WUHAN VIRUS DAILY UPDATE FOR MAY 9
WHERE'S THE VIRUS? We've seen the curve peak and start its decline but the decline appears to have "stalled". We really don't know how many actual cases there have been in America because we know our numbers have been bounded by limits in testing capacity and rules for who can even be tested. The "official" numbers as of today are 1,301,095 cases and 73,291 deaths for a 5.63% death rate. We know the numbers are wrong - but how wrong? It's useful to base our numbers on death percentages. Let's assume the real death likelihood is 2.0%. That would mean there are really 3.6M cases. 1.0%? 7.2M cases. How about same as flu or 0.1%? Well that's 71M cases and about 55x the current rate. Coincidentally right at the top of the range that 3 studies of randomized anti-body tests (the kind we desperately need to be doing) have projected we actually have. I would wager it's between 0.1% and 1.0% given the increased temperature resistance over regular flu. What's the right number isn't at all clear but we absolutely know it is several times higher than the "official" numbers even when you account for "truing up" the death count.
The ultimate question must be, "What is real?" Is there a 2nd wave or is it state governments and hospitals padding the numbers for federal subsidies? Those who claim 2nd wave are claiming it must be because of those evil states who didn't go into isolation so they're now paying the price of non-vigilance. All the numbers indicate that there's no clear trend difference that can be assigned base on whether a state locked down or not.
Deaths per Million Across States Trend
The closer a state is to the dotted line the less change in relative position has occurred. The higher it is from the line the worse relative change has occurred and the further below the line it is the more it has improved. Effectively it's random. Whether or not a state has locked down does not appear to have made any impact on the rate of death for the states.
So what determines whether you get a lot of cases/deaths from Wuhan-virus? That's very obvious. Outside of being in a super high density city, it's how close you are to NY/NJ - our super-viral towns - that determines where the pandemic spreads next as this chart very clearly demonstrates:
Peter Walker - New Positive Cases by US Region
Despite the clear decline in the NE, the further away from New York you are, the safer you are. Makes perfect sense. Note that the rates of increase for new incidents is seriously lagging the rates of increase for new deaths - sometimes less than half as much. Were this high death rate an actual phenomenon hospital morgues would be filling up in all these areas surrounding NY - but they are not. What's clearly happening is the administrators are going back and "truing up" the numbers so they can re-allocate any corpse they can find as a "COVID-19" death. We'll know they ran out of bodies when we see the curve start to bend significantly downwards again - likely around mid-May.
Our new total for incidents is 1,301,095 (+25,179), an increase of 1.97% over the previous day (-0.25% from yesterday). Deaths have totaled 73,291 (+1,529) which is an increase of 2.13% (-0.38%) over the previous day. Since the peak in Mar 19, rates of growth for incidents has fallen by 49.66% and for deaths has fallen by 40.73%. There were 300,589 tests completed with a 8.38% positive rate - that is the lowest positive test rating we've ever had since tracking started on March 18th! Again more evidence making these death rates highly suspect.
In conclusion, please keep this on your mind. Over the last month and a half, since we've been tracking the Wuhan-virus pandemic here on this blog, there's been a much larger pandemic going on. 30+ million Americans have lost their jobs. Not a single politician or bureaucrat responsible for those losses has missed a day's pay. Stay well...