We've had three straight days of declining cases in California: 873, 843, 769, 699.  Deaths were 15, 20, 19, 11 over those four days. It was the weekend, of course, but still. Washington State looks similarly flat: 563, 564, 551, 619, and deaths of 17, 25, 14, 15.

States with more recent lockdowns continued to increase over that time period. I think it's clear evidence that the measures are paying dividends. We're clearly not out of the woods yet, but there's a way forward, at least in getting on top of the initial wave.

The main problem is how we can ease up on the brakes without seeing the infections explode again. How low do we have to get before people can go back to work, and then what can we do to slow the growth the second time around so we're not right back in quarantine two or three weeks later? I think we'll need to restrict seating at restaurants, quarantine nursing homes, require people to wear masks in public, and continue to ban large events, among other measures, and there's still a good chance we'll need to get more restrictive when infections grow too large again. But hopefully we'll have better testing, and better information overall, and we can find some sense of normalcy.