Because the Ro ispartially a function of the environment. Which is why we can “flatten the curve”. We have. Seriously. Right now it looks like we may have stomped the hell out of it.
And bear in mind, Washington state REALLY is the one that got hit (just that one epicenter nursing home!) and SERIOUSLY skews the curve for the whole US.
Our CFR so far is truthfully about 1.0% now, and has been mostly.
This is no Black Plague, though I will say ITALY really is sucking the lemon. 10%.
I’m not sure in New York City, yet. Hopefully, we’re laying waste to it in other places. Die, COVID, die!
Now, if NYC keeps increasing by a flat 5000 per day, we have reduced R0 to 1 (from what was apparently much more than the average of 2.3 to 3), but still needs to be reduced to avoid further stress on the hospitals (average ICU stay as long as 30 days, then you usually die).
New Cases
20MAR 5588
21MAR 4825
22MAR 9400
23MAR 10189
24MAR 11075
25MAR 13355
26MAR 17224
Total Cases
20MAR 19367
23MAR 43781
26MAR 85435
I'm not sure this meets "flattening the curve". We are slowing it down more than some countries have, but doubling every 3 days isn't ideal. I think people being responsible would be more effective than massive shutdowns, other than mass transportation. We should have seen this coming, but refused to believe what we saw happening around the world.