Thread by @Noahpinion

3 weeks and 5 days after lockdown began, Italy is now clearly past the peak of its epidemic.

https://twitter.com/jacobandrewlong/status/1246116540375760897

It was almost exactly 2 weeks from Italy's lockdown until its peak (now visible in hindsight).

Most U.S. states issued stay-at-home orders between Mach 17 and March 26. So if we're as good at obeying lockdowns as Italians, our peak should come sometime in the next week...

But note that the peak of new cases is not the same as the peak of deaths. That should come a week or more later (IHME model predicts April 16).

And then it will be several MORE weeks until the number of daily new cases goes low enough that we can use #TestAndTrace.

Other caveats:
1. Some states still haven't done lockdown and may not do so until they themselves have major outbreaks, forcing other states in and out of lockdown as those new outbreaks spread.
2. We may be obeying lockdown much less than the Italians are.

So far we've followed Italy's progression fairly closely, but if our lockdowns are more patchwork and taken less seriously, we could do significantly worse than Italy has done over the coming weeks, with a longer and more severe outbreak.

(end)

Oh, also, this Google mobility data indicates that Americans in most cities and states are obeying lockdown much less than in Italy. That's bad news for our hopes of following in their footsteps.

google.com/covid19/mobili…