I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether it's safer to socialize at a bar vs an outdoor softball field. You might recall that a couple of weeks ago, I reported that SF's test positivity % had zoomed up recently. And looking at the purple line on today's data, you might still say "yep, it zoomed up, waffled a bit, and then zoomed up further." And then you might wonder, Why did Larry draw a big red circle around part of the graph? tl;dr I jumped the gun on saying "The purple line is over the 'pretty-safe' level!"
Why the circle? I blogged about that test positivity % when it crossed the "pretty-safe" line, that line about halfway up the graph. But as more data trickled in over the course of the next couple of weeks, we scrounged up more old tests. For example, if you checked the stats about tests collected in San Francisco on June 25, 2025,
On June 30th, you'd say, "We don't have data yet."
On July 1st, you'd say, "Wow! 11/229 positive (sick) tests! Sound the klaxons, it's really bad!!!"
On July 9th, you'd say, "Oh? 11/375? I guess the paperwork got stuck for some negative (healthy) tests."
On July 10th, you'd say, "Oh? 12/682? Uh, can we turn off those klaxons? Apparently things were only ⅓ as bad as I thought."
On July 14th, you'd say, "Oh? 12/684? It's been over three weeks. Will this number ever settle down?"
Apparently the lovely people who process the "paperwork" for these tests are overwhelmed. They quickly process the positive tests; I bet those are more urgent. "Hurry up and prescribe this sick person some meds!" But it seems like the negative tests can linger in a pile on someone's desk for weeks. I graphed how long it took for the data to trickle in about tests administered in San Francisco June 20th-29th. It seems folks can process the paperwork for ~200 tests quickly; but if there were a lot more tests on some day, that data is gonna be "stuck in the pipeline" for more than a week.
Anyhow, when I look at my little dashboard today, the purple line is very high. Does that mean the level is really that high? 🤷 Who knows? Ask me again in a month.
Meanwhile, I foolishly decided to participate in softball practice. I stumbled and fell once and my bruises are still healing a week later. In hindsight, I wish I'd met up with those people at the bar instead.
