What kind of numbers does Florida need to come off of the quarantine list?

NY also goes by Johns Hopkins positivity rate, not Florida's DOH - Johns Hopkins is still reporting a 7 day rolling average of around 13%.

I don't live in Ohio, but I live close to Ohio. We are planning a trip to South Carolina. I follow Covid Act Now, and it shows a positivity rate just over 10%. Yet the Ohio rate (I'm assuming Johns Hopkins) shows a positivity rate of 21%. Why such the discrepancy?

(Edit to add Covid Now link:)

https://covidactnow.org/?s=962191&utm_campaign=Daily%20Download%20%2025%20August%202020&utm_content=Daily%20Download%20%2025%20August%202020%20CID_3aea55adcbcbc9695d3202a28ba9507f&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software
 
NY also goes by Johns Hopkins positivity rate, not Florida's DOH - Johns Hopkins is still reporting a 7 day rolling average of around 13%.
I don't live in Ohio, but I live close to Ohio. We are planning a trip to South Carolina. I follow Covid Act Now, and it shows a positivity rate just over 10%. Yet the Ohio rate (I'm assuming Johns Hopkins) shows a positivity rate of 21%. Why such the discrepancy?

(Edit to add Covid Now link:)

https://covidactnow.org/?s=962191&utm_campaign=Daily%20Download%20%2025%20August%202020&utm_content=Daily%20Download%20%2025%20August%202020%20CID_3aea55adcbcbc9695d3202a28ba9507f&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software
Ultimately I think all dashboards rely upon state DOH figures. The difference is in what they feature and how they present it. I am not familiar with Covid Now, but I know that Hopkins relies upon the COVID Tracking Project, which in turn relies upon official state figures. Hopkins shows a higher rate right now than the official Florida numbers because:
  • Florida publishes two figures for most if not all measures: one is residents only and the other is residents plus visitors. Florida tends to emphasize the lower resident figures (while to be fair not hiding the higher overall figures) and almost all other sources just use the combined resident/non-resident data.
  • Hopkins uses the 7-day rolling average to smooth out daily variations while Florida pushes out primarily raw daily figures. When cases are increasing the 7-day average tends to be lower than the latest daily figure; when cases are decreasing as Florida's is now the average tends to be higher.

Yes, I've sort of been obsessively tracking Florida's data so I can know when I can return to WDW without quarantine, why do you ask?
 
I use worldometers, the JHU testing tracker and covidactnow to track numbers. Covidactnow charts the 7-day average in cases and the daily percent positive in an amazingly well laid out and visually appealing way.

My trip is in November, I want to avoid quarantine upon returning to NY while feeling safe at Disney and visiting a friend in Florida!
 


cruisin5- thank you for the suggested sites to follow. I am hoping FL will be removed from NY's Travel Advisory soon! 🤞
 
I've been checking some sites and was seeing a rough average of 13% daily, which was consistently trending downward each day. But after this last week, its back up now to about 16% daily with a big spike on 9/1. Anyone have a guess as to why that is? I know when testing ramps up, it inevitably pushes up the number of positives but I haven't been following FL Covid news to know what this could be from.
 
But after this last week, it's back up now to about 16% daily with a big spike on 9/1. Anyone have a guess as to why that is?

On 8/31 there was a large dump of historical positive cases from a large lab. About 3000 or so old positives that all showed up on that day. If you look at the State report on https://floridahealthcovid19.gov before the 13th you should be able to see the footnotes on the one of the charts on the first or second page that explains it.
 


On 8/31 there was a large dump of historical positive cases from a large lab. About 3000 or so old positives that all showed up on that day. If you look at the State report on https://floridahealthcovid19.gov before the 13th you should be able to see the footnotes on the one of the charts on the first or second page that explains it.
Thank you! Hopefully NY takes that into account for their quarantine list too, though I somehow doubt they will ;)
 
Thank you! Hopefully NY takes that into account for their quarantine list too, though I somehow doubt they will ;)

Wouldn't these cases fall off after a week? After all, it's a seven day average, and these cases wouldn't count after the seventh day.

It would stink if it made a difference between Florida making and missing a list for the week you're planning on going. However, with its 13% rate, I still think Florida is making the list this week.
 
Wouldn't these cases fall off after a week? After all, it's a seven day average, and these cases wouldn't count after the seventh day.

It would stink if it made a difference between Florida making and missing a list for the week you're planning on going. However, with its 13% rate, I still think Florida is making the list this week.
Yes, if its true that the last 7 days are from a data dump that caused the 16% each day. Its showing roughly 16% for the last 7 days so I'm not sure why the data dump would impact anything beyond 9/1, but we will have to see how things go from here. And yes, FL needs to have 10% or lower as the 7 day average before it can be removed from the list. And if it exceeds that again, they go back on.
 
Florida's numbers appear to be going down…I jut read an article this morning that showed them at about a 5% positivity rate. If these numbers continue, what are everyone'e thoughts about the travel ban being lifted by 9/29?

We live in CT and our trip is October 5th, so 9/29 is the last Tuesday before that and I guess it's decision day.
 
Florida's numbers appear to be going down…I jut read an article this morning that showed them at about a 5% positivity rate. If these numbers continue, what are everyone'e thoughts about the travel ban being lifted by 9/29?

We live in CT and our trip is October 5th, so 9/29 is the last Tuesday before that and I guess it's decision day.
What's your rules in CT? In NY, it has to be a 7 day rolling average of positive cases at 10% or less in order to come off the list. I keep seeing different numbers everywhere so I'm not sure what they are going by, but I've been using this database to check each week. Its updated every Tuesday: http://rochester.nydatabases.com/da...fhOkicIL-OxB9nSNG52zKK7raQ_DR0w7JEnZtehsE_QkU

Its currently showing roughly 16%, but as PP pointed out, the number became inflated due to a data dump on 8/31 so its not a true number. But I'm not sure our governor considers that when determining what states can come off the list. Prior to the data dump, Florida's numbers were consistently decreasing each week which made me hopeful for our October trip.
 
HI, we're mid Oct. living in NY-we decided to adjust our trip-instead of Universal at the beginning of the vacation, we're going to do it at the end, over a weekend. We'll do Disney first, since we rented points, if we don't go, we lose almost $3000. The way I figured it, we'd be out of work for 3 weeks and 2 days, which includes the quarantining. Just hope my DH and my manager are ok with this! But I know how you feel with these charts all over, I watch the numbers every day, and you're correct, besides that "dump" of tests, numbers are going down, I think yesterday under 2000.
 
What's your rules in CT? In NY, it has to be a 7 day rolling average of positive cases at 10% or less in order to come off the list. I keep seeing different numbers everywhere so I'm not sure what they are going by, but I've been using this database to check each week. Its updated every Tuesday: http://rochester.nydatabases.com/da...fhOkicIL-OxB9nSNG52zKK7raQ_DR0w7JEnZtehsE_QkU

Its currently showing roughly 16%, but as PP pointed out, the number became inflated due to a data dump on 8/31 so its not a true number. But I'm not sure our governor considers that when determining what states can come off the list. Prior to the data dump, Florida's numbers were consistently decreasing each week which made me hopeful for our October trip.


Thanks for the link. CT has the same parameters as NY so we’ve got a ways to go, I guess. I’m not a mathematician, but I’m wondering if three weeks is even feasible given that it’s a rolling percentage.
 
HI, we're mid Oct. living in NY-we decided to adjust our trip-instead of Universal at the beginning of the vacation, we're going to do it at the end, over a weekend. We'll do Disney first, since we rented points, if we don't go, we lose almost $3000. The way I figured it, we'd be out of work for 3 weeks and 2 days, which includes the quarantining. Just hope my DH and my manager are ok with this! But I know how you feel with these charts all over, I watch the numbers every day, and you're correct, besides that "dump" of tests, numbers are going down, I think yesterday under 2000.

Ugh, that stinks that you’ll lose so much money. We are DVC members and will lose 114 points by 11/30 if we cancel. I was also kind of considering moving the trip to November but if I don’t put the points into RCI by 10/15 and we end up not going in November then we lose them completely.
 
What's your rules in CT? In NY, it has to be a 7 day rolling average of positive cases at 10% or less in order to come off the list. I keep seeing different numbers everywhere so I'm not sure what they are going by, but I've been using this database to check each week. Its updated every Tuesday: http://rochester.nydatabases.com/da...fhOkicIL-OxB9nSNG52zKK7raQ_DR0w7JEnZtehsE_QkU

Its currently showing roughly 16%, but as PP pointed out, the number became inflated due to a data dump on 8/31 so its not a true number. But I'm not sure our governor considers that when determining what states can come off the list. Prior to the data dump, Florida's numbers were consistently decreasing each week which made me hopeful for our October trip.

Even with that data dump on 9/1, the daily numbers only went from 13.73 to 16.99. The daily numbers are certainly better than the 50+ they were in July. Will be interesting to see the numbers in the next few days to see what happens when 9/1 falls off the mix. We cancelled our trip for next week because we can’t quarantine. Hoping for late November now.
 
What's your rules in CT? In NY, it has to be a 7 day rolling average of positive cases at 10% or less in order to come off the list. I keep seeing different numbers everywhere so I'm not sure what they are going by, but I've been using this database to check each week. Its updated every Tuesday: http://rochester.nydatabases.com/da...fhOkicIL-OxB9nSNG52zKK7raQ_DR0w7JEnZtehsE_QkU

Its currently showing roughly 16%, but as PP pointed out, the number became inflated due to a data dump on 8/31 so its not a true number. But I'm not sure our governor considers that when determining what states can come off the list. Prior to the data dump, Florida's numbers were consistently decreasing each week which made me hopeful for our October trip.
That Rochester page is helpful, but a bit misleading. NY state has a 2-prong test for quarantine and other states pass both to get off the list:
"All travelers entering New York who have recently traveled within a state with either:
• a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling
average; or
• a testing positivity rate of higher than a 10% over a seven-day rolling average,
will be required to quarantine for a period of 14 days consistent with the Department of Health
(DOH) regulations for quarantine."

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/06/interimguidance_traveladvisory.pdf
The official statement is IMO clear that you must quarantine if a state fails either test.

Florida's problem will be with the test positivity rate, which that Rochester database ignores, because as Florida's cases have gone down so have their daily tests. In July they tested 50-70k people daily. Now they are testing 15-25k people daily. It's hard to get the positivity rate down below 10% with such a low denominator. They could fix this by encouraging people to get tested regardless of whether the test is necessary, but they don't seem to care to do that.

With respect to tests per 100k residents, Florida is almost there. The Rochester database updates are behind. Florida's 9/8 figures were released yesterday but the database is only complete thru 9/7. By my math, when it catches up to 9/8 the 7-day figure will be down to about 12.7 as the 9/1 data dump rolls off. More optimistically, the single day 9/7 and 9/8 figures are (again by my math) 8.6 and 8.5 per 100k. Barring an uptick, Florida should meet this test within a week. But again, Florida will also have to get its positive tests as a percentage of total tests below 10% over 7-days.

If you want to check Florida's daily official figures going all the way back they are available here, and I'm pretty sure these are the same figures NY uses. They don't give the percentages or even the daily figures, but inputting the figures into a very simple spreadsheet can generate the numbers you need.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/florida/history
 
That Rochester page is helpful, but a bit misleading. NY state has a 2-prong test for quarantine and other states pass both to get off the list:
"All travelers entering New York who have recently traveled within a state with either:
• a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling
average; or
• a testing positivity rate of higher than a 10% over a seven-day rolling average,
will be required to quarantine for a period of 14 days consistent with the Department of Health
(DOH) regulations for quarantine."

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/06/interimguidance_traveladvisory.pdf
The official statement is IMO clear that you must quarantine if a state fails either test.

Florida's problem will be with the test positivity rate, which that Rochester database ignores, because as Florida's cases have gone down so have their daily tests. In July they tested 50-70k people daily. Now they are testing 15-25k people daily. It's hard to get the positivity rate down below 10% with such a low denominator. They could fix this by encouraging people to get tested regardless of whether the test is necessary, but they don't seem to care to do that.

With respect to tests per 100k residents, Florida is almost there. The Rochester database updates are behind. Florida's 9/8 figures were released yesterday but the database is only complete thru 9/7. By my math, when it catches up to 9/8 the 7-day figure will be down to about 12.7 as the 9/1 data dump rolls off. More optimistically, the single day 9/7 and 9/8 figures are (again by my math) 8.6 and 8.5 per 100k. Barring an uptick, Florida should meet this test within a week. But again, Florida will also have to get its positive tests as a percentage of total tests below 10% over 7-days.

If you want to check Florida's daily official figures going all the way back they are available here, and I'm pretty sure these are the same figures NY uses. They don't give the percentages or even the daily figures, but inputting the figures into a very simple spreadsheet can generate the numbers you need.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/florida/history
Thanks for trying to break this down. I'm still confused because I thought the far right percentage in the Rochester database was where I should be looking for that 10% number? But it sounds like that's representative of the number of tests? Clearly math is not my strong suit :)
 

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