March 17, 2020, 10 pm
#stayhomebewell for updates
This one is very confusing.
I’m trying to project a timeline.
Of course there are so many factors that could influence these projections, and I’m not presuming to be accounting for any of them. Government responses or lacks thereof, social norms, communalism vs. individualism, physical social mobility, and probably dozens of other factors will shape how long we have to endure this crisis. A breakthrough vaccine could put the entire thing to bed. Utterly inadequate testing suggests that the information that we think we have is likely wrong by orders of magnitude: 10x? 100x? 1,000,000x? Who knows.
ONE THING IS FOR GODDAMN SURE: STAY HOME AND BE WELL! STOP GOING TO FUCKING YOGA CLASS YOU IDIOT.
I’m just trying to establish some possible timelines based on what we do know from the last three months’ of data, so that we don’t all feel completely in the dark.
The timeline began on December 31, 2019. The inflection point in the Chinese outbreak was February 12, 2020, with 14,108 NEW cases on a single day, and total cases of 51,591.
China Timeline start to inflection point = 43 days.
As of yesterday, March 16, 2020, the number of new cases reported in China was 21. There are still just under 9,000 existing cases, but the news out of China about temporary hospitals packing up and dismantling suggests that they have made it through.
Time from China inflection point to rough end point: 34 days.
Total Duration in China: 77 days.
The US timeline began on January 21, 2020. Time from China to US: 21 days.
If the time from start to inflection point in the US were to have mirrored China’s, we could have expected the US inflection point to have arrived 43 days after our start date, or on March 4, 13 days ago, and the end to arrive 34 days later, on April 7.
If we simply add the 21-day time lag to that anticipated March 4 inflection point, we would have a US inflection point on March 25, one week from now. Yesterday’s chart would project a total number of cases of only around 25,000 cases at that date, while the global total number of cases was 59,000. However, when we’re talking about exponential growth, the difference between those two numbers could be bridged in only a couple of days. The global total went from 25,000 to 59,000 in nine days. My chart also includes all global cases, not just China, so that comparison may not be apt.
Again I have to emphasize that I don’t know SHIT about any of this. In some measures I’m looking at China specifically, and in others I’m looking at the Global total, because for the first month or so, it was all China, and also because I’m just not trying to be completely anal about all of this. I’m trying to put a rough guestimate out there and see what the ball park is, because the news isn’t really answering the questions I would like to have answered.
(OK here I’ve found I made some errors, but it’s too late for me to go and re-do this hand-drawn timeline I’ve attached, and the error is only of 3 days, so it shouldn’t make too big of a difference in the big scheme of things.)
There were 580 cases globally on January 22. The US reached that level on March 8, or 47 days later. March 8 + 43 to 47 days = April 20-24 for the US inflection point; + 34 days = May 24 as an end point.
Alternatively, judging by my graph of a few days ago, we are 53 days behind China. This means:
December 31 + 53 days = February 21 as the start of the curve.
February 12 + 53 days = April 5 inflection point.
March 17 + 53 days = May 9 new cases approaching zero.
This actually jibes with:
April 5 + 34 days = May 9 new cases approaching zero.
Do I think we’re going to be out the other side of this by May 9? I do not. Our officials have been talking about June and July, and there are mentions of 12-18 months with regard to vaccines. Of course they know as much as there is to know about this and I know just about as little as a person could know. So why are you even reading this?
Much of the variable of how long we will have to endure this will depend on when people come to grips with the fact that this shit is happening. Please stay home. Please be well. #STAYHOMEBEWELL.
