This is a case update for the previous week. As we’ve seen before, new cases in the US are slowly trending downward (currently around 21k confirmed cases per day), slowly trending upward in California (around 2k confirmed cases per day), and flat in San Diego County (around 125 confirmed cases per day). As we discussed from statistics last week (May 12th post), many of these are likely real cases, and not just because of additional testing.
Rt Live reports that all but 2 states have an Rt value below 1.0, meaning that the virus is slowly disappearing in that state. You may notice if you look on that site, however, that several states, including California, still have slowly upward trending cases, even though they have an Rt value below 1.0. This appears to me to be a discrepancy. Possible explanations for this may be that the Rt Live’s algorithm is too generous and miscalculates Rt for some states, or that the Rt value needs to be much lower than 1 for a downward trend to be seen. We can certainly hope that we will see improvement in these states soon.
Some counties in California will be able to move further into Step 2 of re-opening (Step 2b?). Unfortunately for many of us, none of these counties are in Southern California!
My friend who works at San Diego County Public Health, Brit Colanter, has posted an update slide deck that the County has released, and will update regularly. The county is continuing to have more testing available to the public and is now releasing the number of recovered COVID patients. As of last night, total confirmed cases in SD is 5946, and current active cases is 1926. So more than half of our confirmed cases have recovered! That’s great news!
As we continue into recovery and more businesses open, please continue to wear masks in public, and continue to distance whenever possible! The CDC was slow to recommend masks, and it’s true that masks are not 100% effective, but if everyone is wearing masks that are 50% effective, this will go a long way toward minimizing transmission. See my May 5th post for more info and for mask designs! I’m a big fan of wearing masks in public, and it may be the key to opening more businesses.
The more we keep new cases low, the faster we can continue the re-opening process!
Don’t fear, but be smart!
Erik
