Open Letter to St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann

I have just sent the following email to our County Executive (and others), in the hopes of beginning a conversation around how the County might improve the sharing of Covid-19 data with concerned residents. I am hopeful that there can be some enhancements and improvements in how the data is shared.

Subject: Request for Additional Data Transparency/Availability

Mr. Ehlmann,

I have been a resident of St. Charles County for 33 years and am incredibly proud to call it home for me, my wife and our 4 children. I value the service that you and your colleagues have provided during that time to the over 400,000 residents under your charge and I thank you for all of your many efforts to make St. Charles County such a wonderful place.

I am writing to you today to request additional information and data resources around Covid-19 in St. Charles County. I have been following closely the disease in our County since the first case was announced in March and have been manually tracking the numbers on a daily basis. The Covid-19 dashboard that was released is helpful and provides some insight into the numbers, but I desire and wish for some additional insight. I wish to begin a discussion around how the County might share the underlying data tables to the residents, empowering them to perform analysis and make the graphs that they find valuable. I understand that many people are not as into data as I am, but I believe that there is value in being as transparent as possible with the citizens. I understand that there are possible HIPAA concerns and other legalities that must be considered, but I was hoping to see if it might be possible to even just start by sharing the data that drives the current dashboard.

At the moment, you can see the number of Total Deaths, but you cannot see the day to day # of deaths in a table. You can see the numbers broken out by each Zip Code if you click on that portion of the map, but you cannot find the Zip Code level data in a table. You can filter and see all of the data by gender or race, but none of that data is available in a table. This lack of tabular data has led to an inability to do any type of detailed analysis of trends and impacted populations. 

Currently, I am creating and tracking the Estimated Active Cases, as that number is more meaningful than the much reported Cumulative Totals. I use this calculated value to determine what the 7 and 14 day trend is for Cases the County, which many people have found useful. I have attached today's graph of the Active Cases for reference. (Additional graphs can be found here, if desired.)

I understand that this has been an unforeseen global event, and I do appreciate the data that the County has made available. However, I do believe that we can work to make the data even more transparent and available for residents who, like myself, might find more data availability a great thing.

I welcome any comments, suggestions and discussion, as I hope to improve what our wonderful County has already put in place. Thank you again for your time and for your service.

Respectfully,
Jeremy Walker

CC:
Doug Bolnick - Director Public information Officer
Mary Enger - Director, Communications
Matthew Seeds - Director, Information Systems

Covid-19 Data Issues in Saint Charles County

May 22 Update:
I reached out to the County Health Department about this discrepancy and received the following reply/explanation:

The County’s health and information systems departments did switch reporting systems recently and noticed an error in the presentation of reported numbers. This caused the issue you note, and this was corrected as soon as possible.

I am not sure if the switch refers to the update to the PowerBI dashboard or if it refers to the actual source they are collecting the data from. I have not nioticed any updates the the actual layout or content of the dashboard, so i assume it is the data source. If the change in source resulted in a greater than 5% negative change in reported cases, then there seems to be valid reason for concern with the validity of the numbers that have been previously reported.

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Original post:
I have been tracking the spread of Covid-19 in St. Charles County since the day the first case was announced. For several weeks, the County only had a table of current data on the site, so I was manually tracking daily case totals in a spreadsheet in order to see the trends. Finally, the County utilized PowerBI to provide some graphs of the data in a dashboard format. However, the County had not created some of the graphs that I thought helped better tell the story, so I continue to input and update daily new cases and deaths into my spreadsheet, all based on the published County data.

Over the course of this pandemic, firm numbers regarding positive cases, and even deaths, have been hard to establish. For Saint Charles County, the tale is no different. Most days, I have to scroll back though the previous days and update a few up or down by 1 or 2 cases. Typically, most of the changes occur to dates within the past 14 days, which makes sense, as this is within the window of symptoms presenting and test results being obtained. However, over the past week, I have noticed that the numbers are changing on dates much further back in time. 

Starting Over is Hard

3 weeks ago I started over.
I hadn't run since I injured myself at the end of July and the insanely cold weather finally eased up a bit, motivating me to get going. I have learned that I have to rein in myself when I start running after even a brief break, as I mentally want to run at least 3 miles each time out but my body won't like it one bit. So I got my gear on and went for a 2 mile run.

Let's just say that I huffed and puffed through both miles, finishing completely winded.

It was a slow, grueling, ugly run.
It was a start.
I ran several times that week and the next - I was starting a good pattern and hoped that my cardio would start slowly improving in the coming week or so.

Then, last week I came down with some nasty head cold thing that eliminated my ability to breath easily while sitting, let alone trying to run. So I didn't run last week.

That puts me back at ground zero (in my mind) and is quite frustrating, although it shouldn't be as I have just started running again. There isn't exactly much physical fitness to lose at this point.

For those of you who run or enjoy any other type of cardio-based activity, you understand that feeling of knowing your cardio abilities are dwindling/dying/dead. It is pleasant. In fact, it is a terrible thing.

Knowing that I am starting over as if I have never run before is a bit hard to take.
It was easier starting to run when I had never run before.
I was naive, as I believe all new runners are.
Now I know how hard it will be to get back to the shape I was in after consistently running for 2 years and it isn't pretty.
But it is motivating.

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a little piece about Why I Run, in which I wrote the following:

Runners realize their limitations through the repetitive motion of slamming their feet into the ground and propelling themselves forward. Runners of any skill level must deal with learning how to manage the mental as well as physical challenges that come with starting a race. To get to that line, the runner has to have determined weeks or months in advance that they are going to commit themselves to the task of purposefully wearing themselves out multiple times a week when literally nobody is looking and nobody cares.

And that is where I am.
I acknowledge my current limitations.
I have lost muscle mass, gained fat and lost my cardiovascular strength, along with my habit/pattern of running.
However, I have not lost the ability to run, therefore I can gain the rest back through hard work and diligence.

And so I begin again...
Ready to need to purchase new running shoes, adjust my playlist, reset my alarm clock and go.
I am ready to run, even if I am not quite able to yet.

Starting over is hard, but it is needed and worthwhile.

Photos of Our Baby Boy

He isn't due to arrive until March of next year, but here are the photos from yesterday's ultrasound. The doctor's said everything looks perfect, and he is measuring about 5 days larger than average.

It's truly amazing the level of detail you can now see in the images. We looked at both legs, arms, hands and feet. We were able to count his fingers, see both nostrils and checked the compartments of his heart. We also verified that he is receiving good blood flow from the umbilical cord and that his stomach, kidneys and lungs are all exactly as they should be. Absolutely amazing.

Click on any of the images for a larger view. 

Our Baby's footprint is 3.74cm long.

This profile view shows us his nose, mouth, hand and knee.

In this profile view, he had pulled his legs over his head and was holding onto them with his hands.

In this 3D image, our boy is laying on his left side, with both his hands under his head. (I sleep this way too.)

Hears a 3D view of our little boys face.

400 Meter Dash in 4 Minutes

This video killed me with encouragement.
Watch the video, then read the story of Matt W's triumphant race.

Why I Run / When I Run

Today I am sore.
Why?
Because yesterday I ran.

I didn't run from the police.
I didn't run to evade getting tackled by a large man in a helmet.
I didn't run up and down a court to throw a ball in a basket or back and forth across a pitch to kick a ball in a goal.
I didn't run as a part of any team sport.

While all of these things would definitely wear me out, they had nothing to do with my running.

A Year of Running

I just realized that it has been a little over a year since I began consistently running.
To celebrate that accomplishment, I want to recap where I started and where I currently am.
Warning - Since I am recapping an entire year, this is a long post. 

On October 22, 2010, I climbed onto our newly acquired treadmill and started on what has been quite the journey. Over the course of 23 heart-pounding minutes, I ran a total of 2 miles (11:30 minutes per mile pace). My goal at that point was to actually train to run a 5k that I had run several years in a row with only a couple of weeks of "training". I wanted finish the 5k in under 30 minutes. I obviously had some work to do to get to that point.

On October 30, I ran the Eye Run For Haiti 5k in 10:28 - a pace of 10:28 minutes per mile. This was encouraging to say the least. At this point I was dedicated to running 3 times a week on the treadmill and was pushing myself pretty hard.


On November 21, 2010, I ran the Jingle Bell Run 5k in 29:00 minutes (9:29 minutes per mile). At the end of this race, I decided that I would continue running 3 times a week, but I didn't really have a new goal in mind.