US COVID Update - Why are we trying to bankrupt the country?

Had a little time to run new data. Nationally, we reported over 750,000 new tests today and the 7 day MA is 4.7M. New cases are flat at 8% of new tests for the week. New deaths are near 900 for the 4th day in a row. In MI ALL the new deaths reported today (15) are "recovered" from records and there were actually zero actual new deaths in today's reporting day.

So we are getting inflated new cases due to lumping virus and antibody tests as if they were the same, and new deaths inflated by going back and combing the records to add 'suspected' COVID deaths. That is really messing with the data. I really hate it.

Meanwhile the CFR is still declining. It has now ticked below 4% for the first time since the data has been reported (Mar 4). More cases and fewer deaths.

In addition, as has been noted, even though the numbers of deaths are higher (100+ today) for CA, TX, and FL, all of them still have a deaths/1M 1/15 that of NY or NJ but have larger populations. I can't check FL, but many of the new deaths in CA and TX are concentrated in the counties that border Mexico. and are arguably from patients who crossed the border for treatment. In fact, Houston now appears to be reporting that many of their hospitalizations and new deaths are patients from Mexico seeking treatment in the US. So those CA/TX numbers are also inflated by that fact.

In addition, the CA, TX, and FL new deaths are more flat than climbing unless they move up even more. This was totally predictable once any lockdowns were in place. The curve really was flattened. But sooner or later you have to let people out, so . . . you get new cases and a few more deaths.

Given that the increase in new cases started not long after June 1 (and we got much more testing) and some reopening, the new deaths, which should have started to climb around June 20, continued to decline until this week, 3 weeks later. This indicates, statistically, that reopening is not correlated with new deaths now, and not even close to being causal. That in turn implies that we may well be at or very near the "burn-out" stage of the epidemic where there are not many vulnerable uninfected targets left.

Anyway, MI Gov Whitmer is using this crap data to shut down things again. She appears determined to bankrupt the state.

So. Kind of mixed numbers, but overall we are in way better shape than the media seems to want you to believe.