Thread by @cfishman

Remember Italy?

The place that showed the world, & the US, what the coronavirus could do to individuals, to a region, to a country, to a health care system.

Italy coronavirus data for Monday, June 29:

• Total new cases (nationwide): 126

• Total covid deaths (nationwide): 6

2/ If you look at those curves, there is no plateau, there is no 'second wave,' there is no surge.

Parts of Italy were crushed by the virus, but Italy wheeled around, in turn, and crushed the virus back.

3/ For a month, Italy averaged 4,000 new cases a day — or more. Now, 126 a day.

Below, some admittedly off-kilter comparisons.

New coronavirus cases per hour (recent days):

• Arizona: 160

• California: 265

• Florida: 355

• Texas: 291

4/ We always find a reason to say, 'Yeah, but we're not Italy.'

When Italy was unraveling under the crisis, we said, 'Oh, we're not Italy—that won't happen here.'

Now that Italy has covid contained, we say, 'Oh, we're not Italy — the US is a bigger, more complicated geography.'

5/ Also, FYI, we're not:

• New Zealand
• Australia
• Germany

Maybe we should start looking for the lessons in places that are succeeding, not the distinctions to justify the US 'new cases' graph (below) — that no other developed nation has experienced.

6/ February 15 was day the US had 15 cases.

It took 49 days to get to 290,000 cases — April 3.

That was the original surge.

In the last 7 days, the US has reported 289,000 new cases.

7 days to report new cases that — in the original surge — took 7 weeks to accumulate.

7/ Deaths have plunged — what a relief.

US deaths are averaging 500 to 600 a day.

Three days in the last 9 have been below 300 deaths, nationwide.

8/ When US deaths were averaging 1,500 a day — which they did for 5 terrible weeks, from April 7 to May 15 — the case-fatality-rate in the US was 5% or higher.

You could look at new cases per day, multiply by 5%, and know how many deaths were coming 2 or 3 weeks ahead.

9/ US deaths have plunged as a 'shadow' of the fall in US cases.

The US new-cases chart, again, below — with the day marked when average new cases bottomed out, then started to rise again.

(All these charts, from the data wizards @washingtonpost).

10/ And here is the equivalent chart showing daily US covid deaths (with June 11 marked for reference).

Deaths have been on a steady decline — a chart that looks like Italy, for instance.

(Ignore that recent one day spike — it was New Jersey adding a lot of deaths in one day.)

10/ The question is: What will be the case-fatality-rate during this new surge?

The data show that a very large percentage of the new cases are in young people.

The data also show that, even when they get sick, young people aren't sick as long, and have much lower fatalities.

11/ If you follow the 7-day average, rather than the daily numbers, the overall US pandemic-summer started June 11.

3 weeks ago.

But there is no surge in deaths. In most states there's no hint of rising deaths.

It may be too soon to be assured, but it hasn't happened yet.

12/ Below are starts with surging covid cases, but no rise in fatalities over the same period:

AL
CA
FL
GA
ID
NV
NC
TX
UT

13/ Texas, a state of 29 million people, hasn't had 1 day with even 50 fatalities — although TX hospitals are setting admit & ICU records.

June 11, TX was averaging 1,800 new cases a day

At 5% case-fatality-rate, that translates to 90 deaths a day

Jun 30 avg deaths: 30 / day

14/ Three states do show signs that deaths are rising:

• Arizona — average deaths from 20 to 40 a day (since Jun 11)

• South Carolina and Tennessee show upward curves — but both states have 7-day average deaths of 10 a day or less.

15/ What will the impact of the pandemic-summer be — on the economy, fatalities, hospitals, long-term damage from disease?

We don't know.

Having 289,000 cases in 7 days — as many as in 7 weeks in March & April — that's not good news.

How bad the news is remains to be seen.

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