U.S. Falling Behind Italy Recovery

Published by Christopher Schwarz on

For weeks, I’ve expected the U.S. to largely follow the path of Italy – and so far it has. Unfortunately, the last few days, U.S. cases have not been declining as fast as Italy.

Italy (+ 14 days) vs. US Covid-19 Cases

As seen in the graph, the cases matched well until about April 11th when the US has started staying much higher than Italy.

If we calculate a 5 day average of cases to remove testing variability, we can see the US is now close to 80% of peak cases while Italy was only 60% at this time.

It seems rather – and probably naturally – that we are now closer on the EU path. Like the EU, we have different ‘countries’ (i.e. states) with different restrictions. This is expanding our plateau period

EU (+9 Days) vs. US Covid-19 Cases

Note, however, that both Italy and the EU graphs suggest about 60% of peak cases in the US on May 1st. Thus, it is possible we end up converging still.

A good reason for the increase in cases yesterday is better testing – so that is a good thing.