Covid 5/14: Limbo Under

Previous weekly reports: Covid-19 5/7: Fighting Limbo, Covid-19 4/30: Stuck in Limbo

Slowly, a nation partially reopens. Is it too much, too soon? It's too early to know for sure, because of lags, but so far we've only seen extraordinary good news. If you don't think what we saw this past week was good news, either we disagree about how to read the data quite a lot, or you had what I consider highly realistic expectations.

Remarkably little has happened in the last week. There are weeks when decades happen, and previous weeks have felt like that. This one didn't. This felt like waiting for things to happen and nothing happening except good numbers. Yes, we got some other news, but did any of it matter or surprise much? I would say that it did not.

Last time I did a bunch of analysis and a bit of editorializing alongside the numbers. This time I'll keep it brief. This is mostly to get the charts out. I'll get the other stuff out there in distinct posts if it's worth saying.

The Data

Deaths:

WESTMIDWESTSOUTHNE ex-NYNYMar 19-Mar 251166711184203Mar 26-Apr 13474775024541340Apr 2-86391335115017833939Apr 9-158952106147232615345Apr 16-2210082369173051833994Apr 23-2911352500168442852810Apr 30-May 69912413173753492007May 7-May 131044234416794014~1500*

*- New York includes ~700 reclassified deaths that did not take place this past week, but were instead from past weeks and added to the death count on 5/7. I've subtracted them out for purposes of this chart.

Positive Tests:

WESTMIDWESTSOUTHNE ex-NYNYMar 19-Mar 25574462937933835428429Mar 26-Apr 11568420337242243439152901Apr 2-81945531148396185677265604Apr 9-151629129267355706192164463Apr 16-222006534130339326466943437Apr 23-292187342343337736218942475Apr 30-May 62342449205378805169324287May 7-May 132261543264375914020916683

Overall test counts:

USA testsPositive %NY testsPositive %Mar 19-Mar 2534757716.2%8888232.0%Mar 26-Apr 172847420.2%11740145.1%Apr 2-81,067,22019.8%14427345.5%Apr 9-151,039,79020.1%16085940.1%Apr 16-221,253,53515.7%14397030.2%Apr 23-291,480,10113.7%20249921.0%Apr 30-May 61,733,60110.6%18344613.2%May 7-May 132,215,0607.4%2029808.2%

The chart tell the story. We expanded testing dramatically and positive counts dropped in every region. New York continues to improve at a much faster clip than elsewhere, and some localities are seeing things get worse, but the overall trend is unmistakable. Positive counts fell in all regions while testing once again expanded substantially.

Deaths are not falling much yet, but they are a lagging indicator. Things are improving.

I don't feel that much more confident in my priors than I did previously, but then I haven't felt the need to update them either, in much of any direction.

New York will start its phase 1 reopening this coming week in four of its ten regions. It will likely expand that to seven to ten of them within two weeks. Restaurants come back in phase 3, which is four weeks in. It feels like normal is well on its way. I'm starting to feel much less paranoid, as my true estimate of infections per day in the state drops to 12,478 today, down from 20,200 a week ago. And also with my increased confidence in my infection modeling.

We also get baseball around July 4, assuming the players and owners can agree on how much the players get paid. That's tricky in the best of times, but ultimately is probably settled one way or another. All theater from here, we hope.

I'm working on some other posts that will hopefully cover other angles.