The curve flattens?

50 states' health departments as collected by Wikipedia, with Wiki's accuracy confirmed by me | 3-15-20 | Dangus

[dangus]

When plotted on a logarithmic graph, the graph of the number of cases of an epidemic usually reaches a certain angle, and then eventually begins to flatten out. That brings a HUGE sigh of relief to those in charge of managing an outbreak, and begins when the PERCENT increase in the number of cases declines. You'll very likely continue to have more and more new cases for a while, and you'll certainly have more and more total cases.

So, the $100 trillion question is: Is the curve flattening? Through March 8, the number of coronavirus cases in the United States increased an average of well over 40% per day. On March 9, however, there were scarcely more NEW coronavirus cases than on March 8... but on March 10, the number popped again, with 45% more cases, or almost double the number of new cases (289 from 148). But then, the number of new cases dropped again on March 11 (271). That was only 29% more cases than the day before.

March 12 and March 13 saw higher growth rates again (33% and 35%). But on March 14, the growth rate slowed to 30%. And yesterday, the growth rate dropped again, to just 23%.

Now, I should note that I'm using Wikipedia's collation of the 50 states' departments of health. This differs from Johns Hopkins U.'s ARCGIS page. But I've fact-checked Wikipedia's citations and compared their count to previous days, so I know that even if Wikipedia counts new cases more slowly, I'm comparing apples to apples when I report that the growth rate has gone down... although it seems highly possible that the growth rate could end up being recorded in Wikipedia as slightly higher, and perhaps high enough that we don't quite manage fewer cases than the previous date.

I should also note that data like this is noisy, meaning it takes some time to be sure whether a decrease in the growth rate is going to be a part of a continuing trend. And changes in the data may not reflect real changes. For instance, a surge in testing could cause a surge in the number of cases identified even after the true growth rate has slowed.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE BATTLE IS OVER BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. This is not about possibly only getting 5,000 or 6,000 cases... this is about whether we get hundreds of thousands of cases or tens of millions.

Now, I've seen from several people on Facebook a comparison on the spread of Coronavirus in the U.S. to the spread in Italy. We've gotten to 3,500 cases faster than Italy! Well, we're five times the size of Italy, so that shouldn't be surprising. But what makes the case in Italy so shocking is that 7% of the people who get coronavirus die of it. So far in the U.S., that's only about 1%, and much lower still if you don't include the Seattle cluster. So there's probably something deeply wrong with the Italian system that isn't showing up in ours.

Do everything you're supposed to: Stay out of crowds... obey the authorities (for now) (unless you can receive the Eucharist on the down-low somehow :-) )... don't go out clubbing... Make sure the older people you have are well provisioned... help the homeless to some clean food... But please, don't panic.

[TChad]

Bigger leap today than yesterday. Not good.

[foreverfree]

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