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Here is the estimated trend in doubling times, indicating that the amount of time for the number of U.S. cases to double has increased significantly since 3/30/20:
ESTIMATED U.S. COVID-19 DOUBLING TIMES
FROM BASELINE DATA ON 3/20 - 3/28/20
7.0 days
6.9
6.8
6.7.(preliminary: based on 48 hours of data)...............(~6.68 days).*
6.6
6.5
6.4
6.3
6.2
6.1
6.0 days
5.9
5.8
5.7
5.6
5.5.(based on 72 hours of data)......................(~5.48 days).*
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5.0 days
4.9
4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5.(based on 96 hours of data)..............(~4.53 days).*
3.6
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.0 days
3.9
3.8
3.7............................................(~3.74 days).*
3.6
3.5
3.4 ..................................(~3.35 days).*
3.3
3.2.............................(3.2 days).*
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.8.................(~2.8 days).*
2.7.......(~2.7 days).*
2.6
2.5
2.4
2.3
2.2 days*.......* (~2.2 days; no change in doubling rate)
2.0
........3/20...3/21...3/22...3/23...3/24...3/25...3/26...3/27...3/28...3/29
NOTE: The dates 3/20-3/28 are the "baseline" or starting point comparison dates.
This chart shows the approximate (estimated) number of days that it took the total number of U.S. Covid-19 cases to double from each date (including the baseline dates 3/20/20 through 3/29/20).
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These findings suggest that the time required for the number of U.S. Covid-19 cases to double (i.e., the "doubling time") has continued to increase.
The estimate based on the number of U.S. cases at midnight Sunday, March 31st, would be approximately 498,660 by midnight on Sunday, April 12th.
That is a major improvement over the estimates over the past several days, based on the faster doubling rates that had been observed earlier. At those earlier doubling times, the estimates based on the data from preceding days suggested that there could be ~800,000 to ~1.6 million or more U.S. cases by midnight on April 12th.
The number of new cases, which had soared from ~10,000 to 20,000+ over a 5 day period has shown signs of stabilizing - at least temporarily - in the 20,000 range over the past three days. This finding is consistent with the recently observed increase in the estimated Covid-19 doubling time in the U.S.
While the total number of U.S. Covid-19 cases continues to grow, the most recent data suggest that the rate of growth (i.e., the doubling rate) appears to be showing an increasing trend toward flattening, as has been seen in every other nation in the world to date. There is a figure showing this tendency toward a flattening trend, across the nations of the world:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...-hong-kong
The slope of the curve in the graph on the vox.com website is steeper than the graph prepared for the AAC message board, because it is a lagging indicator. The AAC message board graph is more of a leading indicator that focuses not on the number of cases, but on the rate of change in the U.S. Covid-19 doubling rate.
The next challenge will be to increase the doubling time still further (e.g., from one week to two weeks). At the present rate of improvement in doubling times, this could occur as early as April 7th, and certainly by April 12th.
At that point, the increasing number of "recovered Covid-19 cases" will begin to cut the rate of growth in # of U.S. cases quite subtantially.
Example:
If it takes two weeks for an estimated ~500,000 U.S. cases on April 12th to double, that would result in an additional ~500 million U.S. cases by midnight on April 24th.
However, because over 90% of the U.S. cases are expected to recover within two weeks, ~450,000 of the predicted U.S. cases would be expected to recover by midnight on April 24th. If 95% of the U.S. cases recover within two weeks, ~475,000 would be expected to recover
What that would mean is that the total number of U.S. Covid-19 cases on April 24th (an estimated new ~500,000 U.S. cases since April 12th, plus ~50,000 U.S. cases that haven't yet fully recovered) would only be approximately ~525,000 or ~550,000 - - not ~1 million.
If these estimates turn out to be correct, and if the Covid-19 doubling time continues from an estimated one week to two weeks, they suggest the possibility that the total number of U.S. cases might flatten out at ~525,000 to 550,000 cases by midnight on April 24th.
The actual numbers might be somewhat higher or lower, depending on how long it takes for us to bring the raw doubling rate (i.e., the doubling rate, not including recovered cases) down to two weeks.
The next step forward would be to begin to cut the total number of U.S. cases. This would require increasing the raw Covid-19 doubling time (e.g., from 2 to 3 weeks). If it were to take 3 weeks for another 525,000 Americans to develop Covid-19 (by mid-May), that would be long enough for all of the 525,000 Americans with the disease on April 24th to have recovered, and would also be long enough for 1/3 of the Americans with the disease on May 1st to recover.
Thus, in this example, the estimated number of U.S. cases by mid-May would be cut from ~550,000 to ~367,000. Three weeks after that, all of those cases would have recovered, and the total # of U.S. cases in early June would be cut from ~367,000 to ~246,000.
As optimistic as these projections may seem, the U.S. pandemic could be brought under control more quickly, still, if/when it takes less than 2 weeks for most Americans to recover from Covid-19. Based on preliminary findings in clinical settings, the time required for most Americans to recover from Covid-19 may soon begin to diminish as more and more doses of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine are shipped to the U.S. and made available to patients.
"
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today accepted 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate donated by Sandoz, the Novartis generics and biosimilars division, and one million doses of chloroquine phosphate donated by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, for possible use in treating patients hospitalized with COVID-19 or for use in clinical trials. These and other companies may donate additional doses, and companies have ramped up production to provide additional supplies of the medication to the commercial market."
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/03/2...ients.html
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Data obtained from:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total...ountry=USA
Additional data obtained from:
https://www.thecut.com/2020/03/which-sta...-risk.html
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