We've passed through the minimum for the week, and the trends are starting to look more worrisome. Let's start with the Daily New Cases. Prior to the last week, the maximums and minimums had slowly but steadily been decreasing. As a result, the number of new cases decreased, on average from about 30,000 per day on April 23 to about 23,000 per day on May 14. I had noted that this past week's maximum was about the same as the prior week and was skeptical that the upcoming minimum would be low enough to compensate. Well, the results are in, and not only was the minimum not low enough, but it was higher than last week's minimum. The trend is now broken and the 7-day average is back on the uptick. Higher numbers are very likely to come in for the rest of the week if they follow the weekly cycle. This will drive the 7-day trend even higher. I suspect this is just the beginning of what's to come.
Turning to the Daily Death statistics, it looks like the 7-day trend is heading toward a more steady number and that the slow decrease is also approaching an end, but that signal is less robust than for the Daily New Cases. Since the number of deaths should be a function of the total number of cases, it makes sense that the death statistics should start to reflect the infection statistics. Unfortunately, the relationship between these two data isn't as tight as it should be, because the availability of testing has an impact on the number of cases that are reported.
