A few notes from today's press conference:

* The state announced fewer total test results today than normal (3,933), particularly in the number of tests done by ADH labs. In explaining the lower number from ADH, The gov said there was a data entry issue that will be corrected.

We'll see how testing looks at the afternoon dashboard update, but a lower testing volume would correlate with a lower number of new cases (591) today.

* Dr. Romero said that infections in Washington County skewed younger than in the nation at large.

He said 17.9% of the county's infections where in children, compared to a national average of 2-3%. He stated that children under 10 are less likely to spread the virus.

I asked, with that statement in mind, if the state had considered breaking the 0-17 age group into 2 different age groups: 0-10 and 11-17 and providing that data by city to school districts for decision-making purposes.

The governor said the state would take a look at it.

(I totally get that there's a lot of discussion on how Covid spreads among children, and I'm definitely not equipped to give any insight on the discussion. But I'm all for open data. Let's break it down and see what we see.

Especially for school districts. They need more data.)

* Hospital administrators from Washington Regional and Mercy said hospitalizations spiked around 10 days to 2 weeks ago (40 at WRMC, 45 at Mercy) but have since declined. Mercy now has around 25 Covid patients.

WRMC had 15,825 calls to its Covid information line July 1-15.

* I asked how many of today's 591 new cases went into figuring the percent positive. Given that the state announced 3,933 test results and a % positive rate of 5.8%, the state must have used just 222 of the 591 new cases in the percent positive calculation.

If the state used the numbers announced today, the % positive rate would be 15%.

I don't think Dr. Romero understood what I was asking, and that's likely on me not explaining it well.
But I'm hopeful the question will spur more transparency in how the % positive is presented.

* A reporter asked about the delay in death reporting, citing the major lag in Washington County (58 deaths, 36 reported by ADH). Dr. Romero said it can take 72 hours or more to get everything turned around. But we're talking a 25-day lag, so I hope the question isn't dropped.

* I was surprised to hear this from the governor when a reporter asked if he'd consider closing any businesses back down:

"Every option is on the table when you're dealing with an unpredictable virus."

* Kudos to the reporter asking if poultry plants are requiring employees to come back to work in violation of state quarantine or isolation orders (either after exposure or after testing positive).

He didn't really get an answer, but it wasn't lack of trying.

* The great Neal Gladner asked for an update on contact tracing.

The governor said more than 1,000 cases have been assigned to General Dynamics, the first contractor hired to assist the state with contact tracing.

(That will cover almost 2 days' worth of cases.)