Hardy ThoughtsThe national numbers have been mostly steady for a couple of weeks now. However, the nation is not homogeneous. Some states are doing well, others are doing very poorly. Overall, these have balanced out over the last week. To get a clearer picture of this, I’m going to divide the country into the states with […]
Yesterday I presented a list of 6 states I thought were most worrisome regarding COVID infections. Today, the Washington Post pointed out that 14 states and Puerto Rico have seen their highest 7 day averages ever. All of the states I listed are on the Post’s list, but I want to take a minute to […]
National Overview The national number continue to rise slowly. Before I’m ready to pronounce that we’re definitely in a rising phase, there are a couple of caveats to consider. First, Mondays have typically been low points in the cycle for new cases, Sundays have been the low point for death. A strong low in todays […]
Analysis It’s not entirely clear yet, but I think we’re beginning to see the national case numbers rise. Here’s a graph to help me explain why. I’ve added lines indicating the change in the weekly peaks and valleys. As you can see, the peaks have gotten lower each week since late April. The valleys have […]
The national numbers are still in a space where they can be read in different ways. The clearest signal comes from the data on deaths. At least until a week ago, deaths were declining. Since that time they seem to have flattened. It remains to be seen whether that flattening will hold. However, given that […]
Sometime today or tomorrow, depending on your choice of tracker, we will cross the threshold of 100,000 reported deaths from COVID-19. Of course we passed 100,000 actual deaths some weeks ago. Excess mortality estimates put actual deaths 30-50% higher than reported deaths. That would have put us at 100,000 deaths sometime in the first week […]
Some US states began reopening before the beginning of May and the rest have followed suit since then. We’ve been waiting to see the results of the reopening, and the numbers have finally stabilized enough to show them. The expectation was that reopening would result in more cases than remaining closed, and this is supported […]
We’re still in the doldrums waiting for a clear sign on the effect of reopening. This at least means that reopenings have not caused immediate surges. However, there are some indications of rising numbers, though they aren’t yet conclusive in general. Overall, it’s too soon to tell. There are a few clear cases. Texas started […]
Vaccines We’re all waiting anxiously for a vaccine, and vaccine development is progressing with unprecedented speed. There are a number of promising trials at various stages. The Trump administration has set a goal of having widespread vaccination by the end of the year. Despite all this, it’s important to remember that meeting such a goal […]
As far as the numbers go, we’ve been waiting to see whether Sundays’ very low numbers represent a real improvement or just noise, and we’ve been waiting for the first signs of reopening to appear. We have some preliminary answers on both counts. **Sunday’s Numbers** On Sunday, May 10, both the new case and new […]