Finally, Trump reveals his coronavirus strategy!

Since the very beginning of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US, the Trump administration has never come up with a comprehensive plan for dealing with the virus. In early April, Trump made noises to the effect that he had a plan and he would solve the whole problem. But within a week or two, his tone changed completely: The virus response isn’t a federal responsibility, but that of the states. So if you want to know what’s being done to combat the virus, just ask the governors.

Of course, this “strategy” hasn’t worked terribly well, since it led to the lockdowns then in effect (which were driven by the states, of course, but only some states) in many cases being lifted prematurely, with the inevitable second wave hitting in June and July. Now, we’re slowly coming down from the peak of that wave (yesterday, there were 47,000 new cases, which is a far cry from the low of around 20,000 a day a couple months ago. And even 20,000 new cases a day is – ahem! – astronomical in comparison to just about any other country in the world except Brazil, who also had 47,000 new cases yesterday, with a population that’s about two thirds that of the US).

But as the weather gets colder and people stay indoors more, and as some schools reopen for in-person students, it’s very possible there will be a new wave, perhaps even larger than the original one. So now more than ever there needs to be a national plan to finally get the virus under control everywhere. This is the only way a new wave will be avoided.

But I have good news: Even though Trump didn’t reveal his plan in his acceptance speech on the White House lawn yesterday, he made his strategy very clear through his words and actions – and those of his administration - in the past week. Here is the strategy:

We’ve already won! Let’s celebrate!

Now, it might surprise you that this would be the strategy since we’re still averaging over 1,000 deaths a day. But just look at the evidence: Trump made this statement before a crowd of 1,500. Very few were wearing masks. They were close together and – of course – cheering lustily. Moreover, very few of them were tested beforehand (or even questioned about whether they were sick), because, as a spokesman explained, “it was logistically unfeasible to test such a large number of people.”

Now, the fact that Trump allowed this gathering to happen – and of course orchestrated it – can only mean one of two things: 1) He doesn’t give a s___ about the health of his best supporters and especially the many Secret Service and staff who had to be there, or 2) We have really beaten the virus, so there’s no point in worrying about silly things like social distancing and mask wearing anymore.

Of course, option 1 is inconceivable. Ergo, we’ve beaten the virus!

I know there are some malcontents out there who will say that option 1) actually is an accurate statement. But to those people (leftists and antifa supporters, no doubt) I say: Look at Trump’s rally in Tulsa. He was accused of endangering his supporters there, yet that worked out fine. Just ask Herman Cain. 

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). No other variables go into the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4%.

Note that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4 weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks previous.

However, once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays - after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some indication of what will happen in the near term if there are no significant intervening changes.

Week ending	Deaths reported during week/month	Avg. deaths per day during week/month	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
March 7	18	3
March 14	38	5
March 21	244	35
March 28	1,928	275
Month of March	4,058	131
April 4	6,225	889
April 11	12,126	1,732
April 18	18,434	2,633
April 25	15,251	2,179
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
May 2	13,183	1,883
May 9	12,592	1,799
May 16	10,073	1,439
May 23	8,570	1,224
May 30	6,874	982
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
June 6	6,544	935
June 13	5,427	775
June 20	4,457	637
June 27	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,476	782
July 25	6,971	996
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
August 1	8,069	1,153
August 8	7,153	1,022
August 15	7,556	1,079
August 22	7,552	1,079
August 29	7,510	1,073
Month of August	31,957	1,031	120%
September 5	7,823	1,118
September 12	8,150	1,164
September 19	8,489	1,213
September 26	8,843	1,263
Month of Sept.	35,260	1,175	110%
Total March – September	223,987

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 184,834

Deaths reported yesterday: 1,157

Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% two days ago. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 6,048,404

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 47,301

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 5%  

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 3,348,744

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 184,834

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 5%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

IV. 7-day average of test positive rate for US: 5.9%

For comparison, the recent peak for this rate was 27% in late July, although the peak in late March was 75%. This is published by Johns Hopkins (recent rates for New York state: .8%. For Texas: 15.8%. For Florida: 14.5%.  For Arizona: 8.6%).

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com