COVID19 Trends on April 4th

It's been a few days since I've put something out on what's going on with COVID19. My home state of Washington has extended the COVID19 stay-at-home order 30 days, now expiring on May 4th, but possibly extended further. Trends in the new case data on COVID19 have continued to evolve, but mostly in a negative way. Let's get into it.

Italy has continued to flatten, but has still only dropped to a level that is 70% ish of the peak new cases set on March 21st. Italy is now 26 days into their lock down, but still seeing thousands of new cases per day. I'm hoping to see this cliff drop off soon, but it's likely an indication that while helpful, the shelter-in-place approach is not good enough to quickly and effectively stop the spread. It's clear that shelter-in-place does slow it down for those areas which have embraced it.

As testing in the US ramps, this daily new case graph becomes increasingly accurate (likely still not accurate enough though). The US is now 19 days into the social distancing order nationally and shows only slight slowing of new cases.

We can no longer assume we are on the Italy track of new case growth and flattening. There are several likely reasons for this change in assumption:

1. Italy had a national shelter-in-place order, in the US we've only had shelter-in-place orders in certain states, while others have continued on and mostly ignored the guidelines. This means that new cases continue to grow in some areas, while flattening in others.
2. New data showing mobility released by Google, indicates that we are not really following in the footsteps of Italy and Spain when it comes to social distancing requirements.

Anecdotally, I still hear stories from my friends, of people they know still mingling with their friends, having people over, and generally getting on with their social lives. Overall, I'm grateful the roadmap to re-opening is state by state and not a national criteria.

Another topic to consider is what should we expect warmer weather and humidity will do to the trajectory of the pandemic in the northern hemisphere? We may be able to take some clues from the flu season.

We are already significantly past peak flu season this year as these cases have dramatically slowed. One of the key questions is what will COVID19 do as the weather warms? I suggest having a look this article asking that exact question.

For most of North America and Europe, the effect of humidity on the spread of the coronavirus would be negligible until June, when levels start to increase beyond 9 g/m3, the authors wrote.

While, being hopeful that things will get better in June is nice...it still reads as bad news to me on April 4th. The idea of 2-3 months of more lock down is difficult to comprehend right now.

One of the things I'm learning through this period is the difference between optimistic thinking and wishful thinking. Optimistic thinking relies on mental discipline to think positively about a relatively undefined future. It's self-programming in some ways. To convince yourself that good things are coming, even when you don't really have proof of that. It should never preclude you from acting towards the purpose of ensuring that better future, but it should keep you from wasting energy on fear, uncertainty and doubt that may make it difficult to take necessary action.

Wishful thinking is when we take optimistic thinking, but fixate on an external factor like a key date in the future, or an important event. When we tell ourselves to place our reason for avoiding wasteful negativity on an external factor which we have no control over, that is itself uncertain, we set ourselves up for major disappointment and a plunge back into the world of negativity.

While May 4th is the date that the State of Washington is supposed to lift out shelter-in-place order, it would be foolish to fix our hopes on that. Wishful thinking is the easy way out that will ultimately betray us.

So, even though the data is not giving us very many positives: Stay positive, stay healthy and stay home.