I use words for a living, but I’m a math nerd at heart. That’s one reason why I look forward to Tuesday mornings, when the California Department of Public Health updates its Blueprint Data Chart — a no-frills Excel spreadsheet containing the numbers the state uses to assign counties to their color-coded tiers based on coronavirus activity. The first place I go is row 24, for Los Angeles County. Then I scroll over to column L, the number of new cases per day per 100,000 people, adjusted to account for the number of coronavirus tests performed. Advertisement That’s right — the daily new case rate is below 1.