Towards the end of last week, deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus in the U.S. were averaging around 1,900. The first two days of this week (April 12 and 13) have seen a decline. The U.S. reported 1,528 deaths from the virus on Sunday and 1,535 yesterday.
The number of new U.S. cases also decreased. Last week the numbers came in at 30,000 to 34,000. On Sunday, there were 27,421 new reported cases. Yesterday, there were 26,641.
At the end of yesterday, total reported deaths in the U.S. from the virus stood at 23,640. Even with the improved numbers we’ve seen, the total will probably exceed 30,000 by the end of the week. And with so many new reported cases in the past ten days, we can expect fairly large daily death counts for quite some time thereafter, unless the treatment of new patients has substantially improved (a possibility).
Not long ago, Italy began to report a diminution of daily deaths and reported new cases. At that point, as I discussed here, the daily death count started coming in at about 75 percent of the previous average. It has lingered at that level for a while now, even as new reported cases have continued to decline (yesterday’s new case number was 3,153, half of what it was in late March).
Dr. Birx, the administration’s point person in the fight against this pandemic, likes to say that we’re a week or two behind Italy in terms of “flattening the curve.” I don’t know whether this means that our trends, as we descend from the peak, will mirror Italy’s. However, I think the Italian experience (which is similar to Spain’s) is worth noting.
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