If you're looking for conspiracy shit, I don't think you'll find them in those charts. I just thought it was pretty interesting, and confirming that if you had serious underlying conditions, the Vid is bad news.
If you're looking for conspiracy shit, I don't think you'll find them in those charts. I just thought it was pretty interesting, and confirming that if you had serious underlying conditions, the Vid is bad news.
Three weeks after newly identified COVID-19 cases began falling in the United States, The New York Times is acknowledging the downward trend, which it attributes to "effective restrictions." That explanation fits neatly with the paper's reflexive enthusiasm for lockdowns, but it does not fit the data very well.
Consider Arizona, where the seven-day average of daily new cases, according to Worldometer's tallies, rose more than tenfold between Memorial Day and July 7. Alarmed by that increase, Gov. Doug Ducey ordered gyms, bars, movie theaters, and water parks to close on July 23, while indoor dining in restaurants continued at 50 percent of capacity, a cap Ducey imposed on July 11. But the downward trend in new cases, which had fallen by 82 percent from the July 7 peak as of yesterday, began well before the new restrictions could have had a measurable impact (taking into account the typical five-day lag between infection and symptoms that might cause people to seek testing). That suggests other factors are at least partly responsible for the decline.
Newly confirmed cases are also falling in Georgia, which did not respond to this summer's spike with new business restrictions. The seven-day average, which rose fivefold between May 25 and July 29, has fallen by 35 percent since then.
In Texas, the seven-day average of newly identified cases rose tenfold between May 25 and July 15. It has since fallen by nearly half. Gov. Greg Abbott closed bars and reduced the cap on indoor dining from 75 percent to 50 percent of capacity on June 26. Yet cases continued rising for nearly three weeks, longer than the maximum incubation period. The story is similar in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis closed bars the same day as Abbott. The seven-day average of daily new cases peaked three weeks later, when it was nearly 16 times higher than it was on May 25, then fell by two-thirds as of yesterday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom closed bars, zoos, and museums on July 13, when he also banned indoor dining in restaurants. The seven-day average of daily new cases peaked 12 days later, when it was nearly five times the number on May 25, then fell for two weeks before rising again. The decline resumed in mid-August, and as of yesterday the average was down 42 percent from the July 25 peak. That pattern likewise does not easily fit the hypothesis that new legal restrictions account for most or all of the decline.
California's restrictions, including a total ban on indoor dining, are more severe than the statewide limits in Arizona, Florida, or Texas, which enforce a 50 percent cap. Yet the latter three states have seen bigger declines in confirmed cases, although they also saw bigger increases in June and July.
What about face mask mandates? Even if businesses were already requiring customers to wear masks, a legal requirement could help reduce disputes about those policies and increase compliance. Yet Newsom mandated masks in California on June 18, more than a month before new cases peaked in that state, while Abbott followed suit in Texas on July 2, nearly two weeks before that state's peak. Neither Arizona, Florida, nor Georgia has a statewide mask requirement, although some local governments in those states have imposed their own mandates.
"Of the states that are driving the decrease" in new cases, the Times says, "all have at least some local mask mandates, and most have paused or reversed statewide reopening policies." That gloss, which dismisses the absence of statewide mask mandates, elides the difference between imposing restrictions and delaying their removal, and ignores the states without new restrictions, makes the Times seem desperate to credit government policies for positive trends that ultimately depend on how people decide to behave.
Grundle, what's your basic assessment of where we stand today? Can we even compare where we are as a country to the rest of the world? Wouldn't you say the actual infection # is significantly higher in reality thus the mortality rate is considerably lower than .3?
Comments
Sad.
How many days do I have?
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
Consider Arizona, where the seven-day average of daily new cases, according to Worldometer's tallies, rose more than tenfold between Memorial Day and July 7. Alarmed by that increase, Gov. Doug Ducey ordered gyms, bars, movie theaters, and water parks to close on July 23, while indoor dining in restaurants continued at 50 percent of capacity, a cap Ducey imposed on July 11. But the downward trend in new cases, which had fallen by 82 percent from the July 7 peak as of yesterday, began well before the new restrictions could have had a measurable impact (taking into account the typical five-day lag between infection and symptoms that might cause people to seek testing). That suggests other factors are at least partly responsible for the decline.
Newly confirmed cases are also falling in Georgia, which did not respond to this summer's spike with new business restrictions. The seven-day average, which rose fivefold between May 25 and July 29, has fallen by 35 percent since then.
In Texas, the seven-day average of newly identified cases rose tenfold between May 25 and July 15. It has since fallen by nearly half. Gov. Greg Abbott closed bars and reduced the cap on indoor dining from 75 percent to 50 percent of capacity on June 26. Yet cases continued rising for nearly three weeks, longer than the maximum incubation period. The story is similar in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis closed bars the same day as Abbott. The seven-day average of daily new cases peaked three weeks later, when it was nearly 16 times higher than it was on May 25, then fell by two-thirds as of yesterday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom closed bars, zoos, and museums on July 13, when he also banned indoor dining in restaurants. The seven-day average of daily new cases peaked 12 days later, when it was nearly five times the number on May 25, then fell for two weeks before rising again. The decline resumed in mid-August, and as of yesterday the average was down 42 percent from the July 25 peak. That pattern likewise does not easily fit the hypothesis that new legal restrictions account for most or all of the decline.
California's restrictions, including a total ban on indoor dining, are more severe than the statewide limits in Arizona, Florida, or Texas, which enforce a 50 percent cap. Yet the latter three states have seen bigger declines in confirmed cases, although they also saw bigger increases in June and July.
"Of the states that are driving the decrease" in new cases, the Times says, "all have at least some local mask mandates, and most have paused or reversed statewide reopening policies." That gloss, which dismisses the absence of statewide mask mandates, elides the difference between imposing restrictions and delaying their removal, and ignores the states without new restrictions, makes the Times seem desperate to credit government policies for positive trends that ultimately depend on how people decide to behave.
https://covid19-projections.com/us
Not as grim as the UW guysm, but not great either.
Equals a mortality rate around 0.3%