JUSTICE'S AMMENDED HARVARD GLOBAL MAP TURNS STATE TO POSITIVE LOWEST RATE - GREEN

(09/26/2020)
THE BIG JUGGLE

Changes to West Virginia’s map depicting coronavirus spread is now dominated by green, which is the lowest rate.

“This looks one whale of a lot better to me,” Gov. Jim Justice said today as he held up a copy of the map during a briefing.

Justice indicated he has improved the Harvard Medical Map.

Thirty-eight of West Virginia’s 55 counties were green today.

That’s because the map had been updated to take into account whichever statistic is better: daily positive tests or percent positive. Earlier versions of the map only reflected the daily cases.

The option of assessing counties by using a percentage was announced earlier but this was the first day the map reflected the change.

“Right now, thank goodness, we don’t have a red county,” Justice said.

West Virginia’s map was originally based off of one by the Harvard Global Health Institute, but has been significantly altered to assess the percent positive and for different cutoff points.

So, in contrast, the Harvard map today showed just four green counties in West Virginia: McDowell, Webster, Lewis and Tyler.

Much of the Harvard map was a step up, yellow.

The governor pointed to Monongalia and Putnam counties, which had been red but now were shown as yellow.