The big question that I have for Americans arguing for a return to "normal" in the light of how we& #39;re all in the midst of a global pandemic is what is the rate of new cases of COVID-19 that we want to define as normal? What do we say is an "acceptable" level of misery and death?

I& #39;m willing to accept that CDC reported numbers show that there was a time in April that was a "peak"; that nationwide we reached a highest (so far) number of new cases and that we& #39;ve declined from that. But where do we want to decline to before we claim it& #39;s safe?

The White House first took COVID-19 seriously on March 16; that& #39;s when it finally said that social distancing should start. That seems like a valid time to calibrate what it, at least, would think of as safe or acceptable or whatever.

Back then the multi-daily average of new cases nationwide was (as far as the CDC knows) less than 1,000 cases a day. Right now the multi-daily average of new cases nationwide is more than 25,000 cases a day. So we& #39;re 25x higher than the rate at which the government spoke up.

Looking at things with a 14 day average (to smooth out the two really poor-quality data days of April 4 and 5) here is when the White House said something about social distancing. That was when the White House said anything, and our current rates are massively above that.

If _that_ was the rate in which an alarm was finally raised, then it would logically make sense we would need to get back to that rate before the alarm would be lifted.

I& #39;ll put a pin in this thread and continue it when we get back down to that rate at a nationwide level.