After surprisingly low death tolls the past two days—which I was worried were partly caused by day-of-week effects (reporting can be slower coming out of weekends)— today was a bad one: 1,941 new deaths reported in the US, the highest yet by some margin, surpassing 1,352 on Sat.
The number of new cases looks pretty decent, though: 31,263. That's higher than Monday (29,023) or Sunday (26,553) but lower than Friday (33,767) and Thursday (32,889). 137K new tests reported, which is about average for recent days.
All of this is in line with what you might expect. Newly-reported cases lag infection by something like 2-3 weeks. Go back 2-3 weeks, and that's when a lot of stay-at-home orders went into effect. You are really starting to see their impact. The new-cases curve is now quite flat.
Newly-reported deaths, on the other hand, probably lag infection by more like 4 weeks, on average. Go back 4 weeks, and there are few, if any, social distancing measures in place. The NBA is still playing. Restaurants are busy. People are mostly going into work.
