Day 25: Average Weekly Rate Continues to Fall while Total Over 10,000 and Increasing

I breathed a sigh of some relief today when the numbers showed a downward trend for the second day in a row (Fig 1, blue line) and the number of deaths was “only” 17 (Fig 1, red line). 178 more people are in the hospital since yesterday, but we still have the beds for them. Georgia is clearly still on an exponential growth curve if you compare the total (Fig 1, gray bar) to the exponential growth curve (Fig 1, orange line). We are still in the part of the growth curve where the numbers get large, and large numbers are scary. Those larger gray bars in Fig 1. The lower daily growth rate of 6.7% indicates that we are on a path to double the number of COVID-19 cases in 15 days. See Fig 2 (blue line). Even with this lower growth rate, we can expect 21,000 Georgians to be afflicted by Friday, April 24, 2020. Today, I estimate that 8 out of every 1,000 Georgians are contagious. (This number is likely inflated as 96% of the infected recover and are both not-contagious and immune to further infection. The more days pass, the more people move from “infected” to “immune.”) As these immune people recover, it seems to me that if they are identified they could safely work in COVID-19 hotspots like superheroes without the need for PPE (personal protective equipment) freeing. I hope the Government is thinking the same thing and not just sending these people on their way without a plan. Other “good” news is that he number of deaths today is below the lowest estimate from IMHE. See Fig 3. It probably does not feel like good news to the families of the 17 people who were lost.