Trump’s Rushed Phased Recovery
Update: A Stanford study of antibody tests in highly infected Santa Clara County, CA, indicates the amazing result that 50 to 85 times the number of known infected people were actually infected. If that is verified elsewhere, it would be wonderful.
Articles that I read, especially the one from the IHME projection model that the White House uses, talk about resuming normal activities when daily deaths reach a very low rate, in their case, 0.3/million. Even for the largest state, California, that is 12 deaths per day. For New York State, it would be 6 deaths per day, instead of the recent plateau of almost 800 a day. Nobody discussed the 14 days from the peak Gateway Period. It is probably not a coincidence that the safety confinement period is 14 days. It improbably implies that after the day you reach the “peak”, no other people are infected. It implies not actually looking at any of the projected falloff curves, or that there is not interstate travel from states that can peak an entire month later.
So lets discuss the practical statistics and projections here, and in another article, the very generous and risky safety criteria in the guidelines, which neglects the science of the amazing capabilities of the virus and of superspreaders to propagate the virus.
The largest American infection center is New York City, with a third of the country’s infections. We have been showing the plateauing of their hospital data every few days, and it drags on for a week, because it is reality, not just a three parameter fitting curve of the IHME model. In state projections, the maximum death rate often only is reduced by a half after two weeks from the “peak”. As Gov. Cuomo keeps pointing out, their are other parts of the state, which will have their own separate peaks from New York City, which itself has five boroughs. In California, there are Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose as independent progressing areas, as well as a slow spread to all counties.
Before we get into a particular case, we note that there is a 14 day gateway to get into Phase 1, and others to get into Phase 2 and Phase 3. But there is no required length to stay into Phase 1 or 2, other than the gateway. So a state can go from peak to complete relaxation in four weeks, if it looks like they can start Phase 1 now.
While there will be another IHME super fit tomorrow morning, we look at the New York projection of deaths per day. Since we do not have sufficient or timely testing, we don’t know the true number of cases per day, so the IHMΕ uses Coronavirus deaths in hospitals. But now, the CDC is separately totaling other deaths, which is confusing, since it is not as clear as China’s adding in clinically diagnosed cases. Anyway, the New York projection was to peak on April 10 at 800 per day. But on April 7, it already was 791. On April 12, it still had 758. It doesn’t decline to half the peak until April 18, and a quarter of the peak at April 22, which is 12 days after the peak of the fit. Will the state consider things relaxed at still that death rate?
The USA projection is no longer a simple falling curve, but now has a long second wave from late peaking states.
Trump never meant for us to defeat the Coronavirus, just to flatten the curve, and live with it, in order to rescue the economy.
CNN said just now that only 4 states could start reopening in early May. The newly released IHME analysis has the total deaths projection down to 60,000 now.
CNN also said that many states will not be able to make Phase I until late June or early July.
Trump tweeted to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”, and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”, backing protesters to quarantining restrictions in the three states, against their Democratic Governors. Of course, that encourages conservatives all over the country to violate social distancing and protest in their own states.
