Stay-at-Home Orders

Western Europe is maintaining a steady daily growth rate, with only France standing out as having a higher, uneven rate. The UK and Canada are both starting to establish a pattern of percentage growth in the low teens. The US seems to fall into the same category, but as we will see in a moment, the country is anything but homogeneous.

In addition to the Western European countries, I am also adding the Mideast to my watch list. Unfortunately, I don't have good historical numbers for many of those countries yet, so for now I will just present these three. The latest reported numbers are not shocking, but Turkey has real cause for worry around 19% growth. However, these numbers are volatile, and not completely trustworthy.

In the United States, a wave of states including AZ, FL, GA, ME, MS, NV, and PA have all issued a statewide stay-at-home order, although FL, GA, and MS won't go into effect for another two days. Repeatedly, Trump's "changing demeanor" was cited as reasons for governors changing their minds. Hopefully this will lead to greater compliance and cooperation across all states, so that we have fewer attempts to create "Woodstock-like gatherings" in defiance of social distancing. However, there are still nine states with only partial coverage of stay-at-home orders, and five states with no orders at all. In a remarkable coincidence, all 14 of these states have Republican governors. Apparently safe practices during a pandemic have become a pawn in the culture wars.