I've said it before, but people should be mindful that coronavirus statistics are lagging indicators. In Wuhan, a typical case showed up in the data ~2 weeks after the person initially became symptomatic. The lag could be longer in counties without good testing (e.g. the USA).
This has two obvious implications:
1) When cases are on the upswing, as they obviously are in the US right now, things are almost certainly MUCH worse than they appear from the official data.
But also:
2) Once things start to turn around, it will be ~2 weeks before we know it.
1) When cases are on the upswing, as they obviously are in the US right now, things are almost certainly MUCH worse than they appear from the official data.
But also:
2) Once things start to turn around, it will be ~2 weeks before we know it.
In general, I don't think it's super helpful for people to tweet out statistics on cases/deaths without providing context on where a country is in the scope of its epidemic.
