July 14 - COVID-19 in Westchester County, NY

This is my last COVID blog-post...... I hope.

It has been over four months since the start of the 'Containment Zone' in New Rochelle. It has been 49 days since the start of Phase I of  reopening Westchester. If you stare at the data, no action taken in the last 2 months is affecting the trajectory of deaths, cases, or percent testing positive. They have been at a steady value since the middle of May.

Almost one third of the population of Westchester has been tested. The number infected in Westchester has not been determined recently, but the prevalance of the antibody in previous studies was about 15%.  That is supposedly not high enough to bestow herd immunity on the region, but the data indicates that there is enough immunity to contain the epidemic with current practices.  Loosening practices over the last two months has not worsened the infection rate.

Despite hand-wringing in other metropolitan areas over increased cases and hospitalizations, this has not happened in NYC or its adjoining counties (Westchester).  This is unlikely due to better social distancing in NYC versus other metro areas.  It is more likely due to the level of immunity.

The four plots below show how the four metrics I track have not changed in the last 2 months:
1) New Cases versus a comparable region in Italy (Bergamo)
2) New Cases versus NYC and Nassau County (weekly noise filtered out)
3) Percent of Westchester testing positive (unfiltered)
4) Daily Deaths in Westchester

July 4 - COVID-19 in Westchester County, NY

A month has passed since my last COVID update.  Despite all of the changes involved in "reopening" there has been no change in trajectory of the metrics I have been tracking.

Deaths have continued to decresase. There has been no COVID-related death in Westchester County in the last four days.

The percent testing positive continued to decline.  It has been hovering around 1% during the last two weeks. NYC and Nassau County (Long Island) have been tracking very similarly.

A cluster of positive cases in Westchester was traced to a gathering of high school students. This may have been the cause of the first day of greater than 60 new cases since June 14.  Even so, the 7-day averages do not show a meaningful change from the past several weeks.

The fact that protests, holiday gatherings, graduation gatherings, restaurant openings, hair salon openings, and other activities with increased person-to-person contact have NOT changed the rate of new cases makes me think that the virus has EITHER burned itself out in Westchester (all of the people that were susceptible to the virus have already gotten it) OR the specific measures now being undone, have nothing to do with containing the virus. I have heard no one suggest either of these possibilities.