US COVID Update (27-04-2020)

If you didn't see my post from yesterday about using the MA (Moving Average -- rolling average of the past week, updated daily) you might want to read that first.

Today's MA includes possible under-reports of the weekend. But, the new MA of new deaths is down almost 400 across the US. The MA has declined about 350 every day but one for the past week. That is a serious indicator that we're pretty far down the slope of the Bell curve. That fits very well with the presumption that the curve began at 100 deaths in one day back on Mar 15, and peaked on Apr 7-12, depending on when one sets the daily vs MA numbers. Today is just about as far from Apr 7 as is Mar 15. That is, the exponential part of the curve began flattening about 3 weeks after the first day with 100 deaths and we are now just about 2 weeks past that. If the MA continues to decline on the current trend we should be down to about 100+ new deaths per day in about another week. Tomorrow's numbers, which should take care of any under-reporting over the weekend will let us know, I think.

A few states again did not report deaths today. That makes 15 or so that have done that in the past week. None have reported a lot of deaths (usually less than 100) on the day following the 'no report' day, so I kind of assume they are trying to "clean up the books" on the 'suspected deaths' that now get reported. Using the MA to smooth the curve should take care of that.

What's left now is re-opening the economy and how fast. Governors are coming under a lot of pressure, and even though politically it is probably seen as "dangerous" (to re-election) to open "too fast" I won't be surprised if savvy governors don't re-open faster than not. Governors like Sisolak in Nevada, Whitmer in MI, and maybe even Newsom in CA are going to have to make some decisions very soon or get it wrong no matter which way they go.

Since most states have wide areas where the epidemic has not hit hard it is going to be very hard to keep the whole state locked down. I don't see why re-opening couldn't be on a county by county basis, even in NY.

As for the data we do have daily, new cases are down over 3000 across the US, with NY and NJ accounting for most of that. There still doesn't seem to be a large increase in the number of tests in most states. I haven't found a reason for that. However, new positive cases seems to have peaked April 9-10, ad plateaued for nearly 10 days before dropping. If there had been a lot of new testing I would have expected to find a lot of new, mild or asymptomatic cases. That only seems to be partly happening. Hospitalizations are down, so most of whatever new cases are being found must not be serious. Strange to me at this time.

Will we have a second wave soon? It's certainly a possibility, but it really doesn't 'feel' (the only way I can describe my take on the data we have right now) like if we do it will be a bad one, but I think it wise to be very careful of the most vulnerable. There will be no effective vaccine soon I think, so the virus will kill however many it will kill. The only question is what the time frame for it will be, and how we let that affect the economy.

The main thing is that new deaths are really dropping.

So. Keep being serious. As governors loosen the reins (or are forced to) please continue to practice the good health behaviors. Take care of yourself, your family, and friends and neighbors. Don't be hysterical.