[burger]

Quick question, as California ends it’s first week of shelter in place, I see little change in the data. There are lots of variables here, the most important being the incubation period, sometimes reported as 1-14 days with a mean of 5-6 days, but also increasing compliance and delayed test availability skewing reporting.

So ... When should we see the leading edge of data movement?  When will we know if this is making an impact or if adjustments should be made?

Shelter in place didn't go statewide until Friday (or Thursday night, I guess), so use that as the starting point.

The incubation period isn't the important part.  It's the time to serious symptoms, which is several days after symptoms show up iirc.  That's when things get bad enough for many to seek care or testing.  And that's more like 10 days after infection.  So don't expect any changes for at least 8-9 more days.  Because testing capacity is still ramping up (a month after community spread began--thanks, Trump!), we'll probably see cases skyrocketing in the coming days.  That's not necessarily an indication of a faster growth rate than before--just testing catching up (though I think I saw that LA was stopping testing except of the worst cases, so that may influence reported rates).

Anyway, variability in testing levels makes counting numbers of cases kind of a fool's game.  I think looking at deaths is more useful.  But death from the virus doesn't happen until like 3 weeks or more after infection.  So, we may not see a decline in the growth of death rates for a month.  That is super bad for hospitals, etc. because the future number of serious cases is somewhat locked in already even if there aren't that many sick people yet.

[burger]

Quick question, as California ends it’s first week of shelter in place, I see little change in the data. There are lots of variables here, the most important being the incubation period, sometimes reported as 1-14 days with a mean of 5-6 days, but also increasing compliance and delayed test availability skewing reporting.

So ... When should we see the leading edge of data movement?  When will we know if this is making an impact or if adjustments should be made?

Shelter in place didn't go statewide until Friday (or Thursday night, I guess), so use that as the starting point.

The incubation period isn't the important part.  It's the time to serious symptoms, which is several days after symptoms show up iirc.  That's when things get bad enough for many to seek care or testing.  And that's more like 10 days after infection.  So don't expect any changes for at least 8-9 more days.  Because testing capacity is still ramping up (a month after community spread began--thanks, Trump!), we'll probably see cases skyrocketing in the coming days.  That's not necessarily an indication of a faster growth rate than before--just testing catching up (though I think I saw that LA was stopping testing except of the worst cases, so that may influence reported rates).

Anyway, variability in testing levels makes counting numbers of cases kind of a fool's game.  I think looking at deaths is more useful.  But death from the virus doesn't happen until like 3 weeks or more after infection.  So, we may not see a decline in the growth of death rates for a month.  That is super bad for hospitals, etc. because the future number of serious cases is somewhat locked in already even if there aren't that many sick people yet.