Data Suggests Spread of the Coronavirus Is Slowing in the USA

PJ Media ^ | 03/31/2020 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

A ray of hope today that the spread of the coronavirus across American appears to be slowing down. Data compiled by the New York Times suggests that while the overall number of infections is still rising,  even in states hardest hit by COVID-19, the rate of infections is easing.

Daily Caller:

Washington State was the first state in America to have a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus. The virus quickly spread, infecting an average of 2.7 additional people earlier in March,  according to the NYT. After social distancing measures and other guidelines, this number has dropped to 1.4 additional people, according to one projection.

“We made a huge impact. We slowed the transmission,” Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said according to the NYT.

New York state is seeing a doubling of hospital patients every six days. But it was worse last week.

New York’s hospitalization rate is doubling every six days this week, compared to last week when it reportedly doubled every two to three days. New York City is on a mandatory  shutdown in an attempt to get people to stay home and stay healthy.

“So, while the overall number is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down,” Cuomo said according to CNN.

It's not just the NY Times reporting that is showing a decline in infections.

Data from Kinsa Health, a company that makes thermometers that connect to the internet, backs up these state’s reports. Kinsa Health has been getting up to 162,000 temperature readings every day since the virus began to spread in America and  created a nation-wide map showing fever levels on March 22.

[crusty old prospector]

Time will tell.

[Buckeye McFrog]

With things largely shut down it could hardly be otherwise.

[ClearCase_guy]

Good to see evidence of slowing transmission. But deaths will still be increasing for at least a couple weeks. That part of the news will depress people as it comes out. But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

[V_TWIN]

““We made a huge impact. We slowed the transmission,” Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said according to the NYT.”

A dem mayor speaking to the nyt sharing good news? My paranoia makes me think they want people to relax and go back to normal prematurely.

[oldasrocks]

If they lift mandatory SIPing will the crap start to spread again?

[Buckeye McFrog]

It is going to spread. It cannot be stopped from spreading.

Most will recover and be fine. The game is to manage the demand on the health care system to keep it from being overrun.

[VTenigma]

Yes. Why? Because people are idiots.

[devane617]

The spikes over the past few days is a result of tests that were taken a week or so ago that are now coming back. Many who were positive have either died or has gotten better.

[null and void]

EXCELLENT!

In the meanwhile, look what's happening to pneumonia deaths...

I'll be darned! Ignatz Semmelweis was right! Hand washing prevents deaths!

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

[1Old Pro]

Pretty sure I heard the good doctors say at yesterday’s WH presser than New York is in trouble because they were slow to act, i.e. DeBlasio and Cuomo encouraging Chinese new year gatherings and the like. Kinda deflates Cuomo’s aura.

[JohnBrowdie]

how could it not be slowing? the whole country is halfway shut down.

[DEPcom]

“My paranoia makes me think they want people to relax and go back to normal prematurely.”

I am thinking your are correct. The slowing will justify this nothing more than the flu causing people to push for relax social distancing.

[surrey]

Relaxing social distancing may happen eventually but I think this virus has terrified a vast majority of the country. I think when restaurants reopen you’re going to see seating spaced far and wide and people will think differently about crowding around a restaurant bar. Hopefully the hand washing and sanitizing will become the norm. My kids and their spouses are all in their mid to late 40s and they’re taking this VERY seriously as are their friends. Behavior will change.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I think THIS is why they are now discussing advising people to wear masks.

Not that wrapping one of Dr. Birx’ scarves around your head is going to offer that much protection, but the media has done such a thorough job of scaring the bejeebers out of people that if they lift the embargo many are going to be too fearful to go back to work.

At the end of the day I don’t think they do it because there is too much prior material out there (including a video by the Surgeon General) laying out in great detail their argument that the public should NOT wear masks.

Contradicting themselves in such a blatant way will make it clear to all that they have no clue and the panic will spike out of control.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Personally I hope you are wrong.

I would hate to see this country turn into a nation of cowering germophobes over a 100-year event.

Those occur.....oh, every 100 years or so.
And will continue no matter what we do.

[fireman15]

The virus was first discovered in this country in Snohomish County Washington. A man who had been visiting Wuhan China the week before came down with it. A couple weeks later King County announced that it had the first death from the virus. A man who had not traveled out of the area died from the virus. Researchers at the University of Washington looking into this determined that the death was not linked to the first case discovered and that the virus had likely already been spreading through the community before the first case was discovered on January 19.

The East side of King and Snohomish Counties where we live were the initial hotspots in this country. The reason why is typically not mentioned in the media or by politicians. We have over half a million Chinese immigrants here and a large percentage visit home often. Many of the 3 million Chinese who visited the United States in 2019 arrived at SeaTac.

After the Trump “travel ban” on January 31 over 10,000 Chinese changed their destination airport from SeaTac to Vancouver International a 3 hour drive North. Our friends in Canada were more than happy to help these new arrivals subvert our President's “xenophobic” travel ban with essentially no health screening, and our politically correct border patrol administrators were more than happy to let them through from Canada also with no health screening.

So after being hit first in this area and having it spreading through our community for a month or so we started having deaths and East King County led the State and the country for an extended period of time. In the past two weeks this dubious honor was lost. Now we do not make even the top 20. While the rest of the state and the rest of the country are reporting more deaths and hospital Intensive Care Units are close to being overwhelmed in some areas... the opposite is now happening in East King County. The number of deaths have dropped to very few, and hospital intensive care units are back to normal after a couple weeks of challenging times.

Strangely enough, just as this was starting to be noticed by a few media outlets, Washington's Department of Health stopped releasing the data break down that shows this. They say that it was a software glitch. But it isn't it strange how data that does not fit the current narrative always somehow seems to get lost?

The Governor is of course trying to take credit, saying his stay at home order has saved us all, but the decline here started before the order could have had much of an effect, and the number of deaths and infections in the rest of the state continue to rise. So what really happened? It looks similar to when a bad flu runs it's course in a community. A lot of people get it, some vulnerable people die, and then it moves on continuing to create havoc somewhere else.

Risking being called a “flubro” by the hysterical here... I predict that this will pass in other places as it has here. The worst case scenarios will not be realized and the number of dead from pneumonia will not be as great as they were from the 2017-18 flu season. What we are experiencing is mass hysteria fueled by politics.

[crusty old prospector]

Makes sense.

[little jeremiah]

Dis - check nully’s graph in comment 10.

[little jeremiah]

If the general population observed a bit more basic hygiene, like not go out and about when you are sick, there would be far fewer flu cases and deaths. I’m not talking OCD, just basic hygiene and common sense.