Our Criteria & Sources
What are the gating criteria?
Gating criteria are the data-driven conditions each region or state should satisfy before proceeding to a phased opening.
For this site, we are using the gating criteria provided by the
White House in their Reopening America Again guidelines. The document does not specifically identify data sources or measures, so we had to translate what those meant.
We've tracked each state's progress towards its reduction in symptoms and cases, health system readiness, and increased test capacity.
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For each of the criteria we've sourced publicly available data that best represents where a state is at. Some sources are more "real-time" like
case data, but others can lag a week like
influenza-like illness (ILI) data.
Using this data, we assign a "Dark Red", "Red", "Yellow", "Green" score to each measure.
Traditionally, gating criteria is binary: you either meet the criteria (green) or you don't (red). Unfortunately, if that's what we did when we started this phase of the project early in May, every state would be red because no one met the gating criteria. To recognize states making progress, we've identified yellow as a range which indicates a state is close to the gating criteria.
Note: On 5/19, the CDC released its
official guidance on its criteria. Our team will be reviewing and determining how to incorporate it. In the meantime, we updated the descriptions for "Red", "Yellow" and "Green".
Note: On 7/10, we updated the color scale to include "Bruised Red" to capture more of the extremes.
What is each measure and how is it scored?
14 Day Trend of COVID+
This is the last 14 days of COVID positive cases using a 7 day rolling average. This data is updated daily and comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
- Dark red: If cases are increasing (>25% change) during the 14 day period
- Red: If cases are increasing (between 5% - 25% change) during the 14 day period
- Yellow: If cases are flat (less than 5% change) during the 14 day period
- Green: If cases are decreasing (more than -5% change) during the 14 day period
Influenza-Like Illness Indicator
Activity levels are based on the percent of outpatient visits due to influenza-like illness (ILI) in a jurisdiction compared with the average percent of ILI visits that occur during weeks with little or no influenza virus circulation (i.e., non-influenza weeks) in that jurisdiction. This data is updated weekly and comes from the CDC.
- Dark Red: If activity is very high
- Red: If activity is high
- Yellow: If activity is moderate
- Green: If activity is low
ICU Capacity
The National Healthcare Safety Network provides daily updates of the ICU occupancy across the United States. This only includes a subset of facilities in the United States, the ones participating in the program. This data is updated daily and comes from the CDC.
- Dark Red: If occupancy is more than 85% - "Severely constrained"
- Red: If occupancy is between 80% and 85% - "Extremely Low"
- Yellow: If occupancy is between 80% and 70% - "Low Availability"
- Green: If occupancy is less than 70% - "Normal"
Bed Capacity
The National Healthcare Safety Network provides daily updates of the inpatient bed occupancy across the United States. This only includes a subset of facilities in the United States, the ones participating in the program. This data is updated daily and comes from the CDC.
- Dark Red: If occupancy is more than 85% - "Severely constrained"
- Red: If occupancy is between 80% and 85% - "Extremely Low"
- Yellow: If occupancy is between 80% and 70% - "Low Availability"
- Green: If occupancy is less than 70% - "Normal"
% of Test Target - Baseline
We are using a test target of 500,000 tests conducted per day across the United States. This metric calculates what that burden is for each state based on per-capita using the latest 7 day rolling average of tests conducted. This data is updated daily and comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
- Dark Red: Less than 50%
- Red: Between 50-75%
- Yellow: Between 75-99%
- Green: Reaches 100%
% of Test Target - Incidence Based Target
This testing target adjusts based on a state's positivity rate. When the positivity rate is high, it means a state needs to be testing more. When the positivity rate is low, it means a state can test less, but should not dip below its proportion of the 500K tests per day that the US needs to do. The target positivity is 3% or lower. To get this target you multiply [New Cases] by 33. This data is updated daily and comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
- Dark Red: Less than 50%
- Red: Between 50-75%
- Yellow: Between 75-99%
- Green: Reaches 100%
% Test Positive
This metric calculates how many positive cases have been surfaced from testing: [Positive Cases / Total Tests]. This metric looks at the rolling average of the past 7 days. This data is updated daily and comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
- Dark Red: More than 10%
- Red: Between 7-10%
- Yellow: Between 2-7%
- Green: Less than 2%
New Cases Per Million Per Day
This metric calculates how many cases a state has adjusted per capita. This metric looks at the rolling average of the past 7 days. This data is updated daily and comes from the COVID Tracking Project.
- Dark Red: More than 150 cases per million per day
- Red: Between 80-150 cases per million per day
- Yellow: 80-40 cases per million per day
- Green: Less than 40 cases per million per day
Ability to Contact Trace
For the moment, this measure depends on a state's positivity rate. In the future we will incorporate other data points like the number of contact tracers a state has and test turnaround time.
- Dark Red: Unlikely - Positivity too high - 10%+
- Red: Extremely Difficult - Requires a lot of resources - 5-10%
- Yellow: Difficult - Positivity makes it challenging - 3-5%
- Green: Possible - Positivity low - <3%
How is the aggregate score determined?
For each state, we use a bruised red, red, yellow, green scale to chart the progress towards achieving the gating criteria. This is calculated using a simple rule. The score is as good as the weakest measure. The measures included in the score are: NEW CASES PER MILLION PER DAY, % TEST POSITIVE, % OF TEST TARGET, ICU CAPACITY, and ILI.
Questions?
