I remember when people on Twitter had constant reminders that today was, indeed, only Wednesday, or whatever day it happened to be. Time moved that slowly.
Time has sped up again. It has been two weeks since my last Covid-19 post, and that’s because I didn’t feel there was much new to say. There aren’t new developments. People are acting the way you’d expect them to act, the numbers are continuing on their trend lines.
The question is, will it be good enough? Did we win? Will there be a second wave soon as we open things up?
So far, the news is mostly good. But not great. Let’s see the numbers.
The Numbers
New positive tests by region:
Date
WEST
MIDWEST
SOUTH
NE ex-NY
NY
Mar 19-Mar 25
5744
6293
7933
8354
28429
Mar 26-Apr 1
15684
20337
24224
34391
52901
Apr 2-8
19455
31148
39618
56772
65604
Apr 9-15
16291
29267
35570
61921
64463
Apr 16-22
20065
34130
33932
64669
43437
Apr 23-29
21873
42343
33773
62189
42475
Apr 30-May 6
23424
49205
37880
51693
24287
May 7-May 13
22615
43256
37591
40209
16683
May 14-May 20
22913
42762
40343
39273
13709
May 21-May 27
24104
39418
42977
28336
10595
Deaths by region:
WEST
MIDWEST
SOUTH
NE ex-NY
NY
Mar 19-Mar 25
116
67
111
84
203
Mar 26-Apr 1
347
477
502
454
1340
Apr 2-8
639
1335
1215
1783
3939
Apr 9-15
895
2106
1472
3261
5345
Apr 16-22
1008
2369
1730
5183
3994
Apr 23-29
1135
2500
1684
4285
2810
Apr 30-May 6
991
2413
1737
5349
2007
May 7-May 13
1044
2344
1679
4014
~1500
May 14-May 20
1091
2071
1448
3712
998
May 21-May 27
823
1694
1276
2430
721
Positive test rates:
Date
USA tests
Positive %
NY tests
Positive %
Mar 19-Mar 25
347,577
16.2%
88,882
32.0%
Mar 26-Apr 1
728,474
20.2%
117,401
45.1%
Apr 2-8
1,064,225
19.8%
144,273
45.5%
Apr 9-15
1,026,741
20.4%
160,859
40.1%
Apr 16-22
1,235,393
16.1%
143,970
30.2%
Apr 23-29
1,552,560
13.0%
202,499
21.0%
Apr 30-May 6
1,759,548
10.6%
183,446
13.2%
May 7-May 13
2,153,748
7.5%
202,980
8.2%
May 14-May 20
2,643,333
6.0%
246,929
5.6%
May 21-May 27
2,584,265
5.7%
305,708
3.5%
New York continues to improve. Some time in this past week, I believe New York became a safer than average place in terms of forward looking infection risk, with yesterday’s positive rate down to 2.7%, and my best guess for today being only 5,000 infections statewide. That’s down 96% from my estimate of the peak infection rate.
The rest of the Northeast also is seeing clear improvement.
Alas, the rest of the nation is looking more mixed. The death rates continue to improve, but that only tells us that things were good weeks ago. The third week of May is clearly an improvement on test results across regions, as the increase in tests run makes up for the positive counts.
The fourth week is troubling. With the reopening well underway, we see the West and South moving backwards, while the Midwest is on the edge. With activity only increasing, and with the added danger of civil unrest, it seems plausible that three of our four major regions are headed in the wrong direction.
This could easily be a blip. The changes are not that big. It also might not be a blip.
Our testing outside of New York is also going in the wrong direction. Hopefully this is due to the disruption of Memorial Day weekend, and we’ll continue to see improvements going forward.
Narratives of a sudden huge spike were never on the table. People aren’t radically adjusting their behaviors all at once and returning to how things were before. People are slowly adopting to a new normal. If that new normal is insufficient to contain Covid-19, we’ll know it because we see a slow uptick a week after the adjustments get too aggressive.
There was another adjustment made on Memorial Day. The results of that should be visible in a few days time. A lot of the additional activity is outdoors, which is relatively safe. But there was also almost certainly a rise in social gatherings indoors as well, and that is the most unsafe thing out there right now.
I hope the dumb reopening succeeds and we can avoid a second wave and the economy can begin to recover without a lot more people first having to die. Certainly things up until this recent blip are going about as well as one might reasonably have hoped.
I’ve split off my more detailed current thoughts into another draft that I hope to have ready in a day or two.
Covid-19 5/29: Dumb Reopening
Link post
Previous Editions: Covid 5/14: Limbo Under, Covid-19 5/7: Fighting Limbo, Covid-19 4/30: Stuck in Limbo, My Covid-19 Thinking: 4⁄23 pre-Cuomo Data
I remember when people on Twitter had constant reminders that today was, indeed, only Wednesday, or whatever day it happened to be. Time moved that slowly.
Time has sped up again. It has been two weeks since my last Covid-19 post, and that’s because I didn’t feel there was much new to say. There aren’t new developments. People are acting the way you’d expect them to act, the numbers are continuing on their trend lines.
The question is, will it be good enough? Did we win? Will there be a second wave soon as we open things up?
So far, the news is mostly good. But not great. Let’s see the numbers.
The Numbers
New positive tests by region:
Deaths by region:
Positive test rates:
New York continues to improve. Some time in this past week, I believe New York became a safer than average place in terms of forward looking infection risk, with yesterday’s positive rate down to 2.7%, and my best guess for today being only 5,000 infections statewide. That’s down 96% from my estimate of the peak infection rate.
The rest of the Northeast also is seeing clear improvement.
Alas, the rest of the nation is looking more mixed. The death rates continue to improve, but that only tells us that things were good weeks ago. The third week of May is clearly an improvement on test results across regions, as the increase in tests run makes up for the positive counts.
The fourth week is troubling. With the reopening well underway, we see the West and South moving backwards, while the Midwest is on the edge. With activity only increasing, and with the added danger of civil unrest, it seems plausible that three of our four major regions are headed in the wrong direction.
This could easily be a blip. The changes are not that big. It also might not be a blip.
Our testing outside of New York is also going in the wrong direction. Hopefully this is due to the disruption of Memorial Day weekend, and we’ll continue to see improvements going forward.
Narratives of a sudden huge spike were never on the table. People aren’t radically adjusting their behaviors all at once and returning to how things were before. People are slowly adopting to a new normal. If that new normal is insufficient to contain Covid-19, we’ll know it because we see a slow uptick a week after the adjustments get too aggressive.
There was another adjustment made on Memorial Day. The results of that should be visible in a few days time. A lot of the additional activity is outdoors, which is relatively safe. But there was also almost certainly a rise in social gatherings indoors as well, and that is the most unsafe thing out there right now.
I hope the dumb reopening succeeds and we can avoid a second wave and the economy can begin to recover without a lot more people first having to die. Certainly things up until this recent blip are going about as well as one might reasonably have hoped.
I’ve split off my more detailed current thoughts into another draft that I hope to have ready in a day or two.