March 15, 2020, 9:20 pm
This is the the chart of Global COVID19 Cases worldwide. The number has gone from 580 on January 22 to 167,584 as of March 14. That happened in 53 days, or 7.5 weeks.
The US is at 3,400 cases as of 4 pm today. This is where the world was on January 27. If we follow the same trajectory as the global cases did, then we will be at 20,000 cases in one week, 40,000 in two weeks, and 80,000 in four weeks.
The curves of the Deaths and Recoveries lines are exactly the same shape as that of the Cases line.
According to web articles, the first case was detected in China on December 31and the first death occurred on January 11. Twelve days.
In the US, the first data I have for reported cases was 15 on February 15, exactly 5 weeks later. The first US death was on February 29. Fourteen days.
The current number of Deaths in the US is 63. Taking that starting point from the Global data and forecasting the same growth suggests that in one week we will be at roughly 300, in two weeks at 800, in three weeks at 1,600, and at four weeks at 2,400; six weeks to 3,600, and seven weeks to 5,800.
The number of active cases in China peaked on February 17 at 58,016. China seems to have hit its inflection point somewhere around February 12, meaning that the daily rate of new infections was slowing. Still growing, but the curve was changing from exponential to logistic (vertical to horizontal).
Currently, Total cases = almost 81,000; Deaths = 3,200; Recovered = almost 68,000; remaining active cases = almost 10,000. The last record of new cases was 40 on March 8.
The timeline begins with the first detection on December 31. That means 7 weeks to the peak. The number of new cases appears to have dropped to zero on March 9, meaning 5 weeks from peak to near the end. 12 weeks total. It’s my understanding that more than one wave is expected.
The US timeline begins on January 22. Seven weeks to peak would put us at March 11, which was four days ago. We know that can’t be right. Looking at the curves, if the peak in new cases for China was 58,000 new cases on February 17, which brought the total number of cases to 72,500, then we might expect our peak to occur around April 5, which is three weeks from now.
It goes without saying that I don’t know the first thing about any of this. I’m just plugging the numbers into excel and calculating some ratios, plotting some graphs, and measuring some time. Of course there are innumerable variables that can influence the outcome, some of which undoubtedly work in our favor, others of which undoubtedly work against us.
The long and the short of it is: STAY HOME.
In high school I read “Siddhartha,” by Hermann Hesse. In it, the young buddha says, “I can do three things: I can meditate, I can fast, and I can wait.” Those words have always been with me, but they have never been this real.
#stayhomebewell