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KUNG FLU: Growth has become linear ... for now.

Linear means I'm deeming the growth rate of NEW CONFIRMED CASES to be CONSTANT, about 31K per day at the moment.

Deaths are still ticking up, however, with 1,736 today. While it is true, as admitted by Dr. Birx, the U.S. is counting COVID-19 the cause whenever it is present (and patient dies in the hospital), it is also true, based upon the testimony of many, many healthcare workers, that THIS VIRUS IS A KILLER.

Unfortunately, I am not as optimistic as some have become ... mainly because, despite quite a bit of effort on my part, I don't yet feel confident about my projections. Honestly, I doubt that any of the modelers should feel that confident given the major gaps and inconsistencies of the data, even within the U.S., and there being NO ROAD MAP for the full course of a COVID-19 epidemic. (The patterns of the SARS and MERS pandemics have already been violated.)

In other words, I know enough about the data to understand the difficulties with modeling by those who are tasked to do so. Even with the best of intentions, there will remain a YUUUGE amount of uncertainty as the current April shutdown winds along.

The Answer

Ultimately, I think the President is going to have to say:

"WE'RE READY FOR THIS NOW.
WE'VE BUILT UP OUR SUPPLIES, CREATED THERAPIES and LEARNED HOW TO FIGHT THE SPREAD.
WE WILL CONTINUE TO PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE, BUT ...
AMERICA IS GETTING BACK TO WORK.
WE ARE IN WARTIME AND WE NEED OUR ECONOMY UP AND RUNNING."

United States COVID-19 Confirmed Cases

Date    	Daily	Total	Reduced
        	Growth	Cases	Exponential 
        	Actual	Actual	Model
3/14/2020		 2,717 	
3/15/2020	 761 	 3,478 	
3/16/2020	 1,167 	 4,645 	
3/17/2020	 1,717 	 6,362 	
3/18/2020	 1,407 	 7,769 	
3/19/2020	 5,911 	 13,680 	
3/20/2020	 5,605 	 19,285 	
3/21/2020	 7,462 	 26,747 	
3/22/2020	 8,478 	 35,225 35,225 
3/23/2020	 11,107  46,332 44,031 
3/24/2020	 8,816 	 55,148 55,039 
3/25/2020	 13,870  69,018 68,799 
3/26/2020	 16,635  85,653 85,999 
3/27/2020	 19,363 105,016 107,498 
3/28/2020	 19,448 124,464 134,373 
3/29/2020	 17,892 142,356 167,966 
3/30/2020	 22,003 164,359 209,957 
3/31/2020	 25,151 189,510 262,447 
4/1/2020	 27,005 216,515 328,058 
4/2/2020	 28,698 245,213 410,073 
4/3/2020	 32,740 277,953 512,591 
4/4/2020	 34,123 312,076 640,739 
4/5/2020	 25,544 337,620 800,924 
4/6/2020	 30,576 368,196 1,001,155 
4/7/2020	 31,916 400,112 1,251,443 
4/8/2020		 . 	1,564,304 
4/9/2020		 . 	1,955,380 
4/10/2020		 . 	2,444,225 
4/11/2020		 . 	3,055,282 
4/12/2020		 . 	3,819,102