There are a few questions that I want to know the answer to. Are the Covid-19 daily infections getting better or worse in the United States? What is the death rate of Covid-19 in the United States? Are we in the United States getting better at treating people with Covid-19? And there are many more questions I would like to know the answer to, but for now, I’ll try to see if I can answer these questions.
Let’s start by seeing if the Covid-19 daily infections is getting better or worse? To answer this question, I have graphed the United States daily confirmed infections along with the 7-day average of the same. The 7-day average provides the same general information while also trying to smooth out some of the jagged edges in the daily rates. I have graphed them both together to demonstrate that the 7-day average is a good indicator for the actual daily infection rate.
Indeed, as the graph shows, the daily infection rates are getting worse. While this was expected as the individual states began to open their economies, it is worse than I would have expected. While it isn’t growing at the same geometric rate that it was in early March, it could easily return to such growth if we ignore it.
One advantage is that Covid-19 is spread out more evenly across the United States. While that might not seem like an advantage, it should help keep any individual area hospitals from being overwhelmed with patients seeking treatment as happened in the early days in New York and New Jersey.
Another advantage is that if we will follow the guidelines provided by the CDC, we can help minimize the spread of Covid-19 and keep ourselves from either having to return to stay-at-home quarantine or having astronomical death rates like were seen in some other countries.
So what are the daily death rates in the United States? To answer this question, I have graphed the daily deaths in the United States from Covid-19 along with the 7-day average of the same. Like the previous chart, I hope to show that the 7-day average of Covid-19 daily deaths is a good statistic to use as an indicator of the deaths in the United States.
As you can see, the daily deaths from Covid-19 have been coming down steadily from their early peak. This is especially obvious when looking at the 7-day average.
But that brings up another question? What about the current rise in daily infection rates that is visible on the first chart? There is no corresponding rise in the deaths on the second chart? Should there be?
To answer this question, along with the question of the actual death rate in the United States from Covid-19, some adjustments were required. To start, we know that when a person is confirmed to have Covid-19, they don’t usually die the very same day. With any kind of luck, even those that do end up dying from Covid-19 should have the best chance at life possible by being in a hospital and receiving treatment.
To try to adjust for this fact, I have taken the peak of the 7-day average Covid-19 infection rate and matched it with the peak of the 7-day average of daily Covid-19 deaths. They turned out to be 8 days apart. By matching the 7-day average daily Covid-19 deaths with the 7-day average daily Covid-19 infections that happened 8 days prior, I created the following chart.
This chart matches closer to what I would expect for a daily death rate. The longer the time has passed from the initial outbreak, the better the medical community has become at treating patients with Covid-19. A different possible explanation for the decrease in the death rate could be that there are no longer any areas where the hospitals are beyond their capacity to treat Covid-19 patients. It’s probably some combination of the two and possibly other reasons that I haven’t considered.
Only time will tell whether the current increase in daily infections will result in an increase in the death rate. If my adjustments are accurate, we will need to wait at least 8 days from the increased daily infection rate to see if their is a corresponding increase in deaths.
Marisa Burnes (dot) com 
Not to politicize the issue, but you have captured clearly what the Trump administration keeps glossing over. The country reopens on Memorial Day and five days later the administration says see, no increase. The infections begin climbing with the death-rate remaining constant and they say see, it’s just increased testing. They remind me of children ditching school to avoid a test. It feels good in the moment, but there is no escaping the cold, hard truth. Eventually, you’ll be caught.
I have a lot to say about the death-rate. It’s hard to pin down because so many people who have caught the virus haven’t shown symptoms and therefore don’t get tested. With this realization the rate could be very low indeed. I think more importantly, history has shown if you show symptoms, you have a 5% chance of dying. And if we do nothing to curtail the spread, the number of deaths will continue to climb.
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