Italian novel coronavirus deaths continue apace, as new infections drop by half: NYT

(image courtesy of pixabay.com and TheDigitalArtist)

The New York Times reports that daily deaths in Italy blamed on SARS-COV-2 were continuing between 800 and 1000 (including those who died at home without asking for medical care, who are not in the official statistics) but the new infection rate has dropped by half to roughly 1,648 people.

Since deaths lag new infections by anywhere from five days to three weeks, the continued death rate was not a surprise.  The good news is that there has been a dramatic drop in new diagnoses.  Either the isolation protocols have begun to show an effect, or the population is becoming saturated.  Exponential growth always comes to an end, and we know that the death rate can’t be any higher (it’s already roughly ten percent of total diagnoses, which is shocking enough) unless the medical system completely collapses and patients are left to themselves to starve and wither away.  So the Italian/Spanish phase of this pandemic may be finally topping out.  I could be wrong about this, there may be many reasons for the halving of new infections, but I’m optimistic, slightly.