Monkeypox, be careful with those graphs. 20220831

Careful review of the Dallas County Health Monkeypox case graph. It seems that there might be slight improvement. Link to previous report at end of this report.

This is the graph of the monkeypox cases by date on the Dallas County Health website given a date of 8/30/2022. NOTICE MY RED ARROW POINTED TO A SMALL NOTE.

https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/monkeypox.php

What does that footnote say? This image was enlarged 400% on my Chrome browsers so we can read it. It says, “*** Data may not be complete for recent days”.

However, the seven-day rolling average is plotted to the last day. Could that be misinterpreted to see the monkeypox epidemic is now going away?

Lets look at the earlier graph of data going to 8/26/2022 that Dallas County Health provided on their webpage. The same date then had 8 cases. From the previous graph to the latest graph the case # goes from 8 to 25!

Again, the numbers go from 8 to 25.

A better practice in graphing would be NOT to plot the rolling average to the last day, and also have a vertical bar showing where recent numbers are likely subject to significant revision.

So knowing the deficiencies in the graph what do we know? It does seem we are improving some even if you disregard the last seven bars in the graph.

As I have said, with the vaccine supply and the Gay community putting the brakes on sexual liberation we would see the increase slow down. The question is what happens if we run out of vaccines.

I would also want people to consider also whether it a victory when the sex life of the Gay community is shutdown.

Who needs Evangelical Christians when you have U.S. government incompetence and Stonewall Democrats who are squeamish about STDS?

There needs to be a comprehensive program to prevent pandemics from what are called tropical diseases. (The don’t seem to stay “tropical” anymore.) There needs to be a focused program to develop vaccines for all STDS.

There needs to be Gay organizations that stand up for the Gay community and advocate its needs without worrying what straight people will think or whether the Respectability Gays are embarrassed. In LGBTQXYZ groups the needs of the “G” seem to be lost in the shuffle.

99% of the cases are men.

This is a diseases which is impacting men who have sex with men. (We have to use the term MSM since so many guys on Jack’ed won’t call themselves Gay.)

Likely five women have learned something about their boyfriend or husband that they didn’t know before, but I am really speculating with this statement.

By race

This is the breakdown by race. This is the impact of the homophobia in the Dallas African American community. Someone should show these graphs to Sandra Crenshaw and Vonciel Jones Hill.

Vaccine supply

I haven’t found any numbers on the supply. What I do note is that a new procedure that isn’t well tested, but was adopted to stretch the vaccine supply. Further the U.S. government reported that they could get five inoculations per vial, but in the field it has turned out to be 3 or 4, so they are overreporting their ability to supply vaccinations. (See my earlier report on the issues. Link at the end of this report.)

The actions to adopt the new vaccination procedure seem to be the desperate actions of a government about to run out of vaccines, but it is just a guess. It would be nice to see some published information of projected supply and projected needs.

I am not saying that the government shouldn’t have adopted this new procedure. In a crisis this is perhaps their best option. What I am saying is that we are likely in a crisis situation where we are running out of vaccine.

My graphs

Okay, now for my graphs. It does seem that the monkeypox pandemic is slowing down. The projected number has dropped to 500 from 650 earlier. Since my graph is cumulative cases, the issue of delayed data is somewhat, roughly, normalized. The R2 is 0.9933 so the fit is fairly good and the normalization is likely working for my graphs.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

1. Things do seem to be getting better at the moment but not as much as the Dallas County Health graphs might lead you to believe.

2. It is still impacting men who have sex with men. MSM.

3. We will need to see if the new vaccination procedure to stretch the smallpox vaccine supply is effective against monkeypox and if so, how much.

4. Will we run out of vaccine and if we do, will there be a potential runaway situation?

5. We need a Gay centric focus on Gay health needs by Gay centric groups.

6. Shutting down the sex lives of the Gay community isn’t a victory.

Monkeypox 20220826, Runaway pandemic possible?