We Missed Our Window of Opportunity with COVID-19

There is no way to sugar coat this. The US blew their opportunity to have a successful lock down. The failure point came in early to mid May. Lock downs across the country were ended too soon basically nullifying most of the benefits of the lock down. It was like running a marathon only to quit one mile from the end because "we've come a long way and we don't see the point in running anymore because the end is far away."

I will illustrate what happened with graphs. All graphs come from the Coronavirus information page maintained by John's Hopkins University. Data was accessed on June 7th, with the latest data being from June 6th.

Here is a graph of the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the US from the first detected case in January to today (June 6). The period from February to early April showed exponential growth, as is expected for an unconstrained virus.

In mid April the effects of the lock down took over and stopped the exponential growth. It was on the way to flattening out, but in early to mid May the curve shifted and we lost the opportunity to suppress and contain the virus.

Below is a graph over the same time period but showing the number of new cases per day.

US Virus Cases per Day

Here you can see the exponential growth from February to early April. The growth curve flattens due to the lock down. But it does not continue its downward trend. Here is the same graph but for Germany, which did have a successful lock down.

Germany Virus Cases per Day

Germany had one advantage, they got the virus a little later than the US (about a week), and then they started their lock down earlier. This curve shows what a successful lock down looks like. Germany can now return to a more normal state with some precautions in place.

Italy had a much more painful experience but they too had a successful lock down, as shown by their graph below.

Italy Cases per Day

There are some countries where lock downs were not implemented or they had no effect. Here is Brazil (note the difference in the scale on the y axis).

Brazil Cases per Day

And India.

India Cases per Day

If a lock down is not successful and no preventive measures are taken then you get a second hump. This happened in Iran. Iran is also a case where tests were not done or intentionally not reported. The first hump has a piece missing from the left half. There are also indications that there was significant under reporting in general.

Iran Cases per Day

If you want to see actual data manipulation then Belarus is the best example. Mysteriously positive cases stay under 1,000 per day (except for one day where reports doubled up from the day before).

Belarus Cases per Day

If you want to see a lack of testing, under reporting and data manipulation all in one country, look no further than Russia. You have natural exponential growth, then in the middle of April a chunk is missing showing a lack of testing, followed by a period of under reporting in the first half of May. Finishing off with data manipulation after that.

Russia Cases per Day

Then you have Singapore which had a successful lock down, but then lost control when new cases were imported at the beginning of April/end of March, and now they are trying to bring it under control.

Singapore Cases per Day

The gold standard of lock downs was done by New Zealand (also Iceland). They had significant advantages of being an island where they can greatly control incoming people, and they were not along any major travel routes. But they did take advantage of that and managed to eliminate cases of coronavirus from the country.

New Zealand Cases per Day

Sweden tried a different approach with a "soft" lock down. It only kinda worked, and it may get worse now that they are opening up slightly.

Sweden Cases per Day

Compare that to Denmark right next door who tried a hard lock down. Again, note the difference in the scale on the y axis.

Denmark Cases per Day

So how did individual states in the US do? It's a mixed bag.

New York had a successful lock down. States next to New York (New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.) had similar success.

New York Cases per Day

California not so much. It did have an effect, but then people gave up too early and lost all the benefits of a hard lock down like New York had.

California Cases per Day

It's a similar story with Texas.

Texas Cases per Day

And North Carolina.

North Carolina Cases per Day

In some sates it wasn't bad... until 1-2 weeks after Memorial Day. They have a very clear Memorial Day spike. Utah and Arizona are the best examples. You can also make out a Memorial Day spike in North Carolina and a few other states.

First Utah.

Utah Cases per Day

Then Arizona.

Arizona Cases per Day

Minnesota is a case where the virus came, got slowed down early by a lock down, but then the lock down ended and... well let's just say it found plenty of hosts.

Minnesota Cases per Day

From here on out the US does not have the option of suppression, control, and elimination as happened in New Zealand and Iceland, or the suppression done in Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea, and many other countries.

We blew our chances of having a successful lock down. If we had waited 2-3 more weeks we could now be seriously planning on opening up the country again for normal business. But we blew it. Now we can only work on mitigation and maintaining good health practices so that we are not overwhelmed all at once. Because of this we will go through maximum economic pain. Even if everything opens up there will not be enough people that will return to normal to keep businesses afloat. A short 3-4 month shock could have been handled. But this will now drag on for over a year, possibly more.

Without any significant changes we are looking at more than 100,000 more deaths by the end of the year, assuming it doesn't get any worse, or significantly better. I don't know where it will end up, only what direction it's going right now.