Worldometers shows the number of active cases for each state, updated daily. No idea how it is calculated, though, and it appears inconsistent state by state. The numbers go up and down in DC, but the reported numbers in MD and VA keep going up (like they don’t bother trying to estimate the number recovered). I think other states use formulas that two weeks after a person tests positive they are presumed to be recovered, unless they have been hospitalized, or something like that. It would be nice to have consistent measurements state to state.

It is hard to tell, but you have to factor in (1) the number reported as not recovered (long haulers are probably in that 3,173 figure), and (2) sort of guess at the untested positives based on how many new cases are coming from contact tracing (almost none, last I saw was 7.5%), so the counted positives got it from someone positive who isn't counted, and may have spread it to people who are also not counted. Maybe the best multiplier for that is the r1 (currently .98). The other unknown is whether there is one very mobile superspreader, or hundreds of individual untraced contacts. The fact that so few people are cooperating with contact tracers (only 42.5% cooperating) makes it really, really hard to know.

The 3K+ known cases are less concerning because presumably they are out of circulation (though, given what people are saying about parents sending pos. cases to school, maybe not). The bigger problem is the second category, the untraced people they got it from and gave it to, who are still in circulation.

There are a lot more people circulating in DC on any given day than there are residents in DC, no?

I don’t know if this helps but I’ve been following this website for DC cases. From numbers it looks like 3K people have no “recovered” from being positive in DC. I don’t know what metrics they are using for recovered tho

https://public.tableau.com/profile/deeba.yavrom1092#!/vizhome/Covid-19WashingtonD_C_/Dashboard1?publish=yes

I can see how many cases overall test positive, but what I wonder is that at any given point in DC, how many active cases are there?

If there are ~50 new cases a day, and the illness is an average of, say, 10 days, are there 500 active cases in the city? Obviously this doesn't account for asymptomatic people who weren't tested.

I'm just curious about a best guess. What do you think the numbers are for total active cases in DC?