Thread by @Tennesseine

Thread on my #CovidDataProject: #ReOpenAmerica edition.

For those not familiar with my work, the original (and still primary) aim of my model was to answer the question, “Where would we be on #COVID19 deaths had @realDonaldTrump acted quickly and responsibly?” The answer is

1/x

is shocking. As of midnight UTC last night, we stood at 72,271 deaths, and my model shows 90.905%, 65,698 American souls, would still be alive had he acted quickly. In other words, this would have been another tragic but relatively small blip on the epidemic radar, similar in

scale to the #SwineFlu under @BarackObama. And that’s without taking into account the added deaths globally, those caused by America’s failure to act.

Another, secondary goal has been predictive, looking at trends to make an educated guess about where we’re headed. That’s

3/x

extremely difficult, because ever-changing policy responses (and, often, lack thereof) as well as group actions by citizens (eg ill-advised protests that spread the disease) make this a very fluid situation. Nonetheless, I’ve had decent success, with average daily accuracy

4/x

of predictions around 0.6% on global total case count, 0.53% US total case count, 1.63% on US total death toll.

So with all that time spent in the data, what is my outlook for #ReOpenAmerica? Mixed, at best. Here’s why.

Yes, we’re definitely seeing some undeniably positive

5/x

trends. Examples:

1) The case fatality rate has plateaued here in the US, and might hopefully peak at under 6% before slowly heading down. (It peaked at a little over 7% globally and has also started to drop.)

2) We’ve had fewer than 2k deaths a day 7 of the past 14 days.

6/x

3) For the first time since the pandemic took off here, we were below the global daily case rate growth on 28 April and we’ve repeated that the past 2 days straight.

4) We’ve not exceeded 2500 new deaths in a day in almost two weeks.

This thread will continue later today.

7/x

5) Globally, the trend in daily case growth has been down (i.e., growing but at a slowing rate), though the rate of change has been torturously slow, averaging less than 1/10 of a percent in the reduction of the daily growth rate.

So there’s your good news. Now let’s talk

8/x

about the bad news.

1) Yesterday was the highest death toll of May (& since 29 April), as new hot spots develop thanks to poor local policy & those ill-advised protests.

2) Even before many states started their premature #ReOpenAmerica moves, we weren’t #FlatteningtheCurve

9/x

fast enough to effectively end this wave before cooler weather brings #Wave2 in the Fall. Indeed, all we were really doing was getting #COVID19 to a #SummerSimmer ahead of a new explosion.

3) While it’s too early to be certain & we’re hindered by the #CorruptGOP’s attempts

10/x

to actively suppress and conceal data (eg in Florida and Arizona), one very possible outcome is an explosion of cases in the new hot spots & areas reopening too quickly, which puts us all the way back to square one. In that scenario, expect summer 2020 to look no different

11/x

from the spring in terms of deaths and spread. It seems the @gop is fine with that and have nonchalantly doubled the expected death toll based on the idea that a hundred thousand American deaths here or there represent a small price to pay for sustaining corporate profits.

12/x

So here are two possible scenarios to keep your eyes on over the next few days to get a sense for which way we’re jumping.

Scenario one: we get lucky

Look for today’s numbers to trend back down, with total deaths today at around 1409 and total new cases at around 23,696,

13/x

and case fatality rate holding steady at around 5.84%. This scenario will suggest we may still be trending downwards, albeit with above caveats in mind.

Scenario two: we’re screwed because of our impatience and greed

Look for today’s numbers to be a strengthening of the

14/x

upwards swing noted above. Total new deaths at over 2k, possibily around 2654, with case fatality rate ticking up to around 5.91% and total new cases over 25k, possibly upwards of 30,132. Also look at shifting rankings among states, with newer states moving up in new cases

15/x

as states further along in recovery move down.

And therein lies one of the biggest dangers: 1) states aren’t countries and the flow of goods and people is far from zero while 2) we’re seeing evidence of #reinfection, meaning an exploding Florida outbreak could result in a

16/x

renewal of the pandemic in early states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Michigan, in which case we’ve only just started to count the bodies.

#CovidDataChat

17/17 <end>

@threadreaderapp unroll please