By Jason Sethre
Over the past several weeks, the Fillmore County Journal has received a lot of phone calls and e-mails relating to an adjustment in population figures in the COVID-19 reports published in the newspaper.
In this report, we show the cities/zip codes, population, total cases and cases as a percent of population. This report is always based on the most current report published by the Minnesota Department of Health every Thursday.
Back in late October, one of our readers sent me an e-mail making a very good point.
“The COVID-19 updates in the paper are interesting, but I would like clarification on the geographies covered. Are these cases by city or by zip code? If by zip code, then it should be noted that zip code populations are typically greater than the city populations in our area, as zip codes and cities do not share common boundaries. The City of Rushford Village is not included as a city, and that city’s population of 827 residents would change the ‘Cases as % of Pop’ column. Are the townships’ positive numbers included with their zip code’s main city; and if so, then these townships populations need to be figured in.”
In our original report, we were using the U.S. Census population figures per city. Not by zip code.
Upon further analysis, in order to compare apples to apples, we should have been using zip codes. The cases are per zip code, so the population should be per zip code.
In our area, there are many communities that straddle multiple zip codes. The geography of Pilot Mound straddles 55923 (Chatfield), 55935 (Fountain), and 55949 (Lanesboro). For the rural community of Fillmore, that population is either a part of 55990 (Wykoff), 55935 (Fountain), or 55923 (Chatfield). Greenleafton is a part of 55965 (Preston). Granger is a part of 55939 (Harmony). Henrytown is a part of 55922 (Canton). And, the list goes on and on with our rural zip code sprawl.
So, the spike in population figures represents the entire zip code. A good source for this information is available at the following website: www.minnesota-demographics.com/zip_codes_by_population
Included with this commentary is a report showing the population figures prior to the change, which was October 22, 2020. And, then we have included the most recent report of November 19, 2020.
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we had to go to press on Wednesday evening. The Minnesota Department of Health COVID dashboard report is updated every Thursday. We couldn’t get the November 26, 2020, figures into this issue, but we will include those reports and the December 3, 2020, report in the Monday, December 7, 2020, issue.
We hear a lot of different feedback on these numbers.
COVID is in the news, and our purpose with publishing these reports is to make the public aware of what’s happening at a local level.
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