Cases yes. Notice deaths are not following along with that. That is why the press now talks cases and not deaths.
Spain is now starting to shut down Barcelona and the surrounding areas again as of yesterday or today.
So does Sweden
Except NY/NJ/CT? You mean the states where about 40% off all deaths were? So if your argument is they locked down hard enough and the rest of the US didn't, why did they experience so many deaths? And the rest of the US really hasn't experienced that?
By the way they are not back to a normal life yet. They rely heavily on tourism. Much of their tourism infrastructure is not fully open. They are attempting to phase stuff back in over the month of August. Yes they have started to let people in the Schengen zone in. But they are not for much of the rest of the world. And they are staggering tourism openings. They have a long way to go.
And they will see covid cases rise again. As they move around more, more cases will rise again. As travelers start coming in, cases will rise again.
Back to Spain who you seem happy about. Barcelona just recorded over 1k cases again yesterday.
What is interesting about what is happening now is despite the rather large rise is positives in the West and South of the US, we are not seeing anything like the number of corresponding deaths that we saw up in the NE. NY has something like 420k cases and with that 32k deaths. Cal has 370K cases and only about 7k deaths.
NY/NJ/CT/MA/PA are close to half of all deaths in USA.
The press has been hyperventilating about AZ/TX/FL/GA for some time. Those states have about 10% of all deaths.
Now how many cases does NY/NJ/CT/MA/PA have? 880k confirmed cases.
AZ/TX/FL/GA have 921k cases.
Why is that despite more cases, those states have fewer deaths? And by a long shot. Did the lockdowns help the NE? It seems hard to argue that lockdowns in NY were the way to go, but somehow AZ has it wrong? Has the virus changed? What has changed? Is the virus less lethal? Have we already lost the most vulnerable?
Yes, I also found it odd that CNN has a story about NY, NJ, CN, MA "taming" COVID. Not once does it mention the likelihood that a significant part of their "success" is that they failed miserably containing COVID earlier and many have immunity due to antibodies. The omission is stunningly misleading.
While more than half the states have paused or backtracked reopenings due to increased Covid-19, several states have decreasing rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths -- paving the way for full economic reopenings.
www.cnn.com
Consider the following estimates of antibodies and how it will effect transmission.
NYC: Estimate 20% have antibodies (14% statewide)
Preliminary data shows about 13.9 percent of the population of New York state — about 2.7 million people — have at some point been infected with the coronavirus.About 3,000 people were randoml…
thehill.com
AZ: (June 13) 3.1% estimated to have antibodies
Why is the percentage of people testing positive for the coronavirus more than double the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus antibodies?
kvoa.com
Estimated % of population that has antibodies
NYC: 20%
NY: 14%
AZ: 3.1%
From the other thread, it states that
R > 1.1 it is accelerating growth
R between 0.9 and 1.1 is reasonably stable
R < 0.9 is decelerating
where R is the average number of people an infected person will infect.
Below is an example of how comparing areas with very different proportions of people with antibodies can lead to a misleading conclusion about how well or poorly a region is containing the spread.
To isolate the effect of those with antibodies, assume that all 3 areas are doing equally well in their mitigation - mask wearing, distancing, etc. - and the R value is 1.2 for a population that doesn't have any infections - well above the accelerating growth threshold of 1.1. Below is the calculation of the effective R which will be lower as some people have immunity.
To find the "effective R", take R, 1.2, and multiply it by the portion of people susceptible to COVID (0.8 in NYC, 0.86 in NY state and 0.969 in AZ)
For NYC
0.96 = 1.2*(0.8)
For the State of NY
1.032 = 1.2*(0.86)
For AZ
1.163 =1.2*(0.969)
Both NYC (0.96) and the state of NY (1.032) would have effective R values well within the stable range but AZ (1.163) is well over the accelerating growth threshold of 1.1. The only difference is the larger number of cases NY already had.
There are definitely other factors, but not mentioning this as a factor is a disservice.