We are literally choking on Covid data, without being able to digest and get insights from it. A thread

1. When a news organiation says "25000 New Cases" in big, alarming red letters, what does it mean?

2. A "new case" is a positive Covid rtPCR test, that was resulted and reported today before 5pm (in some states at least).

3. What this means is that , a patient was infected about 2-3 weeks ago with Covid, developed symptoms around 10-14 days ago, presented to the ER or clinic roughly 1 week ago, when the test was ordered, sent, and with our current cycle time of 4-5 days, recorded as a new case

4. So, the best data we have, looking at "reported new cases" on a daily basis, is peeking at what happened 2-3 weeks ago.

5. What changed since then? Almost nationwide social distancing. If we assume that people were staying home, not speaking in close proximity for more than 1-2 minutes, and washing their hands and not touching faces, CURRENT NEW INFECTIONS will be very low.

6. But, those numbers will start to show up in our "NEW CASES" in 2-3 weeks.

7. So, because it looks like the "reported daily new cases" is already flattening, despite us clearing our backlogs (which SHOULD make it look like the infections are INCREASING), our case numbers are flattening

8. In 2-3 weeks, we will see that the new case numbers will have come down significantly, which reflects what is happening NOW, not what will happen then

9. BTW, while we are on nationwide lockdown (if people are following social distancing), there is no FREAKING WAY new cases will increase exponentially.

SARS-COV2 doesnt magically get into your respiratory tracts like cosmic rays

10. Don't panic, do whatever you're doing, and hope that when the actual new infections do come down, we don't repeat the mistakes of last time.

Widespread, rapid testing. Isolation and tracing. Quarantine. Widespread frontline medication and PPE availability.

11. We will be back from this faster than most pessimists imagine