The above, I believe, can be credited to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at University of Washington.
What I would like you to take notice of is California’s curve on this graph. That’s us, at the very bottom. Which means we’re at the top of our game when it comes to social distancing and sheltering in place. Staying home. It also means these measures might work. That we are flattening the proverbial curve. In fact, we might not even suffer such a steep one in the near future.
From LiveScience:
California’s coronavirus outbreak is predicted to peak in late April, according to a new model by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research center at the University of Washington. The model forecasts that the state will see peak deaths from COVID-19 on April 27, with 122 deaths per day. That’s later than the United States as a whole, which is predicted to see its peak on April 15, with 2,214 deaths per day. This suggests that measures in California, such as social distancing, may be helping to “flatten the curve,” according to NBC Bay Area.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Epidemiologists say they expect L.A. County’s case numbers to continue to grow, but that the social distancing recommendations may help stave off an outbreak as bad as New York’s. The measures went into effect in California early enough that they could have a significant impact, experts say.
So on yet another front, we’re in the vanguard. We are only three economies away from equaling our own national leading one, but something is happening here that, again, is different–apart–from everywhere else.
People here seem to be staying home and staying sufficiently away from one another when pulled by necessity into public spaces. Furthermore, Californians aren’t going to let their guard down any too soon. The people who first came out here? They were the tough ones in the family, the risk-takers. They stayed, prospered, and created this whole construct while the rest of the world made mayonnaise. We have been through the buffet before and now know enough: fire, drought, flood, earthquake, tsunami–you name it, we have choked it down. And we will choke it down again. And again.
Not that I’d ever consider it, but it’s during times such as these–when other states refuse to even entertain sheltering in place–that succession seems reasonable. My bet? Our economy will yet surpass that of the United States.
It might seem like a lifetime ago, but it was just March 19 that Governor Newsom instituted a statewide lockdown. This is what it looks like. Inconvenience be damned. Yes–it’s early innings yet, and things are bound to be worse before better, but this graph clearly demonstrates a solid result. New York state, according to this information, by March 30 was seeing nearly 350/100,000 cases of Covid-19; California, on the other hand, was enduring fewer than 25. Such disparity over a similar timeframe is possibly informative of success against the virus; either that, or, because of population density–we’re chiefly dealing with New York City and its environs–California is on a timeline of its own. Ours is the nation’s most populous state. And I seem to remember California’s being a hotspot before New York was declared one.
New York’s Governor Cuomo ordered a shelter in place on March 20.
From the Fresno Bee:
California has 8,582 reported cases of coronavirus, a low amount per capita compared to many other states, despite having the first reported case of community spread in the U.S. in early March. For example, Michigan has 7,630 cases and has a population about a fourth the size of California’s.
Pour yourself a glass of your own bubbly, California. It may not be fully earned yet, but so far you deserve it. Keep staying at home. When this ghastly calamity is at long last everywhere over, I intend to throw a hell of a backyard barbeque party for our staff–and any neighbors who might wander by.