End of Present Surge by January

 Back on May 18th I predicted that the regular 2% decline per day in new Covid cases would not continue and concluded it could stagnate at some point during the Summer. 

Will the Current USA Pandemic Incidence Continue to Decline?

It did exactly that by mid June. However I had not taken into account a surge from the Delta variant.  Then on July 19th on the basis of the upswing of cases I predicted that we would  have another spike, possibility as bad as the Winter surge by Labor Day.

PANDEMIC PROJECTIONS: OLD AND NEW

The surge was not quite as bad as I had initially thought possible. People did change their behavior as cases began to skyrocket in August.

It seems that this surge peeked around Labor Day and has begun another descent. However right now it is close to it's old 2% per day decline.

INITIAL PROJECTION FOR DECLINE OF NEW CASES

We Could be Back To Our Summer Low Point Around Late January

		ACTUAL	PROJECTED
SEPT SAT	4	180293	180293
SUN	5	140962	176687
MON	6	127329	173153
TUE	7	142382	169690
WED	8	143802	166296
THR	9	140329	162970
FRI	10	158752	159711
SAT	11	163670	156517
SUN	12	157152	153386
MON	13	150519	150319
TUE	14	146443	147312
WED	15	146385	144366
THR	16	142797	141479
FRI	17	158053	138649
SAT	18	163558	135876
SUN	19	126535	133159
MON	20	134605	130495
TUE	21	127882	127886
WED	22	126342	125328
THR	23	119787	122821
FRI	24	131455	120365
Oct   FRI	1		104492
FRI	15		78749
NOV MON	1		55859
THR	25		34397
DEC  SAT	25		18763
JAN TUE	25		10030

Some scientists have suggested that going back to school, college and secondary, might  increase cases in September. That does not seem to have happened. Others suggested that the center of new cases would move North as the weather cools. Southerners spend more time outside, Northerners spend more time inside. That seems to have happened, but the overall cases are still declining.

Others have suggested that we will have a surge again over the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. I think that at least a pause if not another surge may happen.  By Thanksgiving and Christmas we will probably be at rates that will make everyone optimistic that this is going away just as we were in May. And of course that means a lot of bad decisions  about masking, social distancing, and travel during the Holidays. 

So while we could be down to our Summer low (around 10000 cases per day) by late January, I think that will likely be delayed until February or March. 

My criteria for returning to church remains zero new cases in my county for a month. We did get down to single digits per day during the last low period.  I suspect that will not happen until late Spring or Summer.  Of course we could have another variant that will throw all these calculations off by producing another surge.