# Massachusetts has NEGATIVE CoVID cases today **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 9, 2020, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156 "2020-09-09T12:08:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/1 "2020-09-09T12:08:33Z")
I just had a look at the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus site this morning\* and noticed something weird about the plot for New Cases in Massachusetts. It goes negative. > **[Have we flattened the curve in the US? - Johns Hopkins](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states/massachusetts)** > > Daily Confirmed Case Trends (7-Day Moving Average) in the US It does the same in the other Cases by State page, too > **[Impact of Opening and Closing Decisions in Alabama - Johns Hopkins](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline/new-confirmed-cases/massachusetts)** > > A look at how social distancing measures may have influenced trends in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Alabama This is clearly some kind of error (unless we’re deporting cases to other states, or something), which they’ll doubtless fix soon. So see it while you can. I took a screen shot of it for posterity. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Map: > **[COVID-19 Map - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)** > > Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Fortunately, if you click on “New Deaths”, that plot doesn’t go negative. Otherwise we’d be resurrecting people, or maybe they’d be turning into vampires or zombies. \*One reason is that I want to see if the delayed Laconia Bike Rally is causing a Sturgis-like spike. Thus far, it isn’t ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/2 "2020-09-09T12:24:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > \*One reason is that I want to see if the delayed Laconia Bike Rally is causing a Sturgis-like spike. Thus far, it isn’t I read that the Sturgis spike isn’t happening in Sturgis but in the hometowns they returned to. Perhaps the same may happen with Laconia. ---
**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/3 "2020-09-09T12:33:28Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > I read that the Sturgis spike isn’t happening in Sturgis but in the hometowns they returned to. Perhaps the same may happen with Laconia. Laconia is in NH, a lot of people who go there come from MA. It’ll probably be pretty hard to see it on a graph like that unless you already knew that via contact tracing that there were cases caused by it. It’s a little soon, spikes don’t really pick up steam until almost a month after the trigger. And mitigation in MA should dampen that anyway. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/4 "2020-09-09T13:00:04Z")
Look at South Dakota, North Dakota, and Iowa Coronavirus cases on the Johns Hopkins site – as I said in the OP of the Sturgis thread, there’s that significant sudden, and high spike pretty much simultaneously in all three states. That seems pretty easy to spot, and I’;d expect to see spikes in NH and Massachusetts (at least) if something similar happened because of Laconia Bike Week. OTOH, NH, MA, NY, and CT have been very low in case numbers, and residents relatively careful about social distancing. And Laconia typically gets far fewer attendees tat Sturgis (and might have had even fewer this year – I haven’t seen the numbers), so I suspect we’ll see little or no spiking. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/5 "2020-09-09T13:01:20Z")
In the three states around South Dakota, the spike was clearly present within two weeks of the event. It’s still a little early for this one, though ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/6 "2020-09-09T18:45:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And Laconia typically gets far fewer attendees tat Sturgis (and might have had even fewer this year – I haven’t seen the numbers), so I suspect we’ll see little or no spiking. Attendance at Sturgis was down 50% this year. I understand that if they had cancelled it, they still would have gotten a bunch of people showing up, perhaps as many as 100,000. At any rate, expect a 50% decrease at Laconia too. But even with the reduced attendance, it’s still thousands of people. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/7 "2020-09-09T19:24:49Z")
I can top that. Arizona had one day of negative covid _deaths_. That’s impressive! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/8 "2020-09-09T20:51:13Z")
Are they vampires, or zombies (see the OP). Or are they exporting corpses out of state? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/9 "2020-09-09T21:09:51Z")
Technically, it was simply a mis-reported death. An administrative error. But that’s boring! 🙂 Arizona official reported Covid deaths tend to be underreported on weekends. So if the daily average was 55 deaths, on Monday the count may be in single digits but Tuesday will have 110, Wednesday will have 55, etc. On the particular week in question, there were no reported deaths for that day, so the “-1” really stood out. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massachusetts-has-negative-covid-cases-today/920156/10 "2020-09-10T11:06:30Z")
That’s what I assumed: fixing a previous error. Either that, or they kicked out ill people from the state…