Coronavirus

Many people are asking why COVID-19 death counts in the USA are decreasing or stabilizing if the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are soaring in most of the USA.  The governors of many of the worst-hit states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California are attributing much of the rise in cases to increased testing of milder and asymptomatic cases which tend to not require hospitalization nor result in deaths.  In fact, many of these states did experience dips in Case Fatality Rate (CFR = deaths/cases) as the denominator increased faster than the numerator.  While this was true in May, it is no longer true in June.  The reason is that in many states such as Florida the number of tests performed daily (brown squares against the left axis in the figure below) increased impressively in April and May but has stalled in June to the extent that the percentage of tests returning positive (blue diamonds against right axis) has increased to new highs. The governor...

The number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida and several of its major cities such as Miami, Tampa, and Orlando continues to rise exponentially (with Orlando showing a doubling time of 4 days). The latest data shows a surge to record high levels (7-day average) in Orange (brown squares against right axis) and Miami-Dade (blue diamonds against left axis) Counties.  Orlando, Tampa, and Miami are now more dangerous than any part of Metro-NYC is, and Florida is now hotter than any other state (as indicated by its doubling time of 9.5 days , which is the shortest of any state).   CoVID-19 cases surged and will continue to surge higher in Florida for the following reasons: 1.     Huge crowds on Florida beaches for Memorial Day weekend, 5/23-25 that showed up as new cases beginning in June 2.     Hundreds of thousands watching SpaceX launch attempts on 5/27,5/30 without masks and social distancing on the Space Coast that showed up...

The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases are rising alarmingly in many parts of the US.  Many of the governors explain away the rise as a result of increased testing.  To some extent this is true.  The number of tests per day has increased from an April plateau around 150,000 tests per day to near 600,000 tests per day (brown squares against the left axis plotted in thousands in the figure below).  This occurred despite the President’s constant criticism of testing for Americans even as he requires everyone around him to be tested multiple times a week.   Some governors base their claim of victory on this improving trend as the average percent of positive results (blue diamonds against the right axis) have fallen below 5% in June for the US as a whole.   Many epidemiologists believe that driving this number below 1% as South Korea and Australia have done will be required to truly control the pandemic.  A few states are close to achieving this target but...

We pointed out earlier that if one looks at the US outside of New York (NY) and New Jersey (NJ) (or more precisely outside of Metro-NYC), the country’s COVID-19 pandemic has not peaked but rather has plateaued since mid-April .  Some states outside of NY and NJ appear to have also peaked but the 3 biggest states in the US, California, Texas, and Florida - containing 25% of the country’s population, has not really peaked and are experiencing continued increases in daily confirmed cases.  The figure below shows the daily case count for these 3 states: California (CA - blue diamonds in figure above with 7-day rolling average), after plateauing in early April, has seen rising case count since mid-April.   Part of this rise has been due to increased testing but while testing has definitely improved it cannot account for all the increases in infections.   Some of it has been due to a series of politically motivated miscalculations undertaken to reopen the state s...

After a slow start, the US has made good progress in the last couple of months against the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Confirmed case counts per day have declined to 20,000 after peaking near 35,000 in early April (brown squares against the left axis in the figure below).   Over the same time period, the number of tests conducted per day increased from 100,000 to near 500,000 now (brown squares against the left axis in the figure below).   The percent of tests that yielded positive results has declined from 24% to below 5% over the same time period (blue diamonds plotted against the right axis in the figure below).   At this rate, the country as a whole may finally control the virus by August. However, the country needs to remain vigilant as the virus can and has the ability to re-emerge in many hotspots.  Much of the national progress over the last two months has been due to the ability of the governors to control the global epicenter that eme...

We have been tracking COVID-19 cases in Florida with cautious optimism ever since the Governor initiated Phase 1 reopening on May 4 th .  Daily confirmed cases had been tracking down before that date and leveled off after that date (see figure below).  We had assumed that increased testing accounted for most of the increased cases that shows as the gap between the projected downward blue trend line versus the actual 7-day moving average (solid brown line) after reopening.  Phase 1 reopening appeared to be more or less on track .  However, in recent days the confirmed case count has surged anew to a record high weekly total. What is causing this resurgence of infections? 1.     Huge crowds on Florida beaches for Memorial Day weekend, 5/23-25 that showed up as new cases beginning 6/3 2.     Hundreds of thousands watching SpaceX launch attempts on 5/27,5/30 without masks and social distancing on the Space Coast that is sh...

Florida has reopened for business for four weeks now and its experience is similar to that encountered by other states and countries that are trying to reopen quickly after COVID-19 lockdowns.   Reopening the state for business is necessary and should be possible if enough testing and contact tracing resources are made available.   However, testing capacity has always been surprisingly problematic for the US since January 11 th when the genetic code for the novel coronavirus was first published and major countries such as South Korea and Germany were able to produce valid tests in quantity.   To date, Florida and the US as a whole still lags behind South Korea, Germany, Taiwan, Australia, and other best-in-class countries in terms of testing completeness and thoroughness.   The figure below shows that testing (brown square against left axis) in Florida has expanded in two months from 6,000 per day in late March to near 24,000 per day now.   The percentage of te...