If you are a regular reader you know I follow the 14 day rolling average of daily new coronavirus infections in America. While every index has its flaws, I think it is the best leading indicator. Trump and his grossly unqualified economic advisors constantly talk of the economy’s V shaped recovery. Like much of what Trump and his minions profess it doesn’t exist outside the Donald Dome. Couple those two concepts and come along with me to explore.
I’ll spare you the economic talk today except for the V shaped recovery reference. I want to concentrate on the pandemic. I contend that new cases hit a valley (remember off a much larger base number) and are now on the upswing. Below are the percentage increases – and even on the best day it was still an increase – for the period November 28 to December 7.
11/28 +12%
11/29 + 8%
11/30 + 3%
12/01 + 2%
12/02 + 1%
12/03 + 8%
12/04 + 9%
12/05 +12%
12/06 +15%
12/07 +16%
On four of the last five days covered above, the total number of daily new cases exceeded 200,000. The lone day below 200,000 was a Sunday. Sunday numbers are historically underreported.
Last week we hit 14 million cases in America. This week we hit 15 million. It is a sure bet that we will have at least 1 million new cases of COVID-19 reported in America every week for some time to come. (The Biden team won’t be able to just flick a switch on the afternoon of January 20th.)
Hospitalizations of over 100,000 COVID patients on any given day are now the norm in America. Capacity, particularly of trained medical personnel, is finite. You can’t just buy another trained medical professional at the local Walmart.
The percentage increases in the above chart are relatively small numbers. It was only back in mid-November that we ran an eight day streak with percentage increases in the 70s and 80s. We can and probably will hit those levels again.
Doing some simple math; if you had a base of 200,000 new cases and an 80% increase rate that means after two weeks you would have 360,000 new infections per day.
Keep in mind that the Trump administration is still in charge for a bit over a month and their track record on managing this pandemic has by far been the worst in the western world and probably the world as a whole.
The Thanksgiving surge is about to hit in earnest and I am willing to bet that many Americans will be like the 70 million who traveled for Thanksgiving and will do the same for Christmas.
Trump can certainly claim credit for a V shaped recovery in America; one for new coronavirus infections that is.
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