Can you catch COVID outdoors?

I believe that you can if you try hard enough. These folks are doing their best.


Semi-related factoid. After months of being isolated from other children, both grandbabies managed to catch a cold when a toddler ran up and kissed them (outdoors). Probably not from the kiss per se, but from toddler breathing into babies' faces as she leaned in close and cooed at them, which is what toddlers usually do when they see babies. Anyway, she had sniffles and a few days later so did the boys. Followup investigations with the other family strongly suggest that it really was just a cold. But if she'd had COVID would they have caught that? It can happen so quickly with an airborne infection.  

You may not have noticed, but....

The coronavirus pandemic peaked in the US 2-3 weeks ago. 

"For some reason, the serious mainstream press has been curiously reluctant to admit this. Pretty much every article about  the status of the pandemic starts with something like, "The US passed another grim milestone today..." or "Drop in new coronavirus cases in U.S. is muddied by reporting and testing snags"  Or sometimes the good news is blurted out quickly and then followed by stern warnings that cases are "spiking" in someplace like Maine or Vermont (where "spike" means they reported 38 new cases in the last week). 

That's why I like this NY TImes article, It just reports the numbers and graphs without inane editorializing. It's not just a few big states with dubious statistical practices. The majority of states are reporting arrival rates that are either clearly declining or plateaued (like Minnesota). And no, it is not just because we are doing less testing (which we are, because we suck). If that were the case, the positivity rate would be rising as testing declines. But it's not... it's falling. 

Any guesses why this is not being reported clearly? Have I misunderstood the data?  Because it sure looks to me like the peak number of new cases was 78,000 on July 25 and it's been all downhill since then.