What appears to be a slight steepening of the curve today is probably due to the handful of states whose offices closed for Presidents’ Day.
Otherwise, if we’re reaching the end of the U.S. pandemic via herd immunity, it must be too soon to tell. On the other hand, if we’re reaching the fourth wave of the U.S. pandemic via the U.K. variant, it must be too soon to tell.
Because, the fact is, cases continue to decline in a more-or-less straight-line fashion, 20-ish percent per week.
Still looking forward to that explosion of cases from Super Bowl parties. We know that has to happen because experts warned us about it. That ought to start showing up around Friday or so. Or not.
Source: Calculated from NY Times Github COVID data repository, data reported through 2/14/2021.
New US covid cases have fallen 61% from the early January peak. Cases continue to fall across all regions and states.
What had appeared to be a breakout by North Dakota was probably just some sort of data reporting issue. North Dakota shows every sign of rejoining the slow downward progress of the rest of the Midwest states.
There’s no evidence yet that herd immunity is playing a role in the rate of decrease across states.
The U.S. is now 60% below the 1/8/20201 peak, in terms of new COVID-19 cases/ 100,000 / day.
Source for all graphs: Calculated from NY Times Github COVID data repository, data through 2/10/2021.
North Dakota continues to be an outlier. New cases continue to fall, and as of 2/10/2021 the new-case rate in ND just slightly higher than in Hawaii. This graph shows the states, since 1/1/2021, in logs (so that constant growth rate graphs as a straight line).
Source: Calculated from NY Times Github COVID data repository, data through 2/9/2021.