[Farm93]

GR - Actions today would translate into changes in cases ~5-10 days from today, and deaths 25-30 days from now.   The bad news, for the USA, has to be the Thanksgiving and Black Friday activity was startling robust.   Some people can tap into a number of data sources that probably offer a good proxy for activity and compliance (cell phones, credit cards transactions, highway traffic, etc.).   Not sure if government officials tap into that data, but Wall Street analysts often tap into that stuff. 

MT - Great review.  Tracking deaths is important though Governments are not doing this just to reduce deaths, they are also doing this for hospital capacity and ICU capacity.   Even if deaths drop a bit, the concern for this wave seems to be focused on the health care system.   In the first wave the activity was concentrated in a few urban areas, so health care workers from other locations could triage any capacity problems.   In the second wave the activity matched the first wave but was spread across a number of states so few areas had really capacity issues.   This third wave appears poised to capture the local intensity of the first wave with the national spread of the second wave.

FWIW - LA county is still in really bad shape.  If that does not improve quickly I anticipate Governor Newsom will issue mandates at the state level as we may be dealing with State level capacity rather than county specific capacity soon.

[Farm93]

GR - Actions today would translate into changes in cases ~5-10 days from today, and deaths 25-30 days from now.   The bad news, for the USA, has to be the Thanksgiving and Black Friday activity was startling robust.   Some people can tap into a number of data sources that probably offer a good proxy for activity and compliance (cell phones, credit cards transactions, highway traffic, etc.).   Not sure if government officials tap into that data, but Wall Street analysts often tap into that stuff. 

MT - Great review.  Tracking deaths is important though Governments are not doing this just to reduce deaths, they are also doing this for hospital capacity and ICU capacity.   Even if deaths drop a bit, the concern for this wave seems to be focused on the health care system.   In the first wave the activity was concentrated in a few urban areas, so health care workers from other locations could triage any capacity problems.   In the second wave the activity matched the first wave but was spread across a number of states so few areas had really capacity issues.   This third wave appears poised to capture the local intensity of the first wave with the national spread of the second wave.

FWIW - LA county is still in really bad shape.  If that does not improve quickly I anticipate Governor Newsom will issue mandates at the state level as we may be dealing with State level capacity rather than county specific capacity soon.