It appears that a change in the weather may be about to drop the number of COVID cases. Trump is, of course, trying to take credit for a natural phenomenon. While I realize many on here have discovered that the best thing to do is assume the opposite of what Trump says is always true, we do need to plan for this thing coming to an end.
There might be light at the end of the tunnel, or there might not. A couple of weeks ago I started a spreadsheet to estimate what the virus would do. I’ve since expanded it with data from the Covid tracking project. Starting on March 28, the daily increase in the total number of cases has been dropping by about a percentage point a day. On March 28 there were 18% the next day there were 17% more cases and so forth. The total number of deaths has also seen a similar slowing. Other countries in the Northern Hemisphere have reported a similar phenomenon. One conclusion is that this is a seasonal virus and the spread is being hampered by the coming of Spring. However, there is a serious caveat to all this. Testing has not kept pace with the growth of the virus.
Lack of testing means that we do not completely understand what is happening with the virus. Over the last two days the growth in the number of cases has moved almost in lockstep with testing. The daily percentage of tests coming up positive (not shown on the current graphic) has remained the same. This may show that the disease is plateauing, at least in some areas. The problem is that there is relatively limited data, and it’s hard to be sure of this conclusion.
So what you should take from this is that the crisis might be abating. At the same time, it is important to continue to practice social distancing and wear a facemask if you must go outside. We want this thing to go away, not stall out in a situation where this becomes a multi-month siege.
Bottom line, we aren’t yet sure what is going on. The disease may continue to advance, with the total number of cases doubling every week or two until it burns itself out. It might go into decline. It might stall and keep everybody at home indefinitely. Even if the disease does drop off over the summer if we don’t have a vaccine by the Autumn there is a serious risk of COVID-19 returning — this time with many more months before “the heat comes in.”