Flattening the curve?

In an April 4 article, the Spokane County Health Officer reports that “we are not flattening the curve,” with regard to the COVID-19 epidemic in Spokane. That may or may not be the case, but the accompanying graph does not support that contention. “Flattening the curve” is a concept that relates to changing the slope of the daily incidence of reported cases, and (hopefully) reducing the peak value as well. The graph represents the cumulative total, which will obviously rise until the disease is completely eradicated.

In fact, if you look at the curve, it shows that the number of new cases per day has stabilized, which is exactly what “flattening the curve “ is intended to do. Indeed the county’s own web site shows no daily increase since March 25. If the daily incidence is not exponentially increasing, it is hard to argue that the curve has not indeed been flattened.

This issue could perhaps better be demonstrated by examination of the data from the University of Washington’s IHME. They do in fact publish daily incidence data as well as forward projections. Curve flattening can be assessed by comparison of present or projected curves over time. Specifically, where were we projected to be and where are we now in comparison? If these data are available by county it would provide an answer to this question and would be valuable to share with the public.

Lance Griffith

Spokane