Good news about the coronavirus is in short supply. The United States’ confirmed case count is approaching half a million — more than triple any other country’s. The U.S. will soon lead the world in COVID-19 deaths as well. Roughly 95 percent of Americans are living under lockdown orders. No one seems to have any real sense of how or when this will end. But look a little harder and you can just start to discern a faint light at the end of this very dark tunnel. You just have to know where to look.
Ignore the skyrocketing case count, or at least take it with a grain of salt. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver has explained, the number of positive tests reported in any given city, state or country is highly dependent on the number of tests conducted there — which differs wildly from place to place over time. Death tolls are more useful for comparing how the epidemic is evolving in different locales. But because it typically takes weeks for someone with COVID-19 to die, they’re also lagging indicators that tell you less about where on its epidemic trajectory the virus is now than where it was back then.
The number you really want to focus on is hospitalizations. And if it’s good news you’re after, pay particular attention to what’s happening in two key states: New York and California.
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