Black Swan

I noticed there was something odd in Europe's numbers a couple of days ago, but now I have three consistent days to show that they are not a fluke. Across the Western European countries, their daily infection rates just plummeted. Here's a list of the countries that I'm tracking, showing their average daily growth in infections from two weeks ago, compared to last week, compared to the past three days:

Germany: 30% -> 25% -> 10%

France: 26% -> 17% -> 13%

Spain: 37% -> 22% -> 17%

Italy: 18% -> 14% -> 8%

Switzerland: 30% -> 25% -> 13%

Netherlands: 20% -> 20% -> 10%

These numbers could well change in the future, but this is what is happening right now. Note that we don't need this daily infection rate to get to zero to make this pandemic manageable. Given what we are seeing for average times to recovery, something in the 7-10% daily infection rate could actually lead to a reduced number of active cases, as people can get better faster than new individuals are being infected.

The UK is noticeably missing from that list. Their policies are keeping them in the low 20% range (actually 23% last week, 19% the past three days) for now. In the US, we are seeing lower rates for NY, CA, and even FL, even as the rest of the nation is accelerating. 

The lesson here: stay safe and stay isolated, regardless of whether your President/PM/Governor is ordering you to or not, and we can see things turn around.