New Orleans emerges as next coronavirus epicenter, threatening rest of South

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

March 25 (Reuters) - New Orleans is on track to become the next coronavirus epicenter in the United States, dimming hopes that less densely populated and warmer-climate cities would escape the worst of the pandemic, and that summer months could see it wane.

The plight of New Orleans - with the world's highest growth rate in coronavirus cases - also raises fears that the city may become a powerful catalyst in spreading the virus across the south of the country. Authorities have warned the number of cases in New Orleans could overwhelm its hospitals by April 4.

New Orleans is the biggest city in Louisiana, the state with the third-highest case load of coronavirus in the United States on a per capita basis after the major epicenters of New York and Washington.

The growth rate in Louisiana tops all others, according to a University of Louisiana at Lafayette analysis of global data, with the number of cases rising by 30% in the 24 hours before noon on Wednesday. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a major federal disaster declaration for the state, freeing federal funds and resources.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-orleans-emerges-as-next-coronavirus-epicenter-threatening-rest-of-south/ar-BB11HRXa?li=BBnbfcL

[SWBTATTReg]

1. But we need to have our Marti Gras Celebrations (sarcasm)!!!

[Igel]

2. The temperature thing is correlation.

The dataset used had a lot of places with warmer weather and higher transmission than cooler and lower transmission. Lots more going on than just ambient temperature.

Run the regression, and there's a correlation, but it's not the easiest thing to see with the naked eye.

There's always the non-falsifiable claim that had it been colder, it would have been worse. Again, the kind of claim that might be falsifiable with enough data, but I'm not holding my breath.

[blitzen]

3. I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of the threat in Louisiana...

but this story is already outdated. That was a snapshot of one day. If you take the same snapshot from today's data, there are many states with a higher rate of increase. With inconsistent or barely existent testing, it's hard to put much stock in this data. Personally, I think Florida, if anywhere, is the epicenter in the South. (BTW, I live in Baton Rouge.)

https://ncov2019.live/data

(scroll down for individual US states.)