winchou: Waiting for Georgia

As the year grinds to a close, we are still waiting for things to settle. The new Congress will be seated (remotely?) on January 3rd. The first decision-point is January 5th, when Georgia's Senate run-off elections take place and determine which party will control the US Senate. The second is January 6th, when Congress certifies the Electoral College vote. The miserable year of 2020 will be over, but with Trump still in office, it still feels like anything could happen – it's been two months of hostile uncertainty.

In many ways, the Georgia Senate run-off has distilled the nation's concentrated tribalism, particularly with regard to religion and race. It has also become the most expensive Senate race in history, as the candidates and their supporters (or opponents) have spent over three hundred and seventy million dollars to tear each other down – in a pair of elections that only has lasted less than two months. It's hard to watch.

By the way, Portugal's President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is also running for re-election in January. His campaign's budget is twenty-five thousand euros (just over thirty thousand dollars).

I've also been waiting for Georgia's seven-day COVID-19 case average to start trending downward, and now it has. It peaked on Christmas Eve (7,168.6) and is now down by more than ten percent (6,340.1). Portugal's average peaked about a month ago (5,817.1), and is now down by more than half (2,291.7) The Y-axis in the graph is now stretched past seven thousand. I haven't done one is a while, so a recap of the 'Georgia vs Portugal' graphs follows; we are up to twenty-nine graphs.

Note that Georgia and Portugal have about the same size population and that both places recorded their first cases of COVID-19 on the same day (March 2). Georgia mandated a stay-at-home order about about a week later than Portugal (March 20 vs March 12), and opened up about a week earlier (April 24 vs May 2).

For a baseline, on April 7, seven-day averages in Georgia and Portugal were about the same in terms of both cases and deaths (GA: 719.9 / 31.9 vs PT: 714.1 / 26.4). Accounting for the multi-week incubation of COVID-19, this shows how closing earlier and re-opening later has benefitted Portugal. Also when outbreaks did occur, Portugal went back to local lockdowns; Georgia has not done this. Data points from July 24 are illustrative of the greatest gap (GA: 3745.4 / 44.3 vs PT: 230.7 / 4.3).

At the end of August, with the end of summer and the start of school, Portugal's seven-day average began a sharp rise, passed Georgia's by October 13th (GA: 1236.3 / 32.1 vs PT: 1258.4 / 11.1), and peaked on November 19th (5817.1). Georgia's average began a sharp rise in late October, passed Portugal's on December 4th (GA: 4261.1 / 49.3 vs PT: 3816.4 / 75.3), and peaked on December 24th (7168.6).

Looking at the graphs, it's clear Georgia suffered a 'second wave' during the summer, which Portugal avoided. In terms of totals for cases and deaths, as opposed to averages, Georgia's totals remain significantly larger than Portugal's (GA: 632,299 / 10,689 vs PT: 394,573 / 6,619).