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COVID-19

Continuing to Rise

Things continue largely as they were when I posted on 6/30. The nation as a whole has averaged about 43,000 cases per day over the last week.  Daily case numbers are growing rapidly with more than 50,000 cases on 7/1.  Total cases to date are growing exponentially at about 1.8% per day, though that rate is also increasing.  We are on track to reach 3 million cases within a week and 4 million before the end of July.  Daily deaths are currently steady in the nation overall, but should begin to rise in about another week or two as death lag cases by three to four weeks.  This is because it takes about that long for COVID-19 to progress from infection to fatality in those cases that do end in death.

The vast majority of states have rising daily case numbers with more than a dozen rising quickly.  The national numbers are being largely driven by Florida, Texas, and California, each of which has averaged over 6,000 cases per day over the last week.  However, 6 other states have over 1,000 cases per day, with Arizona leading that pack with over 3,000 per day.  These 9 highest states account for about 70% of the nation’s daily cases.  States that started rising earliest are beginning to see increasing deaths and this is made worse when hospital systems become stressed.  Florida, Texas, Arizona, South Carolina, and Tennessee all have rising numbers of daily deaths at this point.

In terms of growth rates, there are 7 states growing by more than 4% per day, Florida (5.5%0, Idaho (5.5%), Nevada (5.1%), Arizona, (4.9%), South Carolina (4.5%), Texas (4.3%), and Montana (4.1%).  A growth rate of 4% represents a doubling time of about 18 days. So all of these states will likely see their total cases double in that time period.  Florida’s doubling period is just under 13 days so it could quadruple its total cases this month.

Finally, here’s what the next 10 days may bring.  This projection comes with an extra dose of uncertainty due to the holiday weekend.  Holidays tend to create extra noise in the reported numbers as people aren’t following their usual schedules.  People who might otherwise be tested may postpone that due to the holiday, and people who would usually be recording infections and deaths may be taking some days off.

DayCasesDeaths
7/12,686,106128,059
7/22,734,456128,806
7/32,783,676129,553
7/42,833,782130,300
7/52,884,790131,046
7/62,936,717131,793
7/72,989,577132,540
7/83,043,390133,287
7/93,098,171134,033
7/103,153,938134,780
7/113,210,709135,527

Please be safe and do what you can to help others also be safe. 

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