Posted on 04/06/2020 9:00:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
To slow the exponential growth of coronavirus, and lessen the burden on hospitals and healthcare workers, local and state officials have issued sweeping mandates closing non-essential businesses and schools and ordering residents to stay at home. But have these blunt measures started to "flatten the curve" of the virus' spread?
Data from recent days, as seen in the charts below, point to encouraging results. We review daily deaths reported in California, New York, and the U.S. as a whole. While case numbers are regularly reported and updated, the number of cases is fraught with bias due to testing constraints and local policies. For example, a state may have fewer cases simply because they have been more restrictive in who gets a test. Deaths are a more reliable indicator of the spread and intensity of the pandemic.
The charts below are plotted on a logarithmic scale. Each step on the vertical axis represents a ten-fold increase in either cases or deaths (depending on the chart). When there is exponential growth (as in the case of virus spread), a logarithmic scale shows more clearly the deviations from exponential growth.
California
California was the first state to issue a state-wide stay at home order (on March 19th) and the data are starting to show the state has benefited: cases and deaths both look to be flattening. Within the last week, the daily growth rate has come down to essentially zero, which should make the hospital caseload more manageable.
New York
In contrast, New York did not issue a state-wide mandate until March 22, even though the state had been named an epicenter long before then. The caseload chart gives New York hope that it will soon see a flattening, but deaths are still rising much more steeply than in California.
United States
For the U.S. as a whole, we still are seeing growth in the epidemic. Again, it is most important to watch the number of deaths, but cases give a sense of the current magnitude.
Below we break out trends in six states. The graphs map days since deaths in each state exceed five, which allows us to compare trends by states.
You can see states like Florida (which was the most recent state to implement a state-wide stay at home order), are having a bit more trouble in caseloads compared to California. While New York is well above other states in terms of magnitude, states that implemented stay-at-home mandates early are beginning to see a deviation from the growth rate (the curve of the graph) compared to those states that did not.
Ultimately, the public health goal is to keep the number of hospitalizations manageable. To that end, we want to flatten not only the case curve but more importantly the hospitalization curve because the most severe cases require hospitalization and intensive healthcare resources. Deaths are closely tied to hospitalizations and thus reflect resource use and potential capacity constraints. We'd expect more deaths to occur where there is unconstrained spread of the virus because the capacity of the local healthcare systems will not be able to keep up.
However, it is important to remember that deaths are a lagging indicator (by about two or three weeks) of oncoming demand on hospital resources because of the average time from exposure to the onset of severe symptoms. We are starting to see evidence that these stay-at-home measures are working, and the next couple weeks will be telling.
Why is California’s curve flattening out...and decreasing?
This is terrible news for the Democrats and the MSM.
Bookmarked!
okay lets get back to being “normal” and get this party started.
Possibly because they shut down the larger population areas earlier than most of the country, particularly in the Bay Area. From having lived there for 40 years until late 2018, there is now a good portion of the population, especially in Silicon Valley, who very likely were wearing masks even before it was announced COVID-19 was in the state. This was starting to become more common during the flu seasons for the overseas transplants.
Bulk
reports say the commifornia CCP virus peak is 2 weeks behind the rest of the country. Flatting already?
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I LOVE cats. I'm too allergic to own them but I still LOVE'EM!
My brother-in-law calls them "pillows that poop."
Time to start implementing soft re-openings in about a week or week and half from now in many parts of the United States and Canada, with certain guidelines of course (barbers and hairdressers wear masks and gloves, etc).
It might be regional. The Bay Area/Silicon Valley may have peaked, but I think the L.A. area hasn’t.
Good stuff.
It would be interesting to see the states that haven’t done stay at home orders added.
I realize that potentially we all have a ways to go before things get better - but one thing I haven’t seen is CV-19 ripping thru the homeless population in cities like LA, SF and Seattle.
About three or four weeks ago, they talked about it on Tucker Carlson’s show.
It’s definitely possible that it could still happen - but from everything I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Keep our fingers crossed!
my opinion. most likely because calif has better reference testing labs across the state than the rest. their numbers are more trustworthy.
It really is. They always overdo the fear which is great for us. I’m still waiting for this doomsday scenario they promised us in Florida. See I believe we had it already in November through January. There was a lot of this type of sickness going around at that time. Which is why you don’t see as much as expected in Florida.
Cali had it earlier, CDC models don’t add up
Wow Wouldn’t it be ironic if shutting everything down earlier WAS the smartest move?
That would mean that states that didn’t may still be getting hit hard, but just later.
I pray not
I pray it decreases everywhere.
Just want all off this to end
You’re correct. We had it in the first quarter; I had it in the middle of February. Everyone chalked it up to being a really bad flu. One of my friends put it best “...but unlike any flu I’ve had before.” That’s why the curve is flattening earlier than expected and why California’s numbers have not skyrocketed, and IMO they’re not going to. We already have substantial herd immunity
The Emperor’s New Plague is special in that only the elite can see the corpses.
Any day now, the panickers are expecting to see those bodies piled up in the streets. Those crematorium smokestacks running day and night are just around the corner. Then all those people who went surfing or attended church will be sorry for all their scoffing.
But now...
Some of the panickers are beginning to wonder if they just aren't special. They look at one another from the corner of their eye and wonder if those around them are elite enough to see the carnage.
Soon, the CDC, WHO, and Media may begin to lose even their ardent Freeper converts. At that point the Wuhan Flu will follow the great pumpkin of the stage.
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