I’m looking at the COVID death stats and I realized something that shocked me. At 259 deaths, Michigan has more than all other B1G states (except NJ) combined (233)

I’ve flown direct from Chicago O’Hare to Beijing, so it’s not just DTW.  I read something about all the homes with water shutoff in Detroit and that’s a hand washing/sanitation problem.  Maybe that’s a contributing factor?

California has two airports each with many more flights to China. Seattle has more flights to China.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the airport. There is no data and no correlation ever calculated to suggest that growth rates locally, based on local transmission, have anything to do with airports. Current growth is all local transmission which happens because the virus can jump from one person to another when those persons are in close proximity to each other.  
 

There are different counter measures that can impact the R0 which is the transmission rate of the virus. The lower the R0 the lower the growth in case counts and ultimately deaths. If the R0 is greater than one, case counts will continue to grow.  if the R0 is between two and three, case counts will grow exponentially. This is the simplified explanation. The natural R0 for COVID-19 is between two and three.
 

Both the timing and level of when those counter measures were implemented in each metropolitan area relative to what the case count was when those measures were implemented is the single most determining factor for both the rate of exponential growth in a metro area as well as how many days to when the peak will be reached in terms of new cases per day.  Mortality rates as well  

By timing, that simply means when the counter measures were put in place.  Were they done when local case counts in the metro area reached 10, 100, or 1000?  Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and Florida, we’re all late relative to those case counts.  Other states for much earlier.

The level of countermeasures means how impactful are they on the R0. For example, eliminating gatherings of 500 people does not have a big impact. Voluntary social distancing it turns out does not have a big impact. Mandatory shelter in place has a big impact.

I use the term metropolitan area rather than state because it is the metropolitan area where the growth occurs. Some states like California have more than one major metropolitan area. California, in fact, has three or four. Michigan has one. Ohio has two. Some metropolitan areas locked down five days before the entire state did.  New York City and New York State issued a shelter in place at the same time.  But, because of the density of the population in the metropolitan area, that’s where an early strict shelter in place is going to have a much bigger impact on the states numbers. That doesn’t mean the rest of the state shouldn’t be sheltering in place. Further if the two major metropolitan areas in California, namely San Francisco and LA, issued shelters in place in case Counts were 250, That’s a better indicator then looking at the state level where it might look like the state shelter in place wasn’t issued until five days later and the total state counts might’ve been over a thousand. I don’t know the exact numbers. Most of the data however for growth rates and case counts is tracked at the state level.  So that can create some confusion about what is actually going on in each metro area. 
 

The U of Washington analysis looks at when various counter measures were put in place at a state level and calculates when the peak will be in terms of new cases and total cases. It also calculates what the total max hospital get bed count will be, what the total ICU bed count will be, and what the maximum ventilator requirements will be.  Obviously if the death rate is between 1 and 2%, the more cases you have in a state, the more deaths you will have.  But also the higher the ratio of ICU beds needed and ventilators needed compared to those available is going to increase that death rate percentage in a metropolitan area or state. The University of Washington study compares The peak number of ICU beds and ventilators needed to the capacity in each state.
 

It’s an excellent analysis, but even that analysis, because it’s at the state level, is not completely accurate (for all I know they may do it by county and just show state summaries). For example California’s major metropolitan areas issued a shelter in place about five days before the entire state did. So in that case it’s really the shelter in place for the two major metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles that should be modeled and are going to have the biggest impact.  They mention only the State orders and levels of those orders in each state. 
 

The bottom line is that a number of states, including Michigan, we’re late to issue stringent shelter in place orders compared to how big the case counts were in their local jurisdictions.  There is plenty of testing at the time.  
 

To compare one state to another you really have to compare how stringent the orders were and their timing relative to current case counts in those locations, and ideally at the metro area, and not relative to each other by calendar day. 
 

And if you look at the University of Washington model, Which is his closest will get at the state level, it’s those same states that started late that are going to run out of hospital beds, I see you beds, and ventilators.

Much of the above has been discussed many times in various posts.  But this constant speculation about airports or patient zeros or hidden cases or differences in testing, which is an issue, ignore the facts about what determines the numbers we will be experiencing.  And that is leadership.  Or lack of.

Edit:  Here’s an example during the Spanish flu of how city level quarantines impacted the curve.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus

This post was done via voice to text on the phone so my apologies for any typos.  

Dont blame the chinese you racist 

Ordinarily I'd agree, but MSP is also a Delta hub with many non-stop flights to China, and our numbers are miraculously low.