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So let’s talk coronavirus numbers for a minute. I’ll try not to be too boring.
If you look at the John Hopkins site (or others), the number of new coronavirus cases appears to be declining, particularly over the past few days, where new cases have dropped from ~28,000 on May 7th to ~18,000 yesterday. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
But what does that mean? It most emphatically does not mean that 18,000 people were infected yesterday. Those 18,000 “new” cases aren’t, in fact, new.
We know it can take 2-14 days to show symptoms. And assuming (!) you get a test the same day you show symptoms, it can take 0-14 days to get your test results. And it can take another 1-2 weeks for those numbers to be reported to the county, state, and then the media.
So those “new” cases may in fact represent infections from up to six weeks ago… in other words, the end of March/beginning of April. And they show that at that time, the lockdown was working.
Think about that. Easter Sunday was exactly a month ago, and it’s likely we haven’t even started to see the infection spike from people who held church services in defiance of the lockdown.
But since then, people have become more lax, and states have started opening up. And it shows on social distancing scorecards. https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard
There are two main takeaways here.
1. It was working. By early April, the lockdown was bringing down numbers. Yay.
2. It will be 4-6 weeks before we *begin* to see the impacts of “Re-opening America™”.
1. It was working. By early April, the lockdown was bringing down numbers. Yay.
2. It will be 4-6 weeks before we *begin* to see the impacts of “Re-opening America™”.
Infections are very likely rising rapidly right now, but we won’t know how bad it is *today* until the end of June. We're operating in the dark, essentially.
Bottom line: your risk is likely higher - maybe much higher - now than it was at the end of March.
Don't let the fact that people are "going about their business" fool you. It's more dangerous now than ever. We just won't know for weeks how much more.
So stay home.
/fin
Don't let the fact that people are "going about their business" fool you. It's more dangerous now than ever. We just won't know for weeks how much more.
So stay home.
/fin
