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Thank you for doing these analyses.

I have only looked at worldwide numbers, because of the fact that until the virus is wiped out everywhere, we will remain in danger of a reemergence here.

We are entering spring. Ordinary cold viruses become less active in the spring and summer; will this killer cold virus behave like its benign cousins? If it exhibits the same kind of seasonality, I expect to see cases drop off in the northern hemisphere, while they are picking up in the southern hemisphere. We’ll know if this is happening within a few weeks. The scenario of a virus sweeping through the southern hemisphere is very concerning, given the poor healthcare systems that exist, especially in Africa and to a large extent in South America.

I won’t post my graphs today, but I will note that the number of new cases is not increasing rapidly over the last few days, but it may only be because of the delay in testing that happens over the weekend. Another item I noticed is that the percent of active cases has dropped slightly and steadily since April 4, driven by both deaths and recoveries. The death rate has creeped up to 5.59%.

One last comment: influenza is something that most people do not pay much attention to, unless it kills someone in their immediate family. However, a lot of research dollars are invested in studying influenza. We have a massive vaccination program in place to try to decrease deaths and illnesses. Our pandemic program was instituted primarily to watch out for novel influenza viruses. A few years ago, when one of the hats I wore was Influenza Expert for my institution, there was a cluster of influenza deaths in Maryland. So many people came to my office to ask if a new pandemic was emerging, and I was able to reassure them that it was not a new pandemic. Covid-19, however... from the days of the first reports of an illness in China, I recognized that this virus has every characteristic of a pandemic capable pathogen. And here we are.

"but it may only be because of the delay in testing that happens over the weekend..."

I respect your opinion, but I have a slightly different view. I can not see where Sunday was an anomaly. See the chart below with the last four Sundays highlighted. I DO NOT see anomalies in the three prior Sundays on the chart. Last Sunday AND Monday both are notably lower than the previous Thursday and Friday. That pattern does not appear in the prior three weekends. If you see it differently from that chart, please point out exactly how the Sundays are different. I just don't see it.

Regarding temperatures, I tend to believe you are correct. I live in the south and our temps have been running in the 70's and 80's for the last 10 to 14 days. Our cases have not leveled off, albeit we started from a small number and are a relatively small state (4.6M). Then, I look at NY & NJ and that seems to be where the new daily cases have dropped most significantly. Those two states have represented between 45% and 50% of our growth in new cases over about the last three weeks for the entire country. Yet, they make up slightly over 5% of our population. I'm not sure the temps have climbed there as they have here, but there numbers (new cases) sure seem to be declining.

Finally, I saw DoughtyOne's comments about counting the number days. Like you, I greatly respect and appreciate his work, but I am in the camp that days DO count. The western European countries that I track (plus S. Korea) all have peaks in the number of new cases. In my mind new cases are the primary determinant of the curve. Now, their peaks are all different, but none have gone beyond 29 days except Italy, and they peaked at day 30. Saturday 4/5 was our day 29. Now, many of the countries had two peaks and the number I used above counts the second peak, if there was one. Our first peak was Saturday 4/5 (we could have another).

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

click on image to enlarge

Data from Worldometer