If you look at the time series for King County (Seattle area), it shows a spike peaking on March 9 with the upward trend beginning sometime around Feb 28 - Mar 2.
I think the pattern of a spike and then flattening & maybe decline (which has happened at different times in different regions) reflects a drop in the number of influenza cases, as people’s anti-covid precautions also prevent flu transmission. So the baseline estimate of how many new fevers there would be if there wasn’t a coronavirus pandemic doesn’t actually represent the number of non-covid fevers, because there are fewer non-covid fevers than there would’ve been without this pandemic.
OK, maybe it does show a hot spot in Seattle. (though I’m not convinced)
But what about Florida? It seems to me that when you predict a million coronavirus cases, your method is predicting that half of them are in Florida. So you really have to look closely at the state. Surely the decline starting on March 19 does not represent the very minimal social distancing imposed on March 17.
If you look at the time series for King County (Seattle area), it shows a spike peaking on March 9 with the upward trend beginning sometime around Feb 28 - Mar 2.
I think the pattern of a spike and then flattening & maybe decline (which has happened at different times in different regions) reflects a drop in the number of influenza cases, as people’s anti-covid precautions also prevent flu transmission. So the baseline estimate of how many new fevers there would be if there wasn’t a coronavirus pandemic doesn’t actually represent the number of non-covid fevers, because there are fewer non-covid fevers than there would’ve been without this pandemic.
Elizabeth’s comment also describes this.
OK, maybe it does show a hot spot in Seattle. (though I’m not convinced)
But what about Florida? It seems to me that when you predict a million coronavirus cases, your method is predicting that half of them are in Florida. So you really have to look closely at the state. Surely the decline starting on March 19 does not represent the very minimal social distancing imposed on March 17.