The national numbers have bounced back up somewhat since Sunday’s drop but are still lower than they were a week ago. However, the difference is considerably less than it was. On Sunday, the week over week new case numbers were down by 5791 cases. Tuesday’s new case number was down only 2283 cases from the prior Tuesday. The numbers for new deaths were down by 582 Sunday to Sunday and 448 Tuesday to Tuesday. Here’s a graph.
The upshot is that the overall trends continue downward. Sunday’s drop was in part due to that overall trend, but probably made more extreme by Mother’s day. We still need to wait for this week’s cycle to finish before drawing firm conclusions though. New cases tend to peak around Friday while new deaths tend to peak around Thursday, so we really need to at least have a look at those numbers.
Similarly, cases in the US outside of New York and New Jersey are rising slowly and deaths are about flat. So the rising numbers in the rest of the country remain largely balanced by the declining numbers in New York and New Jersey.
Two states to watch are Texas and Illinois. Both have strongly increasing numbers and enough population and density to really impact the national numbers. They are the 2nd and 6th most populous states respectively. Texas’ aggressive stance on reopening despite its rising numbers is concerning.
Of the top 15 states by population, California (1), Texas(2), Illinois(6), North Carolina(9), Virginia(12), Washington(13), and Arizona(14) all have positive case growth trend lines over the last month. Washington’s trend line is only slightly positive and may be due to noise in the data however. Virginia is notable as its growth is concentrated in the area around Washington D.C. That growth is really part of a cluster that includes Washington D.C. and Maryland, both of which also have growing trendlines.
So, while the national numbers are decreasing, we’re a long way from out of the woods at this stage.
Here’s the projection through the 22nd. I want to point out that these projections are increasingly optimistic. It still looks like we’ll reach 100,000 deaths before the end of May, but it is looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll get to 2,000,000 cases. At this stage, I would say that 1,750,000 is a more likely number for cases at the end of the month.
| Day | Cases | Deaths |
| 5/12 | 1,369,574 | 82,376 |
| 5/13 | 1,400,144 | 83,817 |
| 5/14 | 1,421,894 | 85,259 |
| 5/15 | 1,443,644 | 86,701 |
| 5/16 | 1,465,394 | 88,143 |
| 5/17 | 1,487,143 | 89,585 |
| 5/18 | 1,508,893 | 91,027 |
| 5/19 | 1,530,643 | 92,469 |
| 5/20 | 1,552,393 | 93,911 |
| 5/21 | 1,574,143 | 95,353 |
| 5/22 | 1,595,892 | 96,795 |
Be safe and stay healthy!