It's been almost two weeks since I last posted. The Labor Day holiday is primarily responsible for the silence. First, the numbers coming in were rather skewed. It was clear that testing, labs, and reporting were also respecting the holiday. Second, I wanted to wait a week so that the holiday was in the rear view mirror and it became possible to better compare week over week numbers.
Daily cases did indeed drop most of last week and have since recovered this week. Not only have they recovered, but they are starting to rise above the numbers from two weeks ago. I suspect that new cases are going to at least level off in the next week, and I would not be surprised if they start to rise again. People are getting weary of quarantine. Cell phone tracking indicates that people are going out and interacting more and more. Couple that to the holiday and the return to school and the ingredients are in place for another rise. The death rate is also starting to tick up again and is now on par with the numbers prior to the holiday. It would not be surprising to see that trend also continue.
Next week will be key to seeing how holiday interactions and the return to school are impacting the numbers. I'm not optimistic.
