![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/meepins/vYlp63o6-image.png)

##### Weekend data is unreliable. Memorial weekend even more so.

If you've been following my rambles on US COVID then you'll know that I've expressed deep concern with the legitimacy and accuracy of the data for quite some time now. But none more so than the data reported over the weekend. On Memorial Day weekend, I expected more of the same and thus I decided to basically ignore it. 

It turns out that I was right and the data was in-fact garbage. But more on that later. On the political front, there are notable things happening. For one, more and more people are just ignoring the lockdown orders. But in addition to that, the CDC and NIH have released more research and data which suggests the infected death rate (IDR) to be 0.26 with a 35% asymptomatic rate. However, it has since been updated to 70% which would make the IDR ~ 0.13 or only slightly above the rate for seasonal flu. 

Another interesting bit of data comes from a contact tracing test where 455 asymptomatic individuals had their contacts traced and tested. The results were surprising. There were zero infections amongst those contacts! This means that the virus is almost certainly not being spread by people who have been infected but not showing symptoms. It also means that we really don't have the grounds for locking down people with no symptoms. 

But that's not all. The rate of new infections is trending down so hard that it's becoming difficult for the test trials of vaccines with 10,000 individuals to work because not enough of them would get infected by the virus. 

Reports coming out now all paint a pretty consistent picture. That is, just about everywhere; hospitals, ICU, and ventilations are all down significantly, even in the worst hit NYC area. 

Suffice to say, the worst is now past, and I've been saying this for more than a month now. What remains, is a bunch of petty tyrannical governors who insist on wielding their "emergency powers" way past the emergency. Meanwhile, those in power display huge amounts of hypocrisy by retreating to their "summer homes." It remains to be seen how their political careers will play out. 

##### How are the states doing now?

States like SD and AR almost shut down nothing and they are no worse off than the hard lockdown states and are better than most of them, especially NY/NJ/MA/PA/CT. 
 
The early reopen states like GA/FL/TX continue to see some increases in cases because they are testing a whole lot more non-symptomatic people, but their hospitalizations, ICU, and ventilations, and especially deaths are way down. No spikes when using a 7 day MA smoothing function.

I expect to see a spike overall today and maybe a bigger one tomorrow when data reporting gets back to "normal" but the early indications are that the downward curve continues.
And a closer look at Sweden (WHO is *now* saying that they chose the best course) shows that like everywhere else, the elderly in homes were hit the worst. But Sweden shows only an increase from 10000 nursing home deaths to 11000(Median time between entering a home and dying in Sweden is 5-9 months) and last year was a 'mild' flu year in Sweden.

It really is past time to Reopen all of the economy, despite what the "Closers" (mostly still employed and getting paid as far as I can tell) want you to believe.


Anyway, the data. Since last Thursday 4 days of data shows (remember Memorial Day data reporting) an average of 1500 fewer new cases per day, and 200 fewer deaths per day. I expect that will change with new data. However, the overall trend is still down, and even compare to last weekend data reporting it is still down a bunch even in the states of NY/NJ/MA/PA/IL/CT.  Michigan, despite the delusions of the gov is way past the worst. 

I hope you enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend and really did remember all those who gave their lives for our freedoms. And I hope you remember that if you let them, there are those who will take those freedoms from you right here in the US.