US COVID Update (15-04-2020)
A few things to consider:
NY and NJ are now adding "new deaths" that are "likely COVID-related" and that makes future comparisons more difficult,
About 2000 "new cases were dumped into the NY/NJ data just before midnight tonight where usually all their reports are in by 9 PM -- I think this is from going back and "cleaning up" old cases or perhaps results from mew labs or both, but neither state has given me any real explanation of that is going on,
as we finally begin testing a lot more individuals who aren't very symptomatic we can expect a new rise in cases but one that is not accompanied by an increase in hospital admissions or deaths. I think new cases may no longer be a useful way to track the problem, but not many states are currently reporting how many new hospitalizations they have each day. At least not where I can easily find it.
It would be more useful if the old cases had been added on the date of death and an explanation added. NY added 7000+ cases. Ah, well.
(My bad joke is that in a drug deal gone bad, one guy shoots and kills the other guy but in doing so falls off the top of the 20-story building where the deal was happening, hits the street and is run over first by a dump truck then by a fire truck. Both deaths are ruled "COVID related" because the guy who was shot to death was found to be asymptomatic confirmed with COVID and he caused the death of the other guy. Okay, it's not that bad, but it isn't good. We should at least separate the reports. It looks like NY is reporting them separately.)
Overall, until I feel like I have a better understanding of what kind of data is being reported and why, please take my comments as even more "guesstimates" than before. I think that whatever trends there are will become more clear by this weekend. I still think we've seen the worst of the bad stuff. I expect a lot more mild cases to be found, and as we test for antibodies I expect to find a very large number of people who have had the virus and never really knew it.
Having said all that, here's what it looks like today:
Overall the US new cases is flat -- 42 more new cases than yesterday, both at 26,600+ and 842 more new deaths. Most of the new deaths are in the "usual suspects" of NY/NJ/LA, and it seems to be part of the added new cases. Other than that the new deaths are mostly flat in all the states. Of the rest of the Top 25 in total cases, MI and CA each had 50+. A couple of others had 30+, a couple more had 20_ and 7 were basically flat or down a little.
New cases are flat across the entire US but up nearly 3000 in NY/NJ. CT is down a couple of hundred, GA is down 700+ and FL is down 500+ MI and CA are both up about 400. The rest of the states are flat or down.
MI reporting is strange. The up/down/up/down/up/down pattern of 400 or so in each direction must be something like one lab reporting its new results only every other day or something like that.
Overall it looks like we're at least at a plateau just below the peak. The coming week will make that more clear.