On the left is NY's COVID-19 Curve.

Does it look familiar? It should.

It's exactly the curve that every health expert said we should desperately seek to avoid.

That's exactly what the image on the right was meant to convey. The states spiking now are the second curve.

Now some people are celebrating because NY is on the other side of the curve everyone (rightly) agreed we should avoid and they are pretending that is a better outcome than states that are following the path of the second curve by peaking later and MUCH lower.

The same people who were critical of Sweden's strategy are cheering NY for having an even worse curve. The only difference is NY's curve is a result of incompetence instead of an intentional strategy. And Sweden at least tried to protect their elderly.

You can see the exact comparison when looking at the hospitalization curves since they are a bit ahead of deaths as an indicator.

NY/NJ vs AZ/CA/FL/TX