New Highs

New coronavirus cases in my state, and much of the country, are reaching new highs - as high as they were during the first surge in the spring, or even higher. Covid Act Now just downgraded us from yellow "slow disease growth" to orange "at risk of outbreak." Similar patterns are occurring in other countries that were previously hit hard earlier this year. I guess this is the local "second wave?" 

Yet we're not hearing about hospitals being overwhelmed like we were in the spring, and the death rates aren't soaring [yet]. Why not? Maybe now we just know more about the disease and how best to treat it; maybe it's because people getting sick now are generally younger and healthier; maybe people are getting less sick with less of a viral load (e.g. just inhaling a couple loose particles, rather than getting a sneeze in the face). More widespread mask use is probably likely for the last theory, though I still see people diligently wearing them around, then pulling them down to speak - that's the opposite of how it works!

My county is still yellow, according to CAN, with an infection rate just under 1 (i.e. each infected person is infecting fewer than one other person, so disease growth should gradually slow...). I've been keeping graphs of new infections in both my state and county, and while the 7- and 14-day averages of the state has been sloping upward for some time now, my county has remained pretty stable.

New cases in my state

New cases in my county