People under 20 account for 30% of covid cases in North Dakota now, their highest percentage yet. Cases continue to follow a similar pattern to last year but are above those levels.
Age Split as a Share of Total Covid Cases
The younger age groups are an increasing percentage of cases in North Dakota. I show a couple of troubling graphs to illustrate this.
Age Distribution and Epidemic Risk in North Dakota
A look at the concentrations of old and young by county in North Dakota to understand the rationale for a school closure.
Population Changes in ND Counties
The 2015 ACS data came out from the Census Bureau in mid-September and gave us lots to chew on for the state of North Dakota. The four counties reported in the 1 year data are Burleigh, Cass, Grand Forks, and Ward. All three counties gained population from 2014. Cass increased the most with 4,507 more people, while Burleigh increased by 2,488, Ward by 1,891, and Grand Forks increased by 778.
Fewer Shades of Grey in ND
JT tends to ask me the following question: “What worries me about the outlook for ND?” Over the last few years I answered that there was not much. That was then, this is now. North Dakota hit its first oil price catastrophe for this round of the oil boom and we are watching to see the consequences. One of the issues that worries me has to do with the demographics for the state as a whole. In this piece I will focus on the 65-and-over population and later on we can talk about other dimensions.