We have yet another day of better news out of Italy. New cases there have clearly leveled out and are now potentially showing initial signs of retreat from their peaks of over 6,000 new cases a day. Today’s 4,053 reported new cases roughly matches yesterday’s report.
Today’s data lends confidence that yesterday’s reported drop was less likely to be a statistical anomaly. As our prior research mentioned, we have observed patterns indicating that the virus peaks around 2-4 weeks after isolation measures have been taken by a region or country at large. Italy is right at 3 weeks (having largely started isolation on March 9th).
We estimate that the U.S. is generally ~10 days to 2 weeks behind Italy. If that is true, and Italy has peaked, we should see France, Spain, and Germany do so in the next 5-7 days, with the U.K. and most of the U.S. in the next 2 weeks, plus or minus a week.
The New York tri-state area remains a wildcard. The density in NYC may elongate their curve, with New York recovering later than – say – California, which adopted separation measures sooner in the cycle. The length of the pattern will likely be metro-center specific. It may be useful to think of the U.S. similar to Europe and not as one country for virus progression modeling.
There is also a heatwave expected for the southern half of the U.S. for the entire month of April, which could help.
We will keep you posted as we observe further developments. As always, comments are welcome.
Stay well in health and spirit.
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