Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[mordant]

US Covid numbers for the past 7 day period.

Deaths (trailing indicator) are down another 20% over the prior 7 days (and average deaths/day for the week is below 1,000 for the first time).

However, for the first time since they began to fall in mid-January, new cases (leading indicator) are up 4%.

New cases exceeded the same day the prior period, 5 out of 7 days. The two days they fell short, it was a squeaker.

It is still possible this is an anomaly or will prove to be a leveling off, but given the continued ass-hattery in places like Florida, including spring break revelers descending on Fort Meyers in such numbers that the police are overwhelmed even with outside forces assisting, we can expect those fools to spread the plague in coming days ... school district after school district having to pull back from in-person teaching, especially Illinois and Michigan, and now Iowa, whose GOP governor not only reopened schools, but without precautions, and now has four or five thousands sick children and teachers to show for it.

+------------+-------+---------+------------------+-------------+-------------------+
|Date        |Deaths |New cases|1 in x total cases|1 in x deaths|1 in x active cases|
+------------+-------+---------+------------------+-------------|-------------------+
|Wed Mar 17  | 1,380 |  64,495 |         11       |      604    |         46        |
|Thu Mar 18  | 1,400 |  63,555 |         11       |      602    |         46        |
|Fri Mar 19  | 1,262 |  66,413 |         11       |      600    |         46        |
|Sat Mar 20  |   783 |  58,887 |         11       |      599    |         46        |
|Sun Mar 21  |   456 |  45,993 |         11       |      599    |         46        |
|Mon Mar 22  |   638 |  45,791 |         11       |      598    |         47        |
|Tue Mar 23  |   936 |  58,705 |         11       |      597    |         47        |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------+-------------|-------------------+
|Weekly total| 6,855|  403,839 |   (avg 979 deaths/day, 57,691 cases/day)           |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------+-------------|-------------------+

Total deaths as of Mar 23: 558,883
Record deaths: 4,491 on Jan 12
Record new cases: 307,607 on Jan 08

I'm worried too.  The case and hospitalization numbers in way too many states are trending up.  Within a couple of weeks we'll see the impact of Texas; a month and we'll know about spring break.  It's maddening (as someone whose industry is still basically comatose) to see.  

In Massachusetts the good-for-little Republican governor is trying to explain away a huge rise in Covid cases in people under 18 as simply a result of more older people being vaccinated and therefore not getting the disease.  Nothing at all to do with opening in-person schools again and resuming youth sports, despite local outbreaks linked to cheerleading centers and wrestling matches.

If Wed/Thu/Fri this week are any indication, new cases are continuing to accelerate. Indeed, for those three days, deaths have leveled out and stopped falling.

This is something I'd dearly like to be really wrong about, but it is not surprising.