Another Problem With the U.S. Virus Response, in a Chart

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-us-cases.html

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If you’ve been following the charts showing the number of new coronavirus cases in the United States each day, you may have noticed a worrisome pattern in the last few days.

The number of new cases appears to have peaked about a week and a half ago. But the decline since then has been very modest. There are still about 30,000 Americans being diagnosed each day. The seven-day moving average of new cases — a measure that smooths out daily fluctuations — has declined only 2 percent since it peaked 11 days ago.

As you can see in the chart above, that’s not typical. In other countries, the number of new cases has usually declined much more sharply after peaking.

Why? It’s impossible to know for certain with a virus as complex and unknown as this one. But there is an obvious potential cause: Many political leaders in the United States, including President Trump, are not following the advice of public health experts.

Those experts have urged a range of measures: continued social distancing until the number of cases falls further; a rapid expansion of virus testing; and planning an extensive program of “contact tracing” and quarantining, to allow for gradual reopening. The United States is taking some of these steps, but only some.

In the meantime, Trump is also encouraging protests that defy social distancing, which will only spread the virus. And he is calling for an across-the-board reduction in immigration, which will do little if anything to reduce the virus’s spread.

Some states are also taking counterproductive steps. Wisconsin’s insistence on holding an election in the midst of a pandemic has evidently led to some additional cases, as Alison Dirr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the United States isn’t reducing the spread of the virus as well as many other countries. We don’t seem to be trying as hard.

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