America Hasn't Flattened The Curve, And States Are Acting On Data That May Be Worse Than Worthless
A quick check of the ever more reassuring University of Washington IHME model shows that America reached the peak number of deaths three days ago and is on it’s way to improvement. Which is great. Except for the part where that didn’t happen. In between the previous update on April 13 and the latest update, the IHME equation consistently under-predicted deaths by 400 or more. Then, after taking that into account, and following an update on Thursday, it went on to … under-predict deaths by 400 on Friday. Which makes the way the model also cut the overall number of deaths by 8,000 in the latest update seem more than a little suspect.
Discounting additions made after New York rolled in thousands of previously unreported deaths earlier in the week, Friday marked the highest single day of reported deaths in the United States with over 2,500. It’s also becoming increasingly obvious that New York is far from alone in failing to account for cases and deaths that are happening outside of hospitals. Across the nation, extended care facilities have become overwhelmed by cases among both patients and staff, and the rate of people dying in their own homes is up an order of magnitude.
All the evidence indicates that the number of cases of COVID-19 in the United States has not plateaued. But the rate of testing has.