The U.S. Coronavirus Outbreak Is No Where Near Peaking

Per the comments in my last post, the Whitehouse analysis that we would see a peak in U.S. cases last week was a horrible lack of interpretation of simple math.  Here is a competent analysis of where we are in the U.S.  This graph was from Monday of this week.  It is a list of the top 25 U.S. cities and their coronavirus cases. (excluding New York) 

Remember the exponential growth of cases in New York. They went from nearly no cases to the worst outbreak in the world in a matter of weeks. The U.S. went from no deaths two months ago to lead the world in deaths. Will this happen in other U.S. cities?  We don’t know yet. But, what we do know is cases continue to rise, and in some cities, rise very rapidly, and deaths are a lagging indicator.

It’s amazing we can’t seem to find anyone on the Trump team who understands remedial math and how to plot and read outbreaks in an Excel spreadsheet.  It’s really simple. Cases or graph slope going up means we aren’t at a peak.  I can teach a five year told to understand this but apparently the Trump administration hasn’t yet reached toddler capabilities.  Interesting that the ten or so states who refused to shut down were Republican governors. I despise both parties as corrupt anti-democratic institutions, and both Trump and Biden are corporate scumbags, but there’s a dystopian and dangerous combination of anti-science and rebellion against any type of expertise that is pervasive in our nation.  Especially on the right.  There are oftentimes understandable reasons for this but ignorance can be deadly.

Lots of experts in this nation are idiots. Lots of positions presented as science are nothing more than scientism or science-sounding. It’s very difficult for most people to understand what is and isn’t true. Democratic society is supposed to protect us from this endless incompetence and corruption of facts and science.  And, that’s what it really is.  It’s institutionalized incompetence and corruption based on self-interest.  Hopefully, this is starting to wake people up from Adam Smith’s anti-scientific remarks that self-interest serves the common good.  Selflessness serves the common good.  Society should be organized first for the common good and then for self-interest.  And the prime motive for people participating in society should not money as capitalism would have us believe.  Again, an anti-scientific and anti-human delusion.

Dr. Fauci recently cited a study out of China that highlights this virus may be impacted by UV radiation.  And, thus, be seasonal.  I actually read that study. It is on the SSRN site.  I wrote early-on that if I were to guess, this virus may be seasonal for that reason.  Again, it’s a pure guess.  It’s hard to get a grip on what is going on right now because both the northern and southern hemispheres are in the middle of changes from winter to summer and vice versa.  So, we don’t see the evidence for potential seasonality yet.  But, the study Fauci is citing has a lot of holes in it.  Frankly, the study is scientism or science-sounding.  Given how fast this situation is moving, I can appreciate that.  But it doesn’t yet appear that the onset of summer is impacting the virus in the U.S. 

With other major cities in the U.S. now starting to bend the knee of the curve in outbreaks, what will happen next? Will we see mid and smaller sized cities in the U.S. follow suit with major outbreaks?  In other words, another later wave?  If so, those areas are similar to poor, oftentimes minority, sections of large cities where private, for-profit healthcare has destroyed public health. Many smaller communities share the same lack of health resources as many poor neighborhoods in large cities.   These small and relatively rural communities are demographic strongholds for Fox News and Donald Trump.  And, some studies show upwards of 40% of mostly conservatives our nation still believes this virus is a hoax.  If that happens, Trump will be routed in November regardless of who is running against him.