Where are we in the cycle of the disease?

"Professor Hinkley", the author of the post (I'm not providing a link because I don't want to spread false information) claims that the number of hospitalizations from COVID-19 began decreasing before the lockdown began. To support his claim, he annotates a graph published by the Oregon Health Authority on April 5th

OHA COVID-19 Graph annotated by Hinkley





Hinkley says the number of cases started to decline even before Oregon implemented "Shelter In Place" on March 23rd. At first blush, it does look that way. But he ignores the fact that many people who developed symptoms between 3/25 and 4/4 have not yet been picked up by the system. The number of cases on these dates will rise over the course of the next 10 days. Let's look at a graph from March 28th as an example:





OHA Data Report Released on 3/28





Look at the number of cases whose symptoms onset was March 22nd: 22 patients were reported with 6 hospitalized, 7 not hospitalized, 9 other patients whose status was unclear. Now look back at the chart from April 5th: the number of patients who developed symptoms on March 22nd increased from 22 to 41!





This is an important caveat to remember when looking at COVID-19 data: the number of cases detected always lags the number of cases that have actually occurred. This is especially true when the disease has an incubation period as COVID-19 does. Similarly, the number of deaths caused by the infection lags behind the number of cases by 2-3 weeks.





The unfortunate reality

"Professor Hinkley" (who, as far as I can tell, has no background in medicine, epidemiology, or public health), claims that "Locking down an entire state and causing 20-40% unemployment for a virus that was already on the tail end of its arc" is "madness". If it were true that the virus was on the "tail end of its arc", then I would agree. Unfortunately, we are not anywhere near the end of our time dealing with this virus. As soon as we re-open society, the virus will come roaring back. The economic devastation of shelter-in-place is enormous. But the alternative is worse: overwhelmed healthcare systems leading to millions dead across america.









The biggest problem with Hinkley's analysis is the annotation he wrote over in his graph (and I have circled below): as of April 4th, illnesses between 3/25 and 4/4 may not be reported yet.