Coronavirus Update: Rest of World Looks Like Pre-Quarantine China

I've been posting the covid-19 case count with two x-axis to show the growth rate more clearly, but for today I put them both on one axis. It shows the rest of the world has a similar number of cases and a similar slope pre-quarantine China.

Even after China initiated a full lockdown on Wuhan, followed by strict nationwide travel restrictions and work closures, it still experienced exponential growth because of cases already in the system. Given the U.S. response to this point, I think it is almost inevitable U.S. cases will soar past China's.

A bit of news from the weekend I missed in the prior updates: most of the spread in China was family spread according to the WHO report.

China’s uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters appear to have driven the outbreak.

Not surprising considering people were quarantined and a reminder if you have at risk people in your home, to take extra precautions.

Speaking of the institutional and cultural rot in the United States, here's a top Democrat candidate for President bemoaning the lack of diversity.

This isn't 100 percent of why the CDC has been such a clown show, but it is a part of the larger truth: the West has stopped selecting for excellence. Identity and credentials are more important for moving ahead in managerial America. The country is run by mediocrities who rise by the Peter Principle:

The Peter Principle is thus based on the logical idea that competent employees will continue to be promoted, but at some point will be promoted into positions for which they are incompetent, and they will then remain in those positions because of the fact that they do not demonstrate any further competence that would get them recognized for additional promotion. According to the Peter Principle, every position in a given hierarchy will eventually be filled by employees who are incompetent to fulfill the job duties of their respective positions.

I'm not sure if all the talk of diversity is a means to move people further up into greater incompetence or to protect incompetent people from competition, both could be the case. All people promote diversity, thus there must be some gain for them personally. For society though, the result is collapsing institutions, including fundamental ones such as science, which now suffers from a reproducibility crisis. Even science has become a political and ideological profession, and not one concerned with Truth or Nature.