Herschel at The Captains Journal has been analyzing and modeling the active cases from an engineering perspective. He updated his model and the infected cases are now following a 3rd order polynomial with a high degree of accuracy. It shows the infection rate slowing and spreading out, which is good. He lists reasons for this but refuses to step into the quagmire of which and why.
This is a from a friend of mine, a former SF 18D, now has a doctorate in PH and works for a med center out west:
I have been mentioning for a while now that we would have a good idea of how things would be looking for the US by this weekend; and would be fairly certain by next Friday 4/3.
As of this weekend, data shows that the incidence rate continues to increase and we are seeing rapid growth in the number of cases. Graph is below.
Note the vertical spread in dots increasing considerably over the past 15 days (indicated by the red arrows for the past 4 days). As stated (previously), we want these vertical gaps to begin narrowing to indicate a reduction in new cases.
The raw growth in new cases could be written-off by some as simply being due to more widespread testing; however, that notion is challenged by the fact that deaths continue to increase at a rate proportional to new cases, and the US Case Fatality Rate is currently 1.76% (2,497/142,106).
Are there cases in the US that are not being caught by testing? Yes. This fact means that our case count would likely be higher, and deaths proportionally lower, thus decreasing case fatality; although not likely anywhere near traditional flu.
If the isolation measures have been effective, new case counts should begin trending downward by end of next week (for those of you who are fans of the Diamond Princess case study, there was about a 4 week viral life cycle on that ship, where they experienced a 10% ICU rate and a 1.3% CFR).
The next 7 days will be very telling.
1918 Spanish Flu CFR: ~2.5%
Regular Flu CFR: <0.1%
World CFR: 4.71% (33,958/721,584)
US CFR: 1.76% (2,497/142,106)
UK CFR: 6.22% (1,231/19,784)
Italy CFR: 11.03% (10,779/97,689)
Germany CFR: 0.87% (541/62,095)
France CFR: 6.41% (2,611/40,723)
South Korea CFR: 1.59% (152/9,583)