Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf implemented several harmful restrictions on indoor businesses on December 12, 2020. These restrictions include a ban on indoor dining at restaurants and bars, shutting down indoor gyms, limiting retail and other indoor activity, etc.
Since then, the Pennsylvania running 7-day average of new cases has finally started to come down:
Wow! Just days after Governor Wolf implemented these restrictions, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was saved! What a hero! We should organize a parade for Tom Wolf–he saved us all!!
Not so fast.
I charted the 7-day rolling average of new cases for every Pennsylvania county, and noticed something interesting. TWENTY ONE (yes, 21) counties already had their case average coming down BEFORE Governor Wolf’s restrictions even went into effect. This includes every single county in the Southeastern PA region (Philadelphia, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Northampton, Lehigh, Berks, Lancaster).
How could all of these case curves have been coming down before Governor Wolf’s latest restrictions? Did they just preemptively decide to ban all indoor dining and gyms a week before Governor Wolf decided to?
Or, just maybe, possibly, could it be that Pennsylvania’s SARS-CoV-2 Fall season was coming to an end regardless of what Governor Wolf did or didn’t do? Could you be convinced that a brilliant politician like Governor Wolf understands that restrictions must be implemented at the top of the seasonal curve, so that when cases naturally come down he gets to take all the credit?
Check it out for yourself. Here are the case curves. All data taken straight from the COVID-19 dataset found here: data.pa.gov.
Carbon County, above, is especially interesting–their cases were coming down until Wolf’s restrictions went into effect, then they went back up! Whoopsie.
BONUS POINTS:
Governor Wolf’s restrictions on restaurants and gyms were so WILDLY EFFECTIVE that they even brought cases down in states that didn’t implement them!! Simply amazing.
But go ahead and believe that Wolf shutting down Pennsylvania restaurants and gyms is what did the trick! LOL!
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If you’re curious to learn more about why cases were coming down on their own, before the restrictions, in so many counties, then please head over to our “The Science™” section to learn the basics about seasonality.
