MIchigan: The Trend Continues: #COVID19 is now officially more of a NotDetroit problem than a Detroit problem.

A few weeks ago, I posted a detailed analysis of how the COVID-19 virus has been spreading throughout my home state of Michigan. I noted that while the outbreak originally spread quickly in Detroit and the more densely-populated Metropolitan Detroit region (Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties), that has gradually changed over time, with the virus spreading to the rest of the state--including rural, conservative-leaning areas--at a faster rate while it slowed down in the urban areas.

It's time to check in to see whether that trend has continued...and sure enough, it has:

And yes, as you might expect, this trend also still applies to the partisan divide within the state. While far more cases are found in counties which voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, this ratio has also shifted over time, albeit at a more gradual rate.

Here's what this trend looks like visually. Michigan didn't even hit 100 cases until around March 20th, so the section before then doesn't really "count" as there weren't enough cases to be significant enough re. a trendline. Notice that not only has the proportion of cases in Detroit itself dropped by more than 33%, the portion found in the greater Metro Detroit area has also dropped by around 25% since March 20th:

In late March, 80% of COVID-19 cases were located in blue counties (or at least ones which voted for Clinton in 2016), a 4:1 blue/red ratio. By yesterday, this had shifted to roughly a 2:1 ratio, with nearly 1/3 of cases now located in red (Trump voting) counties:

Of course, it's not just the number of cases (or fatalities) found in the various parts of the state which are relevant here; it's also the ratio of per capita cases in each; on that front, the blue counties are still doing considerably worse than the red counties...cases per capita average 6.8 per thousand in Michigan's blue counties vs. 2.8 per thousand in the red ones. That's a ratio of 2.4:1. However, even by this measure, the trend is shifting: As of March 27th, the ratio was 4.9:1.

What about Detroit vs. "NotDetroit"? Well, on March 20th, there were 0.221 cases per thousand residents of Detroit vs. just 0.01 cases in the 80 counties outside of the Metro Detroit area...or nearly 22x as many. As of today, there's 14.8 per thousand in Detroit vs. 2.3 per thousande in those 80 counties...or just 6.6x as many in Detroit.

In short, as ugly as things were for the urban/Democratic-leaning areas of Michigan initially, over the past month or so they've been getting worse in the more rural/red areas at a faster rate.

Food for thought as the MAGA protesters storm the state capitol demanding that we "open things back up again".