- by New Deal democrat
I’m not the only person to figure out that the US is responding to coronavirus as if it were still governed by the Articles of Confederation, where every State is on its own (and worse, has to guard its emergency medical supplies against heists by Jared Kushner’s opaque federal task-force, in the case of Maryland using armed national guardsmen).
In view of a number of States declaring a day of Jubilee from the virus (which will be unmoved), let’s take a look at how the 53 Petri dishes of democracy are doing.
Unfortunately, the main sources of information don’t have a good way of graphing more than one State at a time, but the Washington Post published this helpful set of thumbnails for all States plus DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam a couple of days ago:
I have one conceptual quibble with the breakout: it focuses too much on the last few days for each State. Most notably, NY and WA, which are in the “mostly the same” group, in fact has seen decreases of more than 1/2 from its peak; contrarily NJ and CT, which have had notable declines in the past few days, have mainly gone sideways since their peak and in the case of NJ is only about 30% below peak, even measuring by just the past three days.
But the graph does show very well that there are 4 small States in the “cases are decreasing” row which, with good testing and tracing protocols, could end lockdowns now. Below I list the 4, together with the latest 7 and 3 day averages, and 1 day number of new infections for each:
Alaska: 2.6, 5, 4
Hawaii: 3, 4, 5
Montana: 1.6, 2, 2
Vermont: 6.7, 5, 4
Hawaii, of course, is a set of islands, and so it is much easier to quarantine from outside infections. The other three are rural States with very low densities.
In addition to NY, WA, LA and ID also have had reductions of more than 50% from peak in new infections. But the raw numbers are still too high for each: ~4000, ~200, ~300, and ~30/day, respectively. Idaho is close, but the other three need to continue to show declines for several more weeks before they might be able to declare victory in “crushing the curve.”
Even so, and even with through testing and tracing protocols, I think each would need to police its borders and insist that all travelers, aside from those delivering commercial cargo, go through a period of quarantine.
Since I expect new infections to start rising again in about a week in places like TX and GA, should any other major State in the same time frame succeed in “crushing the curve,” I believe it will create a San Andreas-sized political earthquake.
