THREAD: We're not out of the woods in U.S. on #covid. While there are signs of slowing in some areas, and nationally we may have hit a plateau, we're still recording more than 30K infections a day. The trip down the epidemic curve will be far more gradually than the trip up. 1/n

Some models like closely watched IHME predict a symmetric epidemic curve, where slope of decline is proportional to slope of the rise. That was mostly the case in China, but not in Italy. And it won't be the case in U.S. Our decline will be far more gradual, similar to Italy. 2/n

Our mitigation steps were not as stringent as China's, they were leakier, and our epidemic was far more pervasive across our country. We're likely to see a much slower decline in new cases spread across weeks not days. While there are signs of U.S. improvement, it'll be slow. 3/n

We all want this to be over. And things are mostly trending in right direction. But we're still very much in the thick of the epidemic. What we do over next few weeks will determine if we can get this wave more firmly behind us, or whether covid remains a combustible threat. 4/n