April 13 - COVID-19 in Westchester County, NY

Here are the updated charts with data through April 12, 2020. Click on a chart to enlarge it.

There is something strange going on with the viral spread in the NYC metro area.  Hospitalizations and intubations are going down (see chart below), which means the death rates should be going down soon, but they have not yet (see Orange Line in Westchester chart). However, the rate of new cases has not gone down in greater NYC (includes Westchester and Nassau). Are all of these new cases minor symptoms with no hospitalization required? Has this been seen in other countries?

The new cases in NYC, Nassau, and Westchester are still stuck on a plateau and are at about the same rate per capita.  Test results are over 40% positive. This is much higher than other parts of NYS or the rest of the country.

The table below shows testing per capita for different counties in NYS. Westchester leads the list with over 5% of the population tested. (About 2% are confirmed infected).  Manhattan does not make the top 10. Westchester was the location of the first case in NYS so that may explain part of it. It is also the weathiest county in the state, so the county labs may have been better prepared? Despite the high load of infections, there have been few reports of chaos in Westchester hospitals.

Number of tests per 100,000 residents

Westchester also makes the top ten in deaths per capita. (The data is a few days old.  Westchester is now up to 50 deaths per 100,000.)

Number of deaths per 100,000 residents

There is little change in the comparison curves for New Cases between Westchester and its sister province of Bergamo, Italy.

The Swedish Model

A few days ago, I recommended a scenario for getting back to normal.  I recently found out that this is close to the strategy pursued by the Swedes (their approach is a bit more lackadaisical than I suggested). It is lauded by some, but deplored by others. In my view it is a great control group for the massive social and economic destruction going elsewhere in the developed world. To take that a bit further, I would like to see states follow different models of "reopening." This would generate more data on what might be the best response to future pandemics. For 'experts' to say that they know the best course of action is preposterous when so little is understood about this virus and how to minimize its long term effects on our world.