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US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking:

Newly-reported deaths
Today: 1,793
Yesterday: 2,041
One week ago (4/24): 1,866

Newly-reported cases
T: 35K
Y: 28K
4/24: 35K

Newly-reported tests
T: 321K*
Y: 205K
4/24: 232K

Positive test rate
T: 11%
Y: 14%
4/24: 15%

* New record
Tests have increased quite a bit. A daily record today. And a total of 1.6 million for the week. That's up 60% from two weeks ago. A big, meaningful improvement.
I would not call myself an optimist about the US's COVID position in any meaningful sense. But do think people are perhaps slightly discounting how doing more tests (a good thing!!) can make the numbers look worse/stagnant when there may be *some* improvement.
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
One observation related to this:

States that have seen clear declines in new cases tend *either* to have had either a LOT of cases early on (e.g. NY, LA) or very FEW cases (e.g. MT, HI). The states in the middle (e.g. MD/VA) aren't seeing much, if any, decline, conversely.
Why is this? If you're a state that had LOTS of cases then two things happen:

1) People are scared so social distancing is stricter and people abide by it more.
2) Some nontrivial fraction of your population is likely immune, at least for some period, which helps at the margin.
Conversely, if you're a state like Hawaii that never had many cases to begin with, it probably means you have some intrinsic geographic, etc. advantages that keeps transmission low. Also, with a low absolute # of cases you can do much better contact tracing, which helps a lot.
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking:

Newly reported deaths:
Today: 1,949
Yesterday: 2,527
One week ago (4/29): 2,700

Newly reported cases:
T: 22K
Y: 22K
4/29: 27K

Newly reported tests:
T: 215K
Y: 259K
4/29: 230K

Positive test rate:
T: 10%
Y: 9%
4/29: 12%
New York did *not* report data on cases and tests today. (It *did* report data on deaths.) That matters less than it once did because NY's cases have fallen a lot and its positive test rate is now similar to that of the country overall. But it's worth nothing.
But the *non* New York numbers have also not been so bad over the past three days, with non-NY cases around ~20K per day (down from a peak of ~23K) and a positive test rate of 8-10% (down from a peak of ~16%).
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Part of the disconnect on "opening up" is because some people assume it means "back to normal"—when in fact the activities that fall under "opening up" (at least the ones states are considering and people are arguing about right now) are often in relatively narrow categories.
On the one hand, some (perhaps much) transmission occurs within households, or among people performing essential services. Those things never closed.

On the other hand, some transmission occurs at mass gatherings and other superspreading events. Those aren't opening up (yet).
You could maybe divide the remaining activities into two groups: "work + school" and "discretionary, small-scale social activity" (e.g. restaurants, parks, personal care, small household gatherings). Most "opening up" involves only some fraction of these activities resuming...
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