https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.htmlCNN reports that we may be seeing the first signs of new cases leveling off in the US.
While this ignores the fact that the ostensible turning point was the one at which the HHS folks took over the stats, let's take it at face value for the moment.
(1) It has leveled off. It has not started declining.
(2) There were 40 days from the low (where it leveled off at the bottom) and where it has been leveling off at the top. We are on day 22 of the rise in deaths, suggesting we have at least 18 more days of that and more likely more. If the rate were to freeze where it is
now, we would "merely" be seeing 925 deaths a day for as long as the rise and the leveling off. It seems more likely that our rate of daily deaths will continue to rise for at least 3 more weeks. That would be 19k more deaths (calling it 3 weeks at 925 per day and then another 20k during the slow down period to get to where we were on June 4th. Halfway through October, we would be at ~190,000 dead. (All stats based on Worldometers' data.)
That's with generous assumptions.
(3) Among the generous assumptions is that the prior drop in cases, losing a third in roughly two months, would be mimicked with a similar drop now. But... we have more than double the cases on a daily basis compared with then!
(4) Even if we got such a drop in cases and in deaths... there is still no reason to think that the numbers are not going to simply climb back up again after that momentary, partial drop.
And, as noted at the outset, that is
if we give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt and do not believe that the leveling off of new cases is contrived with bogus numbers, rather than real.
If the numbers are being faked in an effort to give Trump a better chance to win the election, then we, the people, are deeply and truly screwed.
Even more than we were already.