New Insight Into When We Could See Fewer Coronavirus Cases In North Carolina

CHARLOTTE, NC. — Martin Zelder is a numbers guy. An assistant professor of economics at UNC Chapel Hill, with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He developed an algorithm to predict new coronavirus cases using numbers reported by the state.

“It looks to me, with the lockdown in place as it is now that we would get down to basically almost 0 new cases in a day by 5th of May,” says Zelder.

Zelder says by analyzing the numbers, each additional day we have the stay at home order, the state will see about 20 fewer new cases.

“We were getting more benefit from the lockdown at an earlier point and then we’re getting lesser and lesser benefit as the lockdown continues. This is a familiar kind of pattern in the social sciences. The idea of diminishing marginal return.”

Zelder says based on his models, he thinks the stay at home order should be lifted sooner rather than later.

“It’s beneficial to have fewer new cases, right. Then at the same time, it’s also costly in terms of the effects and slowing down the economy. In terms of preventing people from having normal social interaction. Mental health consequences for people who are alone.”