Approaching normality at a rate of 12 percent per week now, for the U.S. as a whole (bottom line, inset, second graph).
Source: Calculated from NY Times Github COVID-19 data repository, data reported through 3/5/2021.
Florida, as the harbinger of the impact of the U.K. variant? Eh, maybe it is starting to separate from the pack. Maybe not. Too soon to tell. Was middle-of-the-pack in the region on 1/1/2021, now it’s second. Per the fine print in the last post, we are surely going to find out in the next couple of weeks.
The picture is a little clearer in logs, so that’s what you’re looking at. The slope of the line is the growth rate, when graphed this way.
FWIW, NY/NJ seems to be doing the same sort of thing. Turning flat when all else falls. Here’s the nation in logs, and you can see NY/NJ sticking out the side of the pack at the right-hand side. Again in logs.
And yet, no deflection of the curve in California. Logs again. If anything, the rate of decline there might be accelerating. Looks like OR and WA are starting to line up with the CA decline as well. To the point where, if you look at the very first graphs, the Pacific region as a whole is about to fall below an average of 10 new cases / 100,000 / day. (Thus going off-the-chart for the log graph as presented.)
I guess the lesson here is that not all variants are created equal. We’ve got (at least) three COVID-19 variants in play now, all of which are supposed to be substantially more infectious than the ones they are displacing. In two of those areas, new cases are flat. In the third, cases continue to decline.
