COVID-19 June 03, 2020

Yesterday's death toll came in higher than the Gompertz model (again) and is clearly indicating a change in the slow decrease that we've seen for a month or more.  It's now flat if not slightly increasing.  The next few days should be when the highest numbers for the week roll in.  Unless they are much lower than expected, it's hard to see how this new trend is going to reverse. 

Meanwhile, the daily new infections are still bouncing at or just above 20,000 per day.  There is a slight indication of an increase in the rate in 7-day average, but not enough to call it a reversal of the trend.  For context, we are currently at daily rates that are comparable to what they were at the end of March.  On the other hand, the peak 7-day average was just a bit over 30,000 in early April.  So, while things have improved compared to the peak, the numbers are still high, and this is after the fairly austere policies that have been in place for months.

COVID-19 June 02, 2020

I've been waiting for/wondering when the death rate would start to flatten in concert with the number of new cases.  New cases have been nearly flat with only a very slow decrease for weeks.  I'm not quite ready to make the call, but the 7-day average of death rates appears to have departed from the Gompertz model curve.  As I've said repeatedly, you can't really look at daily numbers and even the 7-day average can be squirrely.  It could very well turn around in the next day or two, but if not...well, the long-awaited response in death rates has arrived.  Will the orange 7-day average in the daily plot continue to diverge from the red Gompertz curve? 

COVID-19 June 01, 2020

New month, same pandemic.  Nothing really new.  A few states continue to report record or near-record numbers of new infections.  Still, the overall numbers for the country as a whole are relatively flat, which indicates that while some are going up others are going down.  Deaths continue to slowly decrease.

COVID-19 May 31, 2020

There is nothing remarkable on this last day of May.  If I try really hard, I might find a hint of death rates failing to fall as fast as the model suggests that they should.  I'm not going to make this call just yet, but it's something I'm watching.  Since the number of new cases has been falling very slowly, I'd expect the deaths to mirror that with a lag.  Perhaps that's starting to happen.  Perhaps.  I'm also seeing an increasing number of states setting records for the largest number of new cases.  I'm not going to get too excited about that either.  Not yet.  As testing increases, we might expect a larger number of confirmed cases.  On the other hand, it probably also means that the spread of the virus isn't exactly waning.  So, there's a couple of things to watch.

to watch over the next week or two.

COVID-19 May 30, 2020

No surprises today.  Everything continues to follow established trends. That is all.

COVID-19 May 29, 2020

TGIFF.  :)  Numbers from yesterday are right in line with the longer-term trends.  The death rate is slowly decreasing, but we're still losing many hundreds of our neighbors every day to the virus.  Daily infections are decreasing on average as well even while a few states seem to have leveled off or may, possibly, be increasing. 

My data source still shows us under 100,000 total deaths.  I may have found some reasons why this data set is low compared to several others.  First, because it relies on the state data, it does take into account revisions to the data that could be days or weeks old.  For example, in my State of Colorado, there's a note that says, " On April 25, 2020, Colorado removed 29 deaths. All 29 removed deaths were probable deaths which were entered as duplicates."  Were these data removed from the other data sources or is their data locked in once it is entered?  Colorado is not the only state that has these corrections.  I like my data set because all of these modifications are fully documented. Secondly, and this may be the most important, some of the data sources are counting federal prisons as a separate category from the state data.  However, I have a feeling these data are being double-counted.  This is something that requires additional research.  It may also be that my data is missing these data points.  Either way, that could explain some of the difference.  Finally, and importantly, some states only count confirmed COVID deaths while other count confirmed and presumptive COVID deaths.  My data set follows whatever the states do.  Other data sets do not or may not. 

COVID-19 May 28, 2020

Last week it appeared that the 7-day average of the new case rate had started to slowly increase.  That was, apparently, just a little bump.  This week the 7-day average has leveled off again and even decreased a bit more.  As of today, the 7-day average has dropped to 20,852 and the best fit 7-day line has dropped below 20,000 cases/day for the first time in a long time. (The equation of the best-fit line is shown in the cumulative case plot.  The slope of the line is equivalent to the case rate and is 19,945.  Algebra.  Again.).  These trends are despite an increase in testing and loosening of restrictions.  Will it last?  I'm not a betting man, but if I was, I know where I'd put my money.

The death rates continue their downward trend, at least when looking at the 7-day average.  The usual peaks and valleys in the daily numbers are still there. Yesterday was an "up" after three days of "down".