Disasters in Slow Motion (pt. 10) - May 2, 2020

April 22 (13:17 GMT) - Actual Numbers
Worldwide Cases: 2,580,601
Worldwide Deaths: 179,063
Worldwide Mortality Rate: 6.93%
US Cases: 819,321
US Deaths: 45,355
US Mortality Rate: 5.53%
US Total Recovered: 82,973

May 02 (23:06 GMT) - Actual Numbers
Worldwide Cases: 3,478,970
Worldwide Deaths: 244,481
Worldwide Mortality Rate: 7.02%
US Cases: 1,158,881
US Deaths: 67,293
US Mortality Rate: 5.8%
US Total Recovered: 160,668

So, I’ve posted less often of late. Not because I don’t care, not even because I’m overwhelmed, but because I am so frustrated with the way the US is screwing this up. So, while all of the states rush to open everything up, let’s look at how the US is doing at “flattening the curve” and ending the pandemic’s impact in the US. So long as cases are increasing faster than the rate of recovery, we aren’t ending winning - just holding it off.

New Cases: 339,650
New Recoveries: 77,695 (22.87%)

Yeah, those numbers aren’t good. If anyone wonders why the actual expert in the White House, Dr. Fauci, was recommending against dropping social distancing and stay at home orders? This is why - Covid-19 is still spreading across the US like wildfire.

Now, I did make mention last time, that removing NY from the numbers gives a more realistic view of how the country is doing so...let’s look.

New Cases NY: 62,658
New Recoveries NY: 25649
New Cases w/o NY: 277,024
New Recoveries w/o NY: 40,686

So, we can see that New York looks to be doing a much better job of shutting down further spread of Covid-19 than the rest of the country as a whole. What they are doing is working and has been working, but other states have had a rather lazy approach to things, coupled with armed protestors demanding to be allowed hair cuts, and we see that the infection rate is not falling in the rest of the country like it is in New York.

Still, just looking at New York versus the rest of the country doesn’t give us a great view either.While it would take longer than I really want to spend to break down ALL 50 of the states, I’ll break down a few other key ones for comparison.

Here is NY again, as our state baseline.
New Cases NY: 62,658
New Recoveries NY: 25,649 (40.93%)
New Cases FL: 7,594
New Recoveries FL: 497 (6.54%)
New Cases GA: 8,166
New Recoveries GA: 356 (4.35%)
New Cases IL: 25,446
New Recoveries IL: 1,091 (4.28%)
New Cases NV: 1,374
New Recoveries NV: 1,1,58 (84.27%)

Now, I chose these states, not at random, but because they have some significance to myself and some people I know. Anyone is free to do the math on the others. A pandemic burns out when the recoveries to new cases passes the 100% mark - ie more recoveries than new cases. Most of these states, all rushing to reopen? They are not even CLOSE to that point. Nevada is closest with 84.27% but none of these states are ready for a statewide reopening. In fact, most need further restrictions.

Now, that doesn’t mean that there are not counties in these states that, if isolated from others, wouldn’t be ready to reopen. There are counties in Florida without a single case, and so carefully reopening there makes some degree of sense. But overall? The numbers don’t lie. As a nation, we are not ready for reopening on a wide scale. Things are going to start accelerating because they aren’t even remotely under control.

Wish us all luck, we’re going to need it. We will pass 100k dead in about three weeks.