I am looking at the countrywide new cases per day chart and it’s just amazing. What a steep drop off after Jan 20th !
New leader new counting techniques.
The incubation period of Covid-19 is 2 to 14 days, and the average is 5 days.
The time to death in a fatal case is 2 to 6 weeks after infection.
Thus, new case and death data reflect the Covid-19 transmission environment of the past. The downward trend of new cases has been going on for a week, meaning that decreased transmission has been going on since three weeks ago.
One thing I’ve noticed lately is a drop in the number of people pulling their masks down below their noses. The decrease of people wearing masks so incorrectly alone accounts for the drop in new cases.
There have not been enough people vaccinated yet to have any effect of herd immunity.
In other words, the drop in new cases has nothing to do with the president. The cases are counted in the same way—the way CDC, WHO, and other health agencies count disease cases is not a function of whichever politicians hold office. I don’t think many politicians have knowledge of epidemiology.
The 7-day moving average for new cases peaked January 7th at 254,862. It’s been steadily downhill ever since. It’s shown the same pattern of rise and fall as the previous two waves did.
A lot of that has to do with geography. The US is large enough that different outbreaks in different areas drive the national numbers in different directions. You get a much clearer picture if you look at things on a state-by-state basis.