1 year of coronavirus, in graph

At the beginning of April of 2020, finding myself becoming increasingly alarmed at bare, naked, numbers being bandied about in the news and needing some sense of perspective about what those numbers meant, I began graphing, looking for patterns, looking at trends.

I initially was doing so for just four states, interested in watching for a spike in April after the Easter/Passover holiday. Relieved, there was not one two weeks after that event.

I eventually settled on ten states to monitor on a regular basis, several times weekly, gathering data through the CDC website as well as those states' DPH sites.

At the end of nine months, I posted a review of the presence of COVID-19 in this country.

At that time, there was an alarming rise in the total number of cases of people infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in all ten of the states, with the most horrific being for California, Texas, and Florida.

Now, as I study the years' worth of data I have accumulated, there is a pattern emerging.

Following each steep and sustained rise in number of infections, a plateau appears.

That period of slow, steady growth in numbers occurs for a period of months, then another steep and sustained rise takes over.

That second sharp increase has reached another plateau for most of the states, except for Michigan and Pennsylvania. For those two, the pattern is lagging, with their steep rise occurring while the other states have a relative lull in the action.

June of 2020 was the month of that initial steepening, with it finally ceasing its reach for the stars and starting to level out by the end of August. Well, mostly, with a little variation between the states. CA, TX, and FL have certainly led the charge, whereas MI and PA have dawdled behind a few weeks each time.

So, what is to be made of all of this at this juncture in time?

In three months, we're due for another climb.

That's my forecast.

Hopefully, another 175,000,000 Americans will be fully vaccinated before that.

That's the minimum number still needed to get us to herd immunity.

I've done my part, completing my second dose one week ago.

By this time next week, I can be regarded as fully protected from death by coughing.

Sure, I can still get infected by the coronavirus...

but not so badly that I would need hospitalization and might die.

i thank You, God.

I already know many of my friends and family have been vaccinated with at least the first dose of the two-shot series of either Pfizer or Moderna, being able to mark them safe soon from death by coughing.

i thank You, God.

Soon, I hope to be able to count all I know as fully vaccinated.

What a wonder that will be!

Soon, I hope.