Thursday, April 16, 2020

the reason i'm focusing on new york is that it is the most direct way to understand what's actually happening with the virus and consequently make projections about what is going to happen in canada, soon - that is, whether people like cuomo come out of this looking more like joe friday.......or maxwell smart.

the big drop today is finally aligning the shape of the number of deaths per day with the other stats. this is a tentative step towards the ultimate shape being peakish rather than plateauish, which is suggestive (but, not definitive proof.) of this burning out due to widespread immunity rather than a decrease in infection rates. the other numbers have also declined enough to conclude that any spikes that occur over the next two-three weeks are the result of re-exposure over easter - if that is even possible, anymore, due to such widespread immunity (which does not mean it's safe to visit your nana, yet).

but, this is day-to-day.

if the deaths in the city end up peaking at around 10,000, that is going to suggest immunity levels between 60-70%, and an ultimate mortality rate of between 0.0005% and 0.0020% in my model - which is in line with a seasonal flu, even if the curve doesn't include the very young (and, so, is shifted towards the very old).

we'll see how this continues to work out over the next few days.

the numbers next week are going to be very interesting.