The company should have been more clear to the media that what they are measuring is "influenza-like illness" (ILI), and they do show a decrease in ILI in a county that was an early adopter of social distancing/hand hygiene. Would have been easier to realize that the decrease was more likely a decrease in influenza than in Covid-19. Also not clear that the change is statistically significant for trend.
The numbers "problem" should be accounted for in the statistics: they calculate a 95% probability interval and interpret repeated values outside of that interval as "anomalous." If there are few additional Covid cases on top of many expected influenza cases, the overall value will lay within the 95% boundary and will not be deemed "anomalous."
They should be clearer about how the Y-axis is calculated: one shouldn't have to dig through the details in the technical manual linked on the website (and still not find the answer!).
The numbers "problem" should be accounted for in the statistics: they calculate a 95% probability interval and interpret repeated values outside of that interval as "anomalous." If there are few additional Covid cases on top of many expected influenza cases, the overall value will lay within the 95% boundary and will not be deemed "anomalous."
They should be clearer about how the Y-axis is calculated: one shouldn't have to dig through the details in the technical manual linked on the website (and still not find the answer!).