COVID-19 July 24, 2020

Despite the news headlines, the national 7-day average infection rate has slowed and nearly leveled off.  That's an average across the country.  That doesn't mean there aren't states where cases are continuing to grow rapidly.  There are! But, on average things have stabilized.  It also doesn't mean it will stay this way. I doubt it will.  I suspect the new and upcoming states will start to take over and we will see the curve tick up again. 

The death rates are continuing to grow, as expected.  It is interesting to compare the current growth rate of deaths to that of the initial growth back in March.  It's quite clear that the deaths are growing more slowly now.  Why?  There are lots of possibilities.  Better treatments? Certainly.  Different demographics of the afflicted? Seems likely.  Mutation or dominance of a less aggressive virus? No strong evidence for this, but still possible. Change in how deaths are counted or attributed to COVID-19? To some degree, but it probably isn't a huge factor.  Other possibilities? Almost certainly.

 

COVID-19 July 23, 2020

The 7-day average of new infections is still holding relatively steady.  Yesterday it crept up a bit, but it was also down a bit two days prior.  Deaths, on the other hand, continue upward.  There is some indication that the growth in death rates is starting to accelerate.  For example, the 7-day death rate last week was increasing at less than 2% per day while it is now over 4%.  Whether this is the start of exponential growth remains to be seen.

COVID-19 July 22, 2020

The number of new infections, on average, continued to hold steady yesterday.  Will this hold? The maximum numbers for the week should start to roll in over the next few days.  If those numbers stay at or below the values from the week before then the current plateau becomes increasingly statistically significant.  For now, the total number of new infections has leveled off at about 65,000 per day. 

It is also important to remember that the national, average numbers are just that.  Early on (March and April) the numbers were dominated by the New York metro area.  Now the numbers are dominated by California, Florida, and Texas.  The fact that the national average has leveled off, at least temporarily, doesn't mean that things aren't going quickly up or down at the state or local level.  Some states with smaller populations can get lost in the mix.  As an example, Louisiana and Arizona have per capita infection numbers that are larger than California, Florida, and Texas.  Arizona seems to have leveled off in terms of new infections, but Louisiana has not.  Kansas--a low population state--still has growing infections. 

The average death rate is continuing its upward trend.  It is still more linear than exponential.  When the first wave hit the peak in deaths occurred about three weeks after the peak in infections.  If that behavior holds, we still have at least two weeks of increasing deaths until peak.  But, past performance is no guarantee of future success. 

COVID-19 July 21, 2020

The 7-day average of new infections has made a move downward.  This is the first time since June 6 that rates have decreased.  For this reason, I have removed the best fit exponential curve.  If this holds, the curve has once again flattened, but this time we've plateaued at over 65,000 cases/day.  We were at about 20,000/day in early June and had a peak of about 31,000 back in early April.  Two steps forward, ten steps back.  Thank you covidiots!

Deaths are continuing to climb.  This should continue for at least another week or three due to the lag between infections and death.

 

COVID-19 July 20, 2020

As I reported yesterday, the exponential rate for new cases was decreasing.  That trend continues with the latest data coming in with a doubling rate now just under 20 days.  Cases are still going up and deaths are still going up.  The only silver lining is that things are climbing a little more slowly than they could. More and more state governors are backtracking, which should help going forward.  Did they learn their lesson?  Probably not.  Once (or if) numbers drop back down, you can't just re-open without additional well coordinated measures.  Duh.

COVID-19 July 19, 2020

The rate of exponential growth of new daily infections is slowing.  It is still exponential, but the rate of exponential growth has been getting smaller based on the 7-day average.  There is no guarantee that this will continue, but that's the trend for now.  The doubling rate for new infections is 19.4 days.  If things stay as they are (they aren't, things are slowing), that would mean that we would have over 130,000 new cases each day in about 19 days from now. 

Deaths continue to increase, on average, but I'm not seeing an exponential growth. That's good and hopefully that will hold.  However, with the still exponentially growing number of cases it seems likely that the death rate will start to pick up. 

COVID-19 July 18, 2020

I ran out of steam yesterday and didn't post the daily update.  You didn't miss much.  Here are the numbers as of yesterday.  Still going up, but note the 7-day average has fallen slightly below the best fit exponential curve of the daily rate of infections.   This is a good thing and may be an indication that the curve is starting to flatten just a bit.  Perhaps the resurgence of mask wearing and re-tightening of some restrictions is starting to show?  More needs to be done.