Hey guys, took a week off of work, went hiking every day - was a great break. Last week was head buried in work.
Not going to wade through the last 80 pages I missed.
I'm still in sort of a meh place in terms of data. I think there are 2 extremes that are both missing the picture.
Those that say everything is fine and it is basically over are likely fooling themselves. Those that think the whole place is going to fall apart are also off.
The likely outcome is more in the middle.
At the US level it is great to see deaths continue to trend down, now averaging under 700 a day for a 7 day avg. But that still makes the virus the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.
What is more concerning is that cases have been rising for a little over a week now nationally - largely due to increases in states in the South and Southwest. A number of models a month ago predicted that the deaths would bottom out somewhere between June 20-30 and then start rising again in July. We will see in the next 7-10 days how accurate those projections were.
But the US currently has the 2nd highest per capita rate of new cases among Western countries behind only Sweden (Brazil, Peru and Saudi Arabia also have higher per capita new daily cases).
A week ago Monday i was almost giddy with the GA numbers, we were coming off the lowest weekend death total (6) since mid-March - that changed rapidly last Tuesday when 77 deaths were reported and by last weekend the 7 day avg death rate in GA was the second highest it had been during this entire pandemic (41 vs 42) and the case rate is the highest it has ever been. Cases and positive case % had been slowly rising for 10 days before that so it shows some of the lag from cases popping up to deaths increasing. GA is now averaging more cases and deaths than NY.
Right now 10 states are having record high numbers of cases and in a few areas hospitalizations are getting to be a problem - most acutely in AZ where 85% of all hospital beds state wide are now being used. Montgomery AL is at 100% of bed usage.
Nationally we are at a place where we don't really have a national crisis, but we also didn't really knock the virus down enough so that if it rebounds it could end up spreading quite quickly.
It has transformed from being largely an issue in a few big cities to being an issue in more small to moderate size areas. Right now most of the hotspots are in states across the South and Southwest.
We have some things going for us that we didn't 2 months ago
First, since no heath systems are currently completely overwhelmed it allows them to provide better care.
Second, we have a few months experience now so we have some better ideas how to fight it.
Third, Some of the most susceptible likely have already succumbed so it is hitting a slightly healthier population.
it will be interesting to see the next few months unfold as things could still go either way. Hopefully things go well and death totals stay at a lower level, but the rising cases are a concern.
Even with things better than they were 2 months ago life is going to be a little different
I had to review a 17 page presentation this week (everyone in the company does) detailing the expectations of the teammates and what the company is doing before anybody returns to offices. My first take away is that i've been 100% full time work at home since March 12th and my gut is that is going to be my primary work setup for at least the rest of 2020. I've heard that there will be a cap of 25-30% occupancy for the offices and they don't really want it approaching that. From the presentation we are expected to maintain 6 feet distance whenever possible and when we cannot we will be required to wear masks. We will also be required to wear masks in bathrooms and elevators - and there will be limits on how many can be in an elevator. There is also going to be no congregating or sitting at tables together in social areas. So whatever days i do go in (and right now we are not allowed to return to the office without express permission to do so and I don't think that is changing in the short term) it is going to be a very different experience.