(thread)

Shit, folks.

Almost to a one, states that early-reopened are showing a trend reversal on new COVID cases.

It's... (predictably) really not good.

Arizona started letting businesses open to customers on May 8, with restaurants opening May 11. They'd just started to plateau, but now new cases are accelerating again.

Arkansas started with gyms on May 4, salons/barbers/tattoo shops May 6th, and restaurants on May 11th. They'd started to plateau, but started spiking again soon after re-opening started.

Colorado hasn't re-opened quite as aggressively (personal care/retail with aggressive distancing 5/1, offices at 50% on 5/4), but their numbers had been dropping and now that trend seems to be in the process of reversing.

Florida's on the uptick after allowing restaurants to open 5/4, even though they were restricted to 25% capacity.

Idaho opened churches, day-care centers, and stores on 5/1. It's started to trend upwards, too.

Illinois had just started to see a slow-down and decrease in case numbers. With even very modest reopening, though, they're back to a plateau.

Indiana, which had begun to trend downwards, allowed nonessential businesses and shopping malls to re-open on 5/4 and restaurants/personal care on 5/11 and is also seeing an uptick.

Iowa, which had started a pretty promising decline started reopening most counties in late April.

Their numbers have stopped dropping and are starting to rise.

Kentucky was finally starting to see what looked like promising drop in cases.

It started a modest reopening on 5/11, and now their case numbers are also trending upward.

Lousiana started reopening 5/1 in relatively modest ways (outdoor restaurant seating only, shopping mall curbside pickup), with additional openings on 5/15.

They'd been on a slow but consistent decrease in new cases, but they're already jumping back up again.

Maine, was on a slow upward case trend even before re-opening started, and that upward trend seems to be continuing (they're allowing haircuts and car washes, but mandating face masks)

Minnesota looked like it had finally peaked and started to trend downwards, but started re-opening on 4/27 for offices and industrial businesses.

Their daily numbers have started increasing again, and seem to be headed in the direction of higher-than-ever.

Missouri also looked like it had peaked and started the downward climb.

They started "aggressively" re-opening on 5/4, and their numbers are just beginning to trend upwards again.

Montana seemed to have basically kicked the bug for a minute, there.

They started re-opening 4/27, schools re-opened 5/7, and now... it's back.

Nebraska had been on the decline, then started re-opening on 5/4.

The numbers are going back up, again.

Nevada started curbside on 5/1 and limited capacity re-opening for most non-essential businesses on 5/9.

Their numbers have been pretty up and down over all, but had very gradually been trending downwards on average.

Now, they're going back up again.

A week ago, New Mexico seemed to have hit its peak and shown promising signs of a beginning downwards trajectory.

It started phasing in re-opening on 5/1.

It's certainly not going down anymore, and it looks like it may be in the beginnings of an upswing.

North Carolina's daily rates had never really stopped climbing, though a week ago it seemed to have passed its peak.

They began reopening on 5/8, and that climb has begun to accelerate again, reaching higher numbers than ever.

North Dakota re-opened with some restrictions 5/1.

They'd seemed to have peaked or at least plateaued, but now they're seeing their highest daily case growth rates to date, and the numbers are going up fast.

Ohio had peaked, gone through a slow secondary and lower-level rise and peak, then finally started to decline again.

They began reopening construction and manufacture on 5/4 and broad reopening on 5/12.

Now the numbers are starting to go back up again.

Oklahoma started reopening personal care by appointment on 4/24, then expanded re-opening on 5/1.

They'd seemed to be on the decline, but now they seem to be trending upwards pretty steadily again.

Rhode Island had been on pretty solid decline prior to re-opening.

They began re-opening on 5/9; That decline has already petered out to a near-plateau.

South Carolina had been in pretty much a holding pattern, then started a very modest re-opening for retail on 4/20, and opened restaurants on 5/11.

They're also beginning to trend upwards, now.

Tennessee started allowing less populous counties to re-open restaurants and retail at 50% capacity at the end of April.

They'd been on a steep decline that very quickly reversed itself, and are now at more or less a plateau.

Texas peaked briefly a little over a month ago, plateaued, then started climbing again.

They began opening most businesses at 25% capacity on 4/30, and personal care on 5/8.

They're still climbing, and that climb is accelerating.

I'm not entirely clear on the timeline for Vermont, but they seem to have started reopening around 5/1.

They *had* been seen a sharp decline in new cases.

That trend appears to be rapidly reversing itself.

Wisconsin started limited re-openings and non-essential business curbside pickup on 4/29.

They had peaked, but now they're trending right back upwards and likely to set new records on their daily new case counts.

And last of all: Wyoming.

Wyoming seemed to have peaked and started a fairly slow but steady decline.

They started personal-care services on May 1, and have started to trend right back upwards again.

All of these numbers are the weekly averages by day (meaning, each data point represents the average of the 7 days prior).

They can't be explained away by a post-weekend number dump, because the numbers before them would still include the previous week's number dump.

The state re-opening order summaries come from NY Mag: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/states-stay-at-home-orders-ending.html

The data visualizations are from 91-DIVOC. http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

These numbers also can't be explained away by increased testing, since testing rates are growing at a much slower level.

A lot of these trend changes are pretty dramatic.

It's also worth remembering that transmission tends to increase exponentially, since one infected person can infect dozens of people.

There's a vanishingly small chance that all these trend reversals are a coincidence.

That's a whole lot of data strongly suggesting that infection is accelerating in re-opened states, and fast.

Tl;dr?

The push to re-open is demonstrably irresponsible, is already de-flattening the curves in most re-opened states, and is very likely going to kill a ton of vulnerable people.

Tl;dr of that tl;dr?

If at all possible, STAY THE FUCK AT HOME.