The Coronavirus

[David Horn]

(05-27-2020, 03:49 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(05-27-2020, 02:54 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Since then, MA passed us by so it goes in and PA and IL are just under us, so I was up to 6, I had seen plots of similar analyses where to excluded NY, NJ, and CT, so I tossed in CT. The shape differences remain the same. The hot zone has a peak, because NY has one, but also because NJ, MA, MI and CT have them too, so its not just a NY artifact.

When I look at the graphs, to me it seems like Massachusetts looks like the country as a whole, with a rapid rise to a sharp "peak" followed by a slow decline.

New York is different, with a rapid rise that decelerated to a broader peak, followed by an initial rapid decline, followed by a slow decline.

Massachusetts and the rest of the country look like the R was suddenly changed in mid to late March, which was when all the mitigations were put into place, with a subsequent slow decline reflecting either R just below 1.0, or some other dynamic slowing down the decline.

New York looks like it might have started running into herd immunity effects just as the mitigations hit.

Early deaths are also much higher in New York, perhaps reflecting the health system's capacity being stressed there.

Not mentioned recently, but still to the point: it's getting warmer.  Let's assume that temperature has no direct effect on the virus, it certainly does on the people -- cooped-up for weeks and sick of it.  As we move our lives outdoors more and more, the ease of infection drops in tandem.  That will reverse in the Fall, so let's not get too far over our skis. Apparently, that's exactly the case in Brazil, where the seasons are changing in reverse to ours, and COVID-190 infections are rising rapidly.