WUHAN VIRUS DAILY UPDATE FOR MARCH 23
Too soon to call it - but yesterday's numbers were the best ever in terms of direction of numbers. The rate of everything's increase is dropping significantly. Can't say if this is a confirmation that we did reach peak growth during the Mar 18-23 time frame or if reporting stations simply didn't call in because it was a Sunday. Fortunately we have evidence that these are not just missing numbers because the other stats seem to be inline with expectations. For example, the total tests come in at 54,962 more than the day before - right at our prior two days capacities as expected. And the total hospitalized number, although still jerky, seems reasonable at 3325 vs 2544 the prior day. So promising friends - quite promising.
Here are the numbers:
Total cases stands at 42,164 rising only 32.73% - lower than the 34.04% average of the moving average. Haven't seen a rate this low since Mar 16. Total deaths is 471 which is shockingly only a 19.54% increase - again lower than the 23.41% average of the moving average and not seen since Mar 16. I did not expect to see the rate of death fall for several days actually and, because of incubation times it could still spike up before it drops. However, one possible reason why it may not is that our limited testing may have only been catching victims while already well within their incubation periods - if we're lucky. Never count on being lucky though. This puts the total mortality rate thus far at 1.11% and projected to go below 1% in two days if no spike occurs. Note that this projection may never be achieved but that's not a bad thing so long as the numbers keep going the right direction.
Next few days will be the first days outside of the peak range we projected based on what we saw happen in Italy. If the numbers continue to decline then we're going to be looking pretty good, America. Please stay well and keep diligent in your hygiene and avoid unnecessary contact as much as possible. Especially keep your parents and at-risk individuals extra isolated physically. Doesn't do us any good if the trend goes way down but someone we care about still ends up as a statistic. But, today, we can be cautiously optimistic.