
NY launches live dashboard of each regions progress hitting 7 reopening criteria - KoftaBob
https://forward.ny.gov/regional-monitoring-dashboard
======
codemati
Very informative and transparent. This should be the standard everywhere.

I'm a bit surprised (and disappointed) something similar does not exist for
the Bay Area.

~~~
thephyber
Edit: This post is wrong. I didn't bother to read the article and was off base
on most of the facts. Leaving this post only so I can remember my shame.

NYC is a single city and county with 350k government employees and they've had
a coordinated data effort for nearly a decade.

"Bay Area" is like 8 counties and dozens of cities, each which have their own
tech stacks and legal teams, pulling their efforts in different directions.

I'm disappointed that the state of California hasn't come up with a few APIs
which could easily reduce the redundant efforts of tens of thousands of
localities. I've been prototyping some ideas to show the state what modern
government _could_ be like if there was a coordinated effort.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
NYC has five counties and still has some vestiges of county governance like
sheriffs.

~~~
papito
I don't think NYC does. Nassau County, yes - but that's outside of city
limits.

~~~
simmonmt
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Sheriff%27s_Offi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Sheriff%27s_Office)

------
shmatt
i think what many people don't understand are how many other layers will block
re-opening once the gov. gives a green light.

plenty of businesses are closed in states where the Governor has given a green
light to re-open.

It can be plain common sense by the business owner, city laws, office
buildings enforcing impossible rules such as 1 person per elevator, liability
from lawsuits and the insurance fees that come from that, office layout that
needs a complete rebuild, workers scared for themselves or people they live
with, and many more

~~~
josephorjoe
What percentage of people don't understand that (serious question)?

I'm in nyc so my perspective is likely a little skewed, but I can't see anyone
who can avoid doing so rushing back into restaurants, subways, or really any
avoidable indoor or crowded activity. :(

But, yeah, I see the protesters desperately wanting to reopen everything in
the midwest, so I guess a lot of people must think the problem is politics not
biology and physics?

~~~
umanwizard
Well, I live in NYC too and will be back in restaurants and bars the day they
open. I’m not really worried about covid, but even if I were, I think I’ll
almost certainly get it eventually regardless of whether I go out or not, so
there’s no point trying to avoid it.

So, now you know of at least one person.

By the way: “how much health risk are we willing to accept to avoid a given
amount of economic damage” is one of the most clearly political questions I
can imagine. The effects of the virus have to do with biology; weighing
multiple different tradeoffs is politics.

~~~
greglindahl
A guy walked onto an elevator with me yesterday. Freedom!!!

He wasn't just making a choice for himself, he was making a choice for me.

~~~
umanwizard
I have no idea how this is related to my comment.

~~~
greglindahl
He wasn't worried about covid.

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LyalinDotCom
My parents still can’t get NYS unemployment benefits processed since they
started applying in March due to all the website and process problems. Sure
wish they’d focus there.

~~~
ceejayoz
Planning to reopen businesses across the state is certainly one aspect of
fixing unemployment, and I doubt the graphic designer and web developer here
had any significant impact on the maintenance of the unemployment computer
systems.

------
kelnos
A little concerned about:

> _Region must show a sustained decline in the three-day rolling average of
> daily hospital deaths over the course of a 14-day period._

This excludes people dying in their homes, no? Is that a significant enough
number of people to warrant concern? I get that it's harder to track cause of
death when it doesn't occur in a hospital, but that would seem to be a
necessary thing to do.

~~~
ceejayoz
The two should move in at least a somewhat correlated manner, and one's a lot
easier to measure accurately.

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throwawaysea
I love the specificity of these metrics and thresholds here. We're lacking
that in WA, where the goalposts on reopening phases and variance by region
remains vague and ever changing.

~~~
icelancer
What, you don't think clipart dials with no transparent metrics is good
enough?

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staticvar
For those interested, here's the dashboard from the Vermont Department of
Health.

[https://vcgi.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/6...](https://vcgi.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/6128a0bc9ae14e98a686b635001ef7a7)

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ep103
This is awesome, well done to the NYS leadership

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chiefalchemist
Some of these KPIs could be better:

\- Approx 50% of deaths are from residents of extended care facilities. Those
are a special case and should be tracked separately.

\- A running tests to positives ratio is essential. 100 new cases from 200
tests is not the same as 100 new cases from 300 tests.

\- A running per capita of "active" cases would be helpful. Is it increasing
or decreasing? That is, in the broader non-hospitalized population approx how
many carriers are there?

\- Hospital capacity status is helpful but preventing the healthcare system
from being overwhelmed is not the same as stifling the progress of the virus.
It's a helpful proxy but it's still a proxy.

------
karaterobot
Does:

> Contact Tracers: 30 per 100k residents

Mean 30 people doing manual contact tracing full time? If so, it seems like a
fuzzy metric, since it would just measure butts in seats rather than any kind
of efficacy. If it's measuring something else, excuse my ignorance.

~~~
throwaway122378
It’s just that. People who will manually trace an infected persons contacts
and force them to “Self” quarantine

~~~
throwaway122378
Literally downvoted for explaining the filth that a contact tracer is

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aero142
It starting to bother me that the US lockdown does not appear to have a clear
goal. In some countries, it is clear that the goal is to eliminate the virus
from the country. Contact tracing is key as well as regional lockdowns. In the
US, I don't see much evidence we are heading towards a sustainable elimination
of the virus. In the well discussed Sweden example, the goal is a managed herd
immunity strategy. I am curious what every else believes the goal of the
lockdown currently is:

1) The elimination of the virus. If so, do you believe this is likely to
happen given the current implementation?

2) Maintaining a hospitalization rate below the number of available beds while
heading towards heard immunity. If so, do believe these metrics target this,
or simply attempt to minimize infections.

3) Minimize infections while buying time for something we don't currently
have. A vaccine, better medical treatments, more masks, something else?

Does anyone feel like they understand what the current goal is?

~~~
icelancer
I am not sure why you are being downvoted. There is no goal and no plan in the
United States. Just stay inside and hope that somehow works.

------
dlgeek
Washington (State) launched something similar on May 1st:

[https://www.coronavirus.wa.gov/what-you-need-
know/covid-19-r...](https://www.coronavirus.wa.gov/what-you-need-
know/covid-19-risk-assessment-dashboard)

~~~
icelancer
This is not at all close. NY has defined metrics with specific numbers (14-day
rolling average, share of total beds above X%, etc etc) while WA has an
opaque, made-up, zero transparency bunch of photoshopped dials set to whatever
arbitrary position the state government decides is right.

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cproctor
If, as many projections suggest, we may be in for a medium-term future of
local closures as outbreaks flare up, an interface like this will be important
for helping people understand and comply.

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omeze
Anyone know how they (or other states) are gathering this data? Do hospitals
have some daily email report? Do certain healthcare providers expose stats
over an API?

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ape4
Are they going to reopen a region if it hits all the criteria. A concern is
that people will flood from a closed region to a open one.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Yes, all regions must be green in order for phased reopening... think about it
like a smart contract.

~~~
KoftaBob
No they're actually going with a regional reopening in NY. Each region can
reopen on its own when they reach the 7 metrics.

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formercoder
What we really need is a graph over time of each metric by area. Wish this was
easily available by API.

------
tqi
How is the public intended to consume a dashboard like this? Is this supposed
to inform citizens actions in some way?

~~~
mwfunk
It clearly explains what the criteria for reopening is and shows which of
those criteria each region has met, and quantifies how far they’ve got to go.
And it’s kept up to date. I can’t imagine anyone looking at this and not
immediately seeing how informative and useful it is.

~~~
tqi
That's the information that is on the dashboard... what are people supposed to
do with that information?

~~~
kevmo314
Probably nothing, but it provides a way for the government to answer the
question "when are we going to open back up?" to being "when all the
checkmarks are green" instead of "when we say so".

~~~
josephorjoe
Which is actually quite valuable as transparency from decision makers makes it
much easier to evaluate the quality of their decisions and to understand
whether they are being foolishly capricious or they are using facts and
reasonable judgement about what should be done about an ongoing crisis.

Then if you disagree with the government's position, you can base an objection
on facts (e.g., one of these metrics is not set at an appropriate level or is
not impactful enough to guide decision making) instead of just yelling that
the government is wrong and should change what they are doing.

~~~
mwfunk
IMO this might be the biggest benefit. Whenever I feel like the US is a failed
state, the reason always seems to be people demanding 1-bit answers to 128-bit
questions. This shows the criteria, quantifies everything, sources everything,
and clearly shows what the goals are and what the current state is. If people
want to argue about when to reopen, this turns the arguments into deciding
what the criteria should be and how it should be measured, rather than
bullshit like "I want everything to reopen now because that's what the angry
man on TV told me to think".

A lot of people screaming about reopening don't even seem to realize there are
criteria and metrics involved, rather that it's just some arbitrary decision
arbitrarily made by governors, which is why their whining is so useless. I'd
be much more open to hearing people's reopen arguments if they came in the
form of, "we don't need to care about this metric, because <blah> and this
other metric can be lower, and this whole stage of the process doesn't need to
exist, therefore we can think about reopening earlier." Instead you get
neckbeards with AR-15s and Confederate flags (in Canadian border states!)
screaming at public servants about...something. I don't know. They're mad and
they want something to change but they have no ideas and they don't know how
to communicate with people.

------
shmatt
i think what many people don't understand are how many other layers will block
re-opening once the gov. gives a green light.

plenty of businesses are closed in states where the Governor has given a green
light to re-open.

It can be plain common sense by the business owner, food handling rules, city
laws, office buildings enforcing impossible rules such as 1 person per
elevator, liability from lawsuits and the insurance fees that come from that,
office layout that needs a complete rebuild, workers scared for themselves or
people they live with, and many more

------
7leafer
I'll tell you what. All of you who ain't questioning the whole corona event
and have been zealously obeying the orders - you are just so terrified to by
the powers that be, so afraid to look like a black sheep or to be marked as
disloyal, so afraid of losing your status quo, so hooked on credits and
mortgages that you will readily vane into whatever stinky fart that happens to
blow into your masked faces! All of you are personally responsible for this
triumph of lies and psychological terror, and for the fascist world of
distancing and slavery that your children will inherit - especially you,
lunatic flaggers in the service of censorship. Wake up until it's too late!

~~~
betterworldb
What are you talking about?

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
While interesting, let's not be deceived by this dashboard or these goals. It
gives the impression that NY is on the cusp of opening up. The reality is that
any of these metrics can have strong downward trajectory at any time. And some
(such as contact tracing) might not even be feasible in some of the boroughs.

Everybody seemed on board when it was "14 days to flatten the curve". Now it's
indefinite. I can already see cracks appearing, with many more people outside
and meeting together. We weren't meant to live like this, and there's going to
be a lot of negative externalities (domestic abuse, child abuse, suicide, drug
abuse relapse, etc[1]). Remember, it's only been barely a month.

I predict soon these states are going to either be forced to open because of a
rebellious population, or be forced to criminalize a lot of otherwise normal
people.

1\. [https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-domestic-violence-lawyer-
ne...](https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-domestic-violence-lawyer-near-me-
shelter-in-place-santa-clara-county/6111904/)

~~~
ceejayoz
Is my bank balance “deceiving” because I might spend a lot tomorrow?

It shows the current state of the metrics. That’s it. If a region takes enough
of a downward turn, the lockdown tightens up again.

