For the last week or two, the coverage of protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder has dominated the news. Between that and the daily tRump outrage, the "limited" number of news cycles has pushed coverage of the coronavirus pandemic to the back burner. Part of that is because the number of new cases in key areas (like NY and the DC area) are going down. People are getting a false sense of security and believing we are at the beginning of the end. In reality, we are only at the end of the beginning.

New York has been a success story. With New York City having 3 international airports and the highest density of people in the country, it was not exactly a shock that the disease spread like a wildfire. With close to 10,000 new cases per day at its peak, the state is now down to ~600 new cases per day, due to an aggressive quarantine approach.



Here in MD, cases are also down to about 450 new cases per day from its peak of about 1780 cases.



(note - graphs are taken from this site)

So it would seem cases should be going down nationwide, right? However, the data shows the number of new cases holding steady:



Unfortunately, several states decided to shoot themselves in the foot by re-opening early. Their citizens demanded haircuts, and with already reduced tax revenue due to Tea Party mentality, they wanted to get their economies going again. However, this will come back to bite them. This shows which states are trending towards an uptick in cases, and which are decreasing (from this site. Data current as of 06/16/2020 11:59 PM)



Let's take a look at FL. As you can see, the number of cases are increasing:



This can be directly correlated with the state re-opening the beaches. Bars and restaurants saw people ignoring all the advice of health care professionals regarding wearing masks and social distancing. Because of this, some of those bars and restaurants closed back down again (and this is just Jacksonville).

This virus no longer becomes a problem one of 3 ways:
1) We have a reliable vaccine
2) We have a reliable cure
3) It dies off due to attrition

We don't have 1 or 2, so we are going to have to make #3 happen. That is accomplished by social distancing, wearing masks, and avoiding groups of people. We can see by the evidence that it works. Be like NY - not like FL.... or we'll never get to the beginning of the end.