Covid-19: Shelter-In-Place Is Working In The USA; New Case Data Shows We HAVE "Flattened The Curve"

AT RIGHT: This graph shows the daily Covid-19 new-confirmed-case data for the USA from almost the start of the pandemic (when it crossed 1000 confirmed cases) to present. See below for discussion.

This is an update to the article I wrote on April 18th, ten days ago which you can find here, which speaks to the numbers showing that the self-quarantine / shelter-in-place / "lockdown" to try and contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus's spread is working. (I recommend looking at that one again for the charts, as they're not repeated here.)

Since that time, we've got more good news from doubling data, but someone pointed out that perhaps we should be looking to the New Cases data instead of doubling and I figured that had merit and would be easy to add to what I've already done. And so, I've done it.

What the numbers illustrate is firstly that daily values fluctuate a lot and sometimes for no apparent reason, such as April 15, where the number of new cases was 43,903 (from Noon Pacific the previous day). Some of this fluctuation is due to things like the time of day someone sends in their latest data, or other macro events such as a large batch identified and reported all at once.

That said, April 15th's overly large data value, if spread to the two days previous and one day following, would then be showing a pretty horizontal mean value. For the nation, we've roughly stabilized at about 31,000 new cases per day since the start of April. In fact, the average of all those days was about 31,416.4, and if you look at the graph, it's easy to see that with values above and below that, for "round numbers" we indeed have been pretty stable at about that number. And, best of all, the trend for the last four has been downward.

This means that social-distancing and self-quarantine has been working. At the very least, this means that our hospitals are less likely to be overwhelmed as we wait for what comes next. Now, if we could get a cheap, quick serology test for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, can then start getting wide-spread testing, know how many people have had the virus, how many have at least short-term protection, and then we might be able to start talking about re-opening businesses.

For those interested in the raw numbers, here I provide them along with the latest run of the doubling software I articulate in the previous article:

2020/3/14, New: 756 Total: 2488 Double past: 1 doubles in 4 days.
2020/3/15, New: 894 Total: 3244 Double past: 1.7 doubles in 8.6 days.
2020/3/16, New: 1756 Total: 4138 Double past: 2.3 doubles in 9.3 days.
2020/3/17, New: 1430 Total: 5894 Double past: 2.4 doubles in 6.7 days.
2020/3/18, New: 4011 Total: 7324 Double past: 2.5 doubles in 10.2 days.
2020/3/19, New: 5303 Total: 11335 Double past: 2.1 doubles in 5.7 days.
2020/3/20, New: 6842 Total: 16638 Double past: 1.8 doubles in 6.3 days.
2020/3/21, New: 7577 Total: 23480 Double past: 1.9 doubles in 6.9 days.
2020/3/22, New: 10454 Total: 31057 Double past: 2.2 doubles in 8.2 days.
2020/3/23, New: 8249 Total: 41511 Double past: 2.4 doubles in 7.9 days.
2020/3/24, New: 11407 Total: 49760 Double past: 2.8 doubles in 12.1 days.
2020/3/25, New: 15347 Total: 61167 Double past: 3.1 doubles in 10.7 days.
2020/3/26, New: 17724 Total: 76514 Double past: 3.3 doubles in 10 days.
2020/3/27, New: 21309 Total: 94238 Double past: 3.3 doubles in 10.6 days.
2020/3/28, New: 19637 Total: 115547 Double past: 3.3 doubles in 10.8 days.
2020/3/29, New: 20739 Total: 135184 Double past: 3.6 doubles in 13.8 days.
2020/3/30, New: 21529 Total: 155923 Double past: 3.9 doubles in 15 days.
2020/3/31, New: 27986 Total: 177452 Double past: 4.3 doubles in 16.5 days.
2020/4/1, New: 30901 Total: 205438 Double past: 4.6 doubles in 14.7 days.
2020/4/2, New: 29940 Total: 236339 Double past: 4.9 doubles in 15.3 days.
2020/4/3, New: 35868 Total: 266279 Double past: 5.1 doubles in 17.8 days.
2020/4/4, New: 27133 Total: 302147 Double past: 5.2 doubles in 16.8 days.
2020/4/5, New: 27134 Total: 329280 Double past: 5.6 doubles in 24.3 days.
2020/4/6, New: 26842 Total: 356414 Double past: 6 doubles in 26.3 days.
2020/4/7, New: 41689 Total: 383256 Double past: 6.5 doubles in 28.6 days.
2020/4/8, New: 29670 Total: 424945 Double past: 6.8 doubles in 20.4 days.
2020/4/9, New: 31875 Total: 454615 Double past: 7.3 doubles in 30.6 days.
2020/4/10, New: 34875 Total: 486490 Double past: 7.8 doubles in 30.5 days.
2020/4/11, New: 29290 Total: 521365 Double past: 8.2 doubles in 29.9 days.
2020/4/12, New: 36286 Total: 550655 Double past: 8.7 doubles in 37.6 days.
2020/4/13, New: 16555 Total: 586941 Double past: 9.2 doubles in 32.4 days.
2020/4/14, New: 20173 Total: 603496 Double past: 10 doubles in 72.9 days.
2020/4/15, New: 43903 Total: 623669 Double past: 10.6 doubles in 61.8 days.
2020/4/16, New: 23328 Total: 667572 Double past: 10.8 doubles in 30.4 days.
2020/4/17, New: 37393 Total: 690900 Double past: 11.4 doubles in 59.2 days.
2020/4/18, New: 28563 Total: 728293 Double past: 11.7 doubles in 39 days.
2020/4/19, New: 24705 Total: 756856 Double past: 12.2 doubles in 53 days.
2020/4/20, New: 23198 Total: 781561 Double past: 12.8 doubles in 63.3 days.
2020/4/21, New: 25813 Total: 804759 Double past: 13.5 doubles in 69.4 days.
2020/4/22, New: 36517 Total: 830572 Double past: 14.2 doubles in 64.4 days.
2020/4/23, New: 36990 Total: 867089 Double past: 14.7 doubles in 47.5 days.
2020/4/24, New: 41754 Total: 904079 Double past: 15.1 doubles in 48.9 days.
2020/4/25, New: 30567 Total: 945833 Double past: 15.4 doubles in 45.3 days.
2020/4/26, New: 23306 Total: 976400 Double past: 16 doubles in 63.9 days.
2020/4/27, New: 22559 Total: 999706 Double past: 16.6 doubles in 85.8 days.
2020/4/28, New: no-data Total: 1022265 Double past: 17.3 doubles in 90.6 days.