Originally posted April 1st, 2020

Friends,
I have to moderate my enthusiastic post from a few days ago some good news/bad news information. The good news is, for both the US and California, the rate of new cases is still trending down and is now below 20% for both regions. Unfortunately, even with the lower rate, the total number of new cases is still increasing after a short pause. It is definitely increasing at a slower rate, and that’s good, but increasing nonetheless.

Some have asked, how are these number affected by the new testing? It’s hard to say. The US is definitely doing more testing, and bringing more on line all the time, but our testing is still not adequate to capture all the information we need. There are still certainly a lot of cases we don’t know about, especially among asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people. So even if you don’t have symptoms, it’s still important to keep your distance from others.

Others have asked about the new drug treatments that President has been enthusiastic about. Keep in mind that the medical field is highly regulated, and scientists and regulators are very slow to say a piece of equipment, test, or drug works until rigorous testing has been completed. So is the President right in saying these new drugs show promise, or is Dr. Fauci right in saying we don’t know yet. Well, they both are. The President is being hopeful, citing trials by physicians in other countries and in the US, and Dr. Fauci is expressing caution that the drugs have not been rigorously tested. Both things are true. The FDA recently approved the use of these drugs in trials here, and physicians in the US are always allowed by their credentials to use drugs off label. So testing is being done, and hopefully, we’ll have something that can be used widely soon.

Stay safe, my friends!
Erik