WUHAN VIRUS DAILY UPDATE FOR APRIL 13
WUHAN CRASH! Looks like we'll be remembering Easter 2020 as the weekend when the Wuhan-virus battle finally turned. March 19th was when the rates of growth (rog) maxed out, and April 9th or 10th is when it peaked in actual numbers and then began its downward spiral. Today, we've hit 3 days in a row with record lows in both incident and death rogs. Whereas earlier projections had us at over 35,000 deaths due by now, presently it looks like it'll be at least another 3 or 4 days til we even hit 30,000 deaths and now we likely won't touch 34,000 this month - which originally should have been climbing up past 50k - 100k. Now I don't know how long this will hold out because, as NYC and NJ start to fall off from driving the curve, new curves are likely to pop up from other population centers and stem the fall. But scenarios hitting the numbers we saw in March don't seem likely. It just makes it all the more urgent that we have widespread random anti-body testing in every region of America so we can be responsible as we re-open the country and the economy - NOW!
Given a total of 2,952,165 total tests completed in America, our new total for incidents is 576,774 (+24,946), up slightly to an increase of only 4.52% (a new record low ever!) over the previous day (-1.09% from yesterday!). Deaths have totaled 23,369 (+1,450) which is an increase of only 6.62% (-1.15% rate of growth) over the previous day - another new all time record low! Since the peak in Mar 19, rates of growth for incidents has fallen by 47.12% and for deaths has fallen by 36.24%. There were, again, only 129,854 tests completed at a time where we need more testing than ever. Current projections put us at below 100 deaths per day by April 19.
However, I have to say this is when any national single curve model likely falls short and is probably wrong. Until we start seeing other curves pop up and what magnitude they will be, it's impossible to really project an end-date on this. Right now our rogs are plummeting daily. This can't last very long as soon you hit negative numbers. What's more likely to happen is that some time this week we're going to see those rogs reduce by much smaller amounts, go sideways, and then start to increase somewhat as the new curve appears. But, at that point, the national model will be pointless and what's critical is that each region of America will have to act based on its local realities.
We'll have had two full months of ramping up to prepare by then and so it'll be inexcusable for individual state and local governments to not be prepared for widespread testing and monitoring of their local virus activity so that they can apply gas & brakes to mitigation efforts as indicated by the data. Now's the time when we're going to see who has responsible government and who doesn't. Point is - we can absolutely get our economy going again, get people back to work and supporting those who depend on them, while controlling the impact of this virus. It's just a question of competence and will.