James Proudfoot Sun on a House, Dieppe 1937
Famous last words?!
“I would love to have it open by Easter,” Trump said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News. “I would love to have it opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” “A lot of people agree with me. Our country is not built to built to shut down. Our people are full of vim and vigor and energy. They don’t want to be locked into a house or an apartment, it’s not for our country”
Note that Trump covered himself by framing it as “I would love to…” Still, Easter is April 12, 19 days from now. I think the US is highly unlikely to even have reached its peak in infections by then, and the country will be awash in misery, sickness, death and heartbreaking stories, not uplifting ones of a roaring economy.
The US death toll is still very low compared to its active cases, but that is because the epidemic in the country is relatively new, and there are still hospital beds and ventilators available. Those days will soon be over, try the end of next week if not sooner, and the death toll will be going going gone out of there.
And remember, half of all US corona cases are still in New York State alone. There are 49 other states to go, that just about all still have open borders with each other. New York today, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut etc. tomorrow.
If Governor Andrew Cuomo was not exaggerating too much earlier today when he said he asked FEMA for 30,000 ventilators and got only 400, the ominous path forward is beginning to look like a very eery version of a Yellow Brick Road to nowhere, with the Wizard sipping banana daiquiries on his private yacht in the Caribbean.
Our friend Mike Mish Shedlock did a bit of math on Sunday with data from the Covid Tracking Project, and came up with this:
How Long to 1 Million US Cases?
Inquiring minds are investigating a relatively new data feed from the Covid Tracking Project. I plot four data series for the US: Negative tests, positive tests, hospitalized, and deaths. Arguably, hospitalizations are the most significant column but the project only has two days worth of data. Once I have another dfats point or two, I will plot a trendline manually.
Trendlines At the current pace, the number of positive coronavirus cases would hit 100,000 on March 26, and 1,000,000 on April 3. At the current pace, the number of coronavirus deaths would hit 1,000 on March 26, and 10,000 on April 5. Those are not my projections, those are observations of what would happen if the current trends last that long at the same pace.
At that point, the US had 32,000 cases. On Monday that had become 42,000. As I write this, it’s 52,000 and the day is far from over. And remember what I said yesterday, that on March 8, just 16 days ago, the US reported 409 cases.
When I posted Mish’s numbers, I questioned his prediction of 100,000 cases by Thursday, but that’s really just details. If not Thursday, it will be Friday. Yes, that’s a doubling in 2 or 3 days. Early next week, if not his weekend, it’ll be 200,000. And so on. Mish says 1 million in 10 days from now. I see no reason to doubt him.
Either tomorrow or Thursday, March 25 or 26, the US will overtake China for the no. 1 global position in total cases -which is some 81,000 now-. With very flawed to non-existent testing procedures, with ongoing endless political bickering, and with a looming huge shortage in hospital beds and ventilators; this is beginning to look like a very bad movie.
By Easter, much of US industrial production in many parts of the country will have to be shut down, the same way China’s was -and still is-, and Italy’s is. You can’t successfully run a factory -or an office for that matter-, if your employees get sick, stay home, end up in hospital or worse. Even in the US, one single case should be enough to close the entire facility down.
The victim will have to be quarantined, as must his/her entire family, everyone (s)he worked with must be tested, and so on. It works like that everywhere, and the US is no exception. It can’t be, the risk is too high.
Brace yourself. Don’t take my word for anything, look at the numbers and draw your own conclusions. My idea is Easter is going to be different from usual this year.
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