This was originally a Facebook post of mine from 2020-8-18, and is archived here as a curiosity. Minor changes to formatting, as well as basic copy-edits, may have been made in the transition from Facebook post to web format.
Today, the United States reported 40,458 new cases of the novel coronavirus, down from 55,594 a week ago (Covid Tracking Project). When I last ran the numbers, I was grumbling about how we seemed to be in a stretch of 50-60k cases per day. That was three days ago, and the last three days have seen 43k, 38k, and 40k cases. So that's pretty neat.
We reported 1195 new deaths today, down from 1326 a week ago. Last time I checked in on this, I was talking about how that rolling seven-day average figure for deaths had stayed between 1000 and 1200 every day for twenty days. Unfortunately, we're now at 23 days inside that range, so not much up or down movement.
The good news is that if cases keep falling, eventually the deaths have to catch up. And another reason to believe that the deaths should start dropping at some point here is that hospitalizations are dropping. On July 25th, we had about 59k hospitalizations reported nationwide, while it's now down to about 43k. Out of those 16,000 or so reduced hospitalizations, one was that relative of mine I mentioned before -- he's home. I am not sure how complete hospitalization data is, but it can't hurt to take a peek every now and again and see what direction it's heading.
So all in all, good news. Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results. Your mileage may vary. Terms and conditions apply. See store for details.
The usual graphs are attached.
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