COVID-19 March 24, 2020

More and more cities, counties, and states are (finally) starting to take action. I find it incredibly frustrating that it took so long. All data, for weeks, has pointed precisely to the current situation with incredible accuracy in the growth rate of infections. We will surely hit 100,000 on the 26th, as predicted weeks ago, for example. Boulder, CO where my workplace is, has now issued Stay at Home Orders. Denver has done the same. My city of residence (Longmont) has not and neither has the State of Colorado as a whole.

Some of the individual numbers coming in from the states are starting to look a little wonky. I suspect it's because of changes in testing protocol more than anything else, but I can't be sure. In Colorado, tests are now only being done for those admitted to the hospital. I know of several cases in my community that were likely COVID-19, but were not tested. Those cases, and surely the majority of others, are not making it into the daily roundup provided by the State Health Departments. One example of inconsistency is in Illinois. The number of new cases over the last number of days was: 134,163,174,296, and 230. There is no reason for yesterday's number to fall. The inconsistent measures taken in Illinois are too recent for them to have an effect. In California, the series of numbers for a longer number of days were 80, 126, 77, 331, 218, 268, and 265. Again, it's hard to see how this is a realistic reflection of the actual situation. The effect on the slope of yesterday's particularly odd tally is notable in the second figure below. Nevertheless, in aggregate across all 50 states, the noise in the individual numbers is swamped by the totals, which continue upward along the exponential curve.

I would expect the increased social distancing measures taken early on in some cities and states to start to show towards the middle to end of next week. Note that the total number of cases will be 1 million by April 3. Perhaps that date can get pushed out slightly, but it seems almost certain that we will cross that threshold. The measures currently in place are unlikely to reverse the trend, only to slow it; the curve is likely to start flattening a bit sometime next week. As I posted the other day, however, it will be hard to detangle what is real flattening and what is due to changes in testing protocol.