Introduction

This is the inaugural post for this site dedicated to reviewing the state of coronavirus in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I had been thinking about a blog for quite some time, but had been satisfied with occasional comments on Boston Globe articles about the coronavirus – in particular, the Globe’s daily article which focuses on the latest statistics published at roughly 4 pm each day by the Commonwealth in its Covid-19 Dashboard. That daily article seemed generally to just parrot the headline numbers released by the Commonwealth, without any deeper analysis.

I have felt increasingly constrained by the Globe’s comment section. First, although I’m interested in a daily recap of the statistics, I thought that would become quite repetitive and boring for most Globe readers. However, I realize that there is a subset of readers who are interested in that, as well as other analysis of what is happening with testing, cases, hospitalizations, and (unfortunately) deaths. So this format gives me freedom to write about what is interesting to me (and hopefully others), and to go somewhat beyond the headline numbers. Second, the Globe comment section has been increasingly taken over by individuals with a particular axe to grind (I hesitate to call them trolls), with whom I’m tired of dealing. No need to name names, but anyone who finds their way here from there will know to whom I’m referring.

The purpose of this blog is to provide relatively untainted commentary about the coronavirus in Massachusetts (I use the word relatively because I understand that I, like everyone else, have particular biases that influence what I write about and how I write about it). I have been relatively impressed with the response to the coronavirus in Massachusetts after some initial missteps (and those might not have been avoidable), but a bit dismayed with recent changes in the Dashboard, which have reduced the amount and variety of information published. The Commonwealth had done an excellent job of providing information sliced and diced in various ways. It has backed off of that, for reasons I’m unaware of.

In any case, off we go.