In these areas, flattening the curve does not mean an immediate decrease in coronavirus cases, but instead, a decline in the number of new cases, which correlates to fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Flattening the curve helps to alleviate the stress on the healthcare system, ensuring that hospitals and medical facilities across the country won’t become overwhelmed with the number of patients.
Data from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), provides detailed graphs showing the different coronavirus curves in different states across the U.S.
According to data provided by IHME, states including Louisiana, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia have already flattened the coronavirus curve. In a number of these states, the peak of coronavirus cases has already passed, and they have not seen a shortage in the number of hospital beds available compared to the number of new patients admitted daily.
In other states such as Arizona, Florida, Georgia, California, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Arkansas, they have yet to reach the apex of the outbreak, but according to IHME data, they are not likely to see a shortage in needed hospital beds.
While these states have begun to flatten the curve in regard to the number of necessary hospital beds compared to the number of patients admitted, some other states have seen a slow decline in the number of daily cases, but the total number continues to increase.
For example, on Monday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said that the state is beginning to flatten the curve as the rate of new daily cases has begun to decrease. According to data provided by IHME, New Jersey saw a 12 percent decrease in the total number of positive cases on Monday, moving from 24 percent daily increase on March 30 to a 12 percent daily increase on April 5.
In addition to Murphy noting that New Jersey had begun to flatten the curve, Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, the country’s hardest-hit state, noted that a slowing rate of daily case-increases showed the state’s curve flattening. New York also saw a brief decline in the number of deaths per day over the past weekend.
Despite the flattening of the curve in some states and the beginning of it in others, social distancing practice have continued to be enforced. A number of different states have also continued to keep their stay-at-home policies in place.
According to a tracker provided by Johns Hopkins, there are more than 368,00 cases of coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, in the U.S. The virus has also caused more than 11,000 deaths, and 19,972 people have recovered.
