COVID-19 June 24, 2020

I'm back!  Did you miss me?  The data and trends have changed rather substantially since I went on hiatus a little over a week ago.  I won't be able to discuss everything in this post.  Here are some key points that I think most everyone already knows:

1) Infection rates are going back up.  Rapidly. Almost exponentially. I've added the linear best-fit line to the plot of 7-day average of cumulative cases.  You'll note that that line is steeper than the trend in the earlier data, which is to say that the rate of new cases is growing at more than a linear rate.

2) The 7-day average of new cases is very near the peak value that was reached in early April.  All the prior individual and societal sacrifices up to now have been nearly erased, at least in an average, national sense.

3) Many/most states are or have recently switched to counting only verified infections rather than presumptive cases.  Even with this book cooking, the infection rates are going up.  They'd be a lot higher using the prior counting methods.  I try to avoid conspiratorial thinking, but Occam's Razor suggests that the change in accounting is to make the numbers look better than they actually are.  I'm open to considering more parsimonious explanations.

4) Death rates may be showing an increase, but it is not yet obvious.  There should be a lag between infection rates and death rates so this is not entirely surprising.  Give it another week or two.

I'll try to elaborate on these and other points going forward.  I should be able to post almost daily as before, but there may be periods where I miss a day or two due to other pressing obligations.  Statistically, you are more likely to cross paths with an infected person than at any other time in the past. Wear a mask to protect others.  Don't get complacent.