May 11, 2020
Remember, all along, we were being told by the experts that New York was the ‘canary in the coal mine’ — it represented what was coming for the rest of the country. It hasn’t happened. The crisis in New York peaked the first week of April, with the peak of daily intubations. And daily cases and daily deaths peaked nationwide and worldwide shortly thereafter.
With this, all eyes should now be on Georgia, where the re-opening of the economy kicked off on April 24th. We are now eighteen days in. As you can see in the chart below, the curve peaked in mid April with 925 cases, and has been on the decline. The number reported yesterday was just nine.
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Still, with the economy open for more than two weeks, we are in the early days of when symptomatic people would be tested and might show in the new infections/new case data. What’s the difference between now and two months ago, that might give us more confidence about the path? Symptomatic people can get tested (much more easily) and quarantine. There are behavior and process changes (both from consumers and businesses). There are treatment options. So Georgia will be the spot to watch over the coming two weeks, to gauge how optimistic (or not) we should that the bottom is in for the economy. |