Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

Good evening. As pointed out by @Statistikhengst, today's numbers of new cases were globally at a bit slower rate than we have seen as if late. A small comfort perhaps. Here is how the individual hotspot nations look in a bit more depth:



Italy has been stuck between 5000-6000 Since Mar 20. A leveling off at least, reflected pretty well in their new case % staying in the single digits. Though they are trending back up to 6000. It is disappointing that we have still not seen their new case #'s peak out now 19 days into the lockdown. A foreboding sign for the rest of the western world if lockdowns are not actually enforced.

Spain, while continuing to numerically average up in new case #'s, is at least slowing the growth rate. The UK on the other hand has been 17%+ for 6 days in a row - still a high growth of a new cases, and no deceleration in new case rates. The US has fortunately been declining in their growth rate of new cases for the last 7 days despite raw numbers continuing to go up day after day. I am not sure what to make of it yet. Possibly the "testing backlog" finally being gotten through.

Also, a special note that Switzerland new cases have been stable in the +1000 range for a while now. It is very fortunate they have not gone higher. Hopefully those raw numbers will eventually start coming down.


As for deaths, Spain has mercifully been going down in their overall growth rate. But the raw numbers tell a sadder story. It is looking very much like by the end of this, Spain will have more total casualties than Italy. The fact that they have already caught up to Italy while being 6 days behind in their lockdown indicates that both the total and deaths per day will likely surpass Italy.

The US once again left another century mark behind in the new deaths column and is already up to 500+ deaths. This was tragically entirely possible due to the doubling of deaths in New York from yesterday's +140 up to +277 today. If the peak really is going to be in 2-3 weeks, I truly worry for just how bad things are going to get there.

I have highlighted the mortality rates of Turkey. You may notice it has come from the 2.4% range down to below the current US mortality rate. It is in my opinion more likely a reflection of the explosion of new cases (see previous screenshot) that is completely drowning out the deaths that lag behind. This is at least a decent indication that Turkey may be doing a better job of testing than other nations at this point as it is the exact same thing that happened with Germany and the US earlier on. But that trend can only last so long as deaths later on will override that stat line and cause the mortality to tick back up, as you can see it doing everywhere else in the world.

As always, you can find this information and more that I track on my sheet here.

 

Yes - hopefully we can keep the population like that for a while so as to stretch out how far our ventilator supply can go. By the way, you can track that information on this site if you aren't already:

https://covidtracking.com/data/
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/michigan/

One thing that is pretty obvious from that data is the sheer lack of testing before Mar 19.

Edit: Looking a bit more closely, that site is using totals instead of #'s per day. It would be useful information to know the % testing positive from day to day instead of just overall totals. The infection rate of the population will change over time.

 

Never been to Koln. Mostly visited Berlin and Munich on business.

The Germans never cease to amaze me with their bent for work. The way they organize themselves and even work together. These are two attributes of America as well, and I will not disagree with anybody who said it was German immigrants who historically brought those values to America.

Yes, yes, the country is a hodge-podge of cultures. But the two that stand out most (for me) are the Brits who were here from the beginning and the Germans. I believe that they laid down the foundational ethics of the nation. (And I wont dismiss the fact Benjamin Franklin was very much influenced by the French intellectuals with which he debated "freedom" in a restaurant in the Latin Quarter - and it is still there to this day called the "Le Procope".)

Methinks ...

 

LIFE EXPECTANCY

Yes, life has its basic-lessons. You've mentioned one of them.

Which is why I like working in Europe so much - from Health System Tracker here::

Yes, I don't mind in the least having that extra 3.7-years. (That is, until this COV-19 arrived! ;^)

 

That confirms what is happening here.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/24/health/kentucky-coronavirus-party-infection/index.html

 

Well, dip-head got that quarantining-idea from where? Europe has done precisely that.

Try crossing the border in Nice to drive into Italy. You can't ...

PS: See here from the Daily Mail. The Frenchies have been stuck in GB for two-weeks and will be for another two-weeks according to a French elongation of the clamp-down announced yesterday. (Well, at least the weather is treating them nicely.)

 

Something else that is even more disturbing is that they cannot use the same egg based flu vaccine industry to produce a Covid-19 vaccine.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/health/chicken-egg-flu-vaccine-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

 

That's interesting. I wonder why the age differences compared to elsewhere are so very ... uh, different in the US.

 

Sanitization is the key to good outcomes. There have been way too many cases of people hospitalized for one reason becoming sick with something else. When my wife was in the transplant ICU they were scrupulous about the cleanliness of all surfaces.

 

From here: The Covid-19 risks for different age groups, explained

Excerpt:

Well worth the read ...

 

Well, isn't that very telling of its identity ... ?

 

Neither did "God" send it to punish the wanton and guilty of sin!

If he had, I wouldn't be writing these words. Hah!

 

Thank you for that informative link.

Actually I disagree with the above because the evidence that I am seeing is pointing at a mutation that exploits the transmission "between human hosts".

Originally we were unaware of the lead time of being infectious prior to becoming sick. Gradually it became clear that there was a lead time which is partly why this is so lethal. Now we are seeing a rise in a different part of the population that previously only had mild symptoms. The severity for those under 65 is increasing.

In essence this is another fertile group of hosts that the virus could exploit. Going back to the 1918/19 pandemic the second wave was more lethal than the first. My own speculation is that the 2nd wave has already mutated and is spreading right now among a world wide population whose resources to fight this off are already depleted.

I could be completely wrong about this because I am not an expert when it comes to infectious diseases. However I have decades of experience identifying trends and I am seeing what looks like a trend emerging that will result in those under 65 having more severe symptoms. Like @Statistikhengst I seriously want to be wrong about this but the trend data is what it is.

 

Your own eyes are telling you that there is nowhere near any "close adherence" to those measures where you are and elsewhere for that matter.

So those numbers are just an optimistic Best Case Scenario.

I would prefer that this was not the case but I am a realist.

 

I am taking the leveling off in Italy as a sign that the lockdown and stay at home measures are beginning to show up in the data just as it did in China. If that is the case then Italy could be on the right track and could potentially bring their infection rate under control.

 

I agree with the above and for some unfathomable reason we Americans decided to adopt the Italian style of politics.

 

Great article, thank you for sharing.

Originally the data we had from China indicated that SYMPTOMS were MILD for 80% of the population and SEVERE for 14% and CRITICAL for 6%. Mapping that to ages we were told that no one under 20 had anything other than mild symptoms and only those with additional compromising conditions in the 21-65 range were at risk of severe symptoms. Only those 65 and above were in the High Risk category.

The Trends in the article are indicating that the RESULTS are different to the original information.

If you are between 30 and 50 your Risk has increased by 20% of having Severe symptoms and if you are 51-69 you are now ALL in the HIGH Risk demographic.

Whether or not this is as a result of the virus mutating or even just different lifestyles and diets is still TBD but the TREND DATA is crystal clear that what we are facing NOW is NOT what we were told just a month ago.

 

USA Today has become an "information link"?

Oh mah gawd! What next .... ?

 

A MASSIVE MISTAKE

And you're surprised? I'm not.

We are not guinea-pigs in a lab being tested for our state of sickness or non-sickness. Besides, what is the nature and depth of our knowledge of viruses and the manner in which they manifest themselves and grow (within a population). Almost "nada".

Not everything can be known from a bunch of vials in a lab. We learn as we go along, and in this instance many are paying for that "lack of sufficient earning" with their lives.

Difficult reading: Historical aspects of infectious diseases, part I

Extract:

We have much to learn regarding infectious diseases that plague mankind. And many will die whilst we are learning.

But that learning too will submit to our will. It is simply a question of time*. WE are the masters of our universe**.

Not Hollywood ...

*We made a Massive Mistake by not "getting on" to the SARS outbreak in China (2002/4). And we are paying dearly in deaths for that lack of foresight ...
**Yes, yes - some very intelligent people were onto it. But there was no "collective will" to finance further the serious research into deadly infectious diseases! Do tell me how that statement is wrong!

 

When I went to bed last night (right around midnight my time), we were at 661,367 COVID-19 cases and a total of 30,671 deaths.

This morning, 09:00 GMT +1 (Germany just switched over to daylight savings time) - still being showed as 07:00 GMT (but I don't think this is correct), 03:00 AM on the East Coast of the USA:



This time, first, the excel comparison, all the way back to 02/27:



IMPORTANT: Please notice that today (2020-03-029) is highlighted in light blue, just as 2020-02-027, 2020-03-015 and 2020-03-022. Those blue highlighted fields indicated the rough doublings of the total COVID-19 cases since I began tracking this thing and what is important here is the time-frame between the doublings. It took 16 days to get from 82,411 (02/27) cases to just over the first doubling (03/15). From 169,362 cases on 03/15, it took 7 days to get to just barely under the next doubling on 03/22 - from end of day on 03/15 to end of day on 03/22. Now we have once again a 7 day doubling, from 03/22 to 03/29, only this time, the doubling went from end of day at the beginning to the beginning of day on the 7th day, so actually, we are talking about 6 1/2 days, here. If the curve stays above 11%, then guaranteed within 6 days these figures will double again and will be at least 1.37 MILLION COVID-19 infected on the planet. This is absolutely unavoidable. Assuming just 11% more cases each day than the day before, then at EOD of each day, starting today (03/29):

03/29, +75,455 = 741,186
03/30, +83,755 = 824,941
03/31, +92,968 = 917,909
04/01, +103,194 = 984,731
04/02, +127,112 = 1,226,388
04/03, +141,094 = 1,367,482

And the doubling will have gone down only one-half day, from 6.5 days to six days. And that is assuming ONLY a +11% growth rate every day. As you can see, we have had a growth rate higher than 11% every day since 03/23 and three of those days, it was over +12%, so, in reality, this extrapolation is conservative in it's math.

Now, it's also possible that the opposite happens, that we start falling under +11% growth and were that to continue over a great many days, then that would be proof-positive that the curve is becoming less and less exponential and would hopefully, in due time, completely flatten out. This is the scenario that mankind wants and needs.

But it is also possible that as of now, with more and more populous nations starting to be very honest about their COVID-19 figures, that we shoot way up above an 11% growth rate, in which case this thing will double in less than 6 days.

Just to give Americans perspective on what this means. If we reach 741,182 COVID-19 infected today, then that is almost the total population of the state of Alaska. If we reach 917,901 on 03/31, just two days from now, than that is between the populations of South Dakota and Delaware. If we reach 1.4 million infected in 6 days, then that is the entire population of New Hampshire. I think you can see where I am going here and here we are only talking about the COVID-19 cases that are *officiall* being reported. Surely there are far more people out there who are COVID-19 positive and do not know it.

The other point is, regardless of how quickly or slowly the curve is doubling in raw numbers, it's still doubling. Just a little bit exponential is still exponential, but at least it gives hospitals more time to handle the onslaught of patients that has already started.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but even if a cure were to be found right now and go into testing (so that millions are not inadvertantly killed for no good reason at all), you can clearly see that with a doubling every 6 days, 5 doublings a month, that we are into BILLIONS of verified COVID-19 cases by the fall. Now, most of them will be resolved, as Gov. Cuomo refers to the self-healing. But the number of dead and internally damaged will continue to rise enormously, because the dead cannot heal in this world, nöööö.

And for the start of the day, a look into all nations with 100+ cases:



You will notice that I have highlighted some nations with lesser numbers but very high growth rates already just this morning. The baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) are being hit hard. They were once Soviet satellite stats. So is Usbekistan, which is also seeing a noted rise. There are island states with a rise, some African nations and although winter has not yet hit in South America, some states down there have already started their curve.

So, this is how we are beginning March 29th, 2020 in the middle of the worst pandemic to ever hit our beloved planet.

-Stat

 

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This is imo sensible, actually, for the entire country, regardless whether one considers himself to be in a high-risk or low-risk county. Of course, at this state in the catastrophe, they are ALL simply risk-counties. COVID-19 is everywhere. Anyone who closes his eyes and wants to claim otherwise is being foolish.

A statewide quarantine mandated by the Federal gov't would be unprecedented, although at the end of the day via declaration of martial law it would be legal. However, it would be practically impossible to enforce. So, wording it this way was probably very wise.

But Pres. Trump oftens speaks things out loud that are not well thought out, he speaks things prematurely, and that is not helpful. This is a case where "well, Trump is just being Trump" is hurting things more than it is helping. He shouldn't have threatened to quarantine any part of the USA without indicating that martial law is necessary to begin with. That is not meant on my part to be political. I am only thinking of the health ramifications for people in all 50 states, DC and the territories (don't forget, the territories also belong to the USA and deserve protection as well).

I would have criticized Obama for exactly the same thing, had he ever done it. But he didn't. Neither did Bush 43. Neither did Clinton. Neither did Bush 41. Neither did Reagan. I think you all get the picture. It's time for presidential behavior to change, right now.

 

Keep an eye also on Switzerland, where new case numbers have been level or even dropping from the peak a week ago, and new deaths have been stable for three days.