| 28-Mar Noon | Cases | Deaths |
| St. Mary Parish | 7 | 0 |
| Louisiana | 3,315 | 187 |
| United States | 105,573 | 1,695 |
| World | 622,450 | 28,794 |
| Italy | 86,498 | 9,134 |
As of midday today, 21 states have ordered residents to stay at home and the president is considering quarantining sections of the northeast hardest hit by the Covid-19 outbreak. All the while, the Covid-19 curve continues its steep climb. Today we will look at a number of graphs showing the current rate Covid-19 case growth.
Here we see the rate at which cases are doubling in a number of countries worldwide. The United States is doubling cases at just over every two days, while Italy, about three weeks ahead of us in the outbreak, is finally seeing cases double ONLY every three days. South Korea has best managed to flatten the curve thus far.
How did they do it? They tested a large cross-section of the population, tracked down anyone an infected person had been in contact with, and finally took the infected and placed them together with no visitation even by family until the disease had passed. In the US, that means testing a representative cross-section of 320 million rather than a mere 50 million in South Korea. It means having enough personnel to track down every contact of those infected, even as the number doubles every two days. Finally, most of us will likely not be too happy to see our parents, grandparents, children or siblings carted off because they are infected and warehoused without contact until they are no longer a threat.
As for what the growth of cases looks like in Louisiana and other key states, check out the graphs below:
It is pretty obvious that case growth in these states continues to rise exponentially. Hopefully in coming weeks we will begin to see the slopes on these graphs begin to flatten and growth slow thanks to the shelter in place orders. But we are the ones controlling that and things do not look good so far. The more we avoid contact and self isolate, the faster we will see a flattening of these curves. If that does not happen, many areas, including some in our state, will begin to see their health care systems overloaded and unable to meet growing demand.
For now, Stay Safe and Stay Home.