there is little ambiguity in the figures related to deaths attributed to the coronavirus, and the daily ups and downs can be smoothed out considerably by simply viewing the weekly totals. That approach leads to the chart you find here, which presents the total number of reported weekly deaths for the past seven weeks. A consistent “flattening” of this curve would indicate that the death rate is holding steady, while a decline would indicate that the impact of the disease is being reduced within the state.