[Farm93]

As I have seen the reported new case numbers across the country decline to ~50k a day from the previous week's 60k-70k range, I am skeptical. I see no reason cases should have declined that much from week-to-week, unless the population started taking the virus seriously a week before the numbers went into the 70ks, because it take two weeks for behavior changes to show in the data.

I'm not aware of more mask orders or shutdowns that happened a week before the big July spike, and the IHME social distancing data doesn't suggest people stopped traveling much to stop slow spread. Could it be people voluntarily pulled back from risky behavior when they saw the numbers rising so much?  

It feels like we are operating blind with only our sense of smell and touch to guide us. We smell smoke but have no idea where the fire is.

The lack of testing supplies is a variable that could explain a lot.


However about 3 weeks ago a number of rather large retailers started requiring masks for all employees and customers.   For a lot of USA citizens addressing the Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot type outings will cover a large percentage of their ventures away from home.   
At that time also had a number of GOP officials starting to acknowledge that wearing a mask was probably a good idea.
And Trump started to issue some pro-mask comments too.

I realize those events many not impact everyone, but there are probably some people that changed behavior because of those actions.   And even if a few altered their behavior a few weeks ago we could now be enjoying those benefits, in the form of a slightly less aggressive rate of expansion, today.

[Farm93]

As I have seen the reported new case numbers across the country decline to ~50k a day from the previous week's 60k-70k range, I am skeptical. I see no reason cases should have declined that much from week-to-week, unless the population started taking the virus seriously a week before the numbers went into the 70ks, because it take two weeks for behavior changes to show in the data.

I'm not aware of more mask orders or shutdowns that happened a week before the big July spike, and the IHME social distancing data doesn't suggest people stopped traveling much to stop slow spread. Could it be people voluntarily pulled back from risky behavior when they saw the numbers rising so much?  

It feels like we are operating blind with only our sense of smell and touch to guide us. We smell smoke but have no idea where the fire is.

The lack of testing supplies is a variable that could explain a lot.


However about 3 weeks ago a number of rather large retailers started requiring masks for all employees and customers.   For a lot of USA citizens addressing the Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot type outings will cover a large percentage of their ventures away from home.   
At that time also had a number of GOP officials starting to acknowledge that wearing a mask was probably a good idea.
And Trump started to issue some pro-mask comments too.

I realize those events many not impact everyone, but there are probably some people that changed behavior because of those actions.   And even if a few altered their behavior a few weeks ago we could now be enjoying those benefits, in the form of a slightly less aggressive rate of expansion, today.