The US rate of increase in positive cases remains at 8%. Since April 5 it has been between 8% and 9%. The increase in deaths has steadily come down to where it is now at 13%. That 13% equals 1,977 new deaths over the last 24 hours. The US has surpassed Spain in number of deaths and is about 2,000 behind Italy. By Sunday we will gain first place in the world in number of deaths if the trend continues; by and away we are outstripping the world in the number of positive cases.
Italy has seen its number of deaths over the last twenty-four hours rise to 1050 going from an average of 3% or 4% over the four days preceding today to 6%. It’s hard to figure out why this jump since the increase in number of new positive cases since April 2 has been 4% or less. The percentage rate of increase in new cases was 3% which came out to 4,000 new cases. Italy is talking about loosening restrictions on its lockdown but it still seems a little too soon for that.
Spain jumped into second place in new cases. The last 24 hours saw a 3% increase of new positive cases or about 5,000 people; its death rate came down to 4% or 655 people. It does seem to becoming a little better there but the problem still is very much alive.
I started to follow the UK and Sweden. The percentage of increase in positive cases in the UK is 7% while the death rate increased 11% the figures for Sweden are an 8% increase in new cases and a 13% increase in deaths. The UK ranks 8 in the number of positive case and Sweden ranks 20. The UK ranks 5 in total number of deaths while Sweden ranks 15.
Looking at the States – Indiana had a 21% increase in the number of deaths followed by Arkansas at 17%, Massachusetts at 16%, Florida a 15%, Illinois at 14% and Texas at 14%. Three states have over 1,000 deaths and three between 500 and 1,000. New York City ranks 5th for deaths in the world.
Bottom line is overall the increase in percentage of new positive cases is slowing but the number of people getting infected is still substantial. The number of deaths is relatively unchanged but does not seem to be increasing substantially.
It’ll be a few more weeks before we can really figure out what is going on. I don’t see any lifting of stay-at-home orders until May but anecdotal evidence has shown that this is not being universally practiced. While waiting we should watch Italy and Wuhan to see the effects of lifting the lockdowns.
Again, the variables in the statistics are the key. There are so many things to consider that the analysis of the data could take up all your time. Minutia such a method of asking the questions could influence outcomes ( a big one would be population density.)
PS I still cannot understand the “bidding ” process supervised by Kush.
Matt, it’s interesting if you look at cases per million people, the average worldwide is 208 and South Korea is 204. There’s about 90 countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, South America, etc., that, so far, have fewer cases per million than South Korea. Australia has about the same (243). Why?
The top countries in cases per million are basically Western European countries (Scandinavia to Spain, (the virtually contiguous swath) and the USA. Those countries have between 1,000 and 3,400 cases per million. (I suggest exclude looking at small island nations and small places like Vatican City, Monaco, etc., and focus on countries with pops over 1 million, let’s say; some small places have 15,000 cases per million, and some have zero, they skew results, distort data.)
The question is are Western Europeans (@85% of U.S. genetically is European; African-Americans have 24% Euro genes; Latino Americans (60% Euro Genes) genetically more vulnerable to this virus, are Africans less vulnerable, are Eastern Europeans genetically less vulnerable? Are East Asians less vulnerable? It doesn’t seem to be masks, I contend, because there are about 90 countries with less cases than South Korea, and even 40 or 50 countries with less cases than Japan.
What other socio-economic-cultural-immunologic factors are at play? Do East Asians who’ve been harder hit year in year out have better resistance? Do they test, trace, and isolate better? Do they wash hands more scrupulously? Do they maintain social-separation? It doesn’t seem so, from photos of crowded Japanese trains, office buildings and market places. Intuitively masks work, but real risks remain. Do East Asians, after decades of wearing masks to ward off environmental dusts, pollutants, know how to wear masks correctly? If so, why the difference in South Korea and Japan’s numbers?
2. Here’s a great site where you can go to the top of each column and press on an arrow and it will arrange the countries by cases per million, deaths per million, testing per million, total number of cases, etc https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?
3.. America is one of the most visited countries in the world and has one of the highest percentages of international students. What factor did this play in the USA’s infectious rates?
3. If we subtract New York alone, we’d reduce the USA’s cases and deaths by 44%, and be far less than some 1,000 to 1,400 cases per million as we are today. Or so, it’s been said.
4.Was New York the hot spot that infected the nation (primarily; it’s airports, connecting flights, etc.)? Was Italy (Lombardy) the hot-spot that infected Western Europe? Some reports seem to show NY was infected by European Tourists primarily, and it was Chinese tourists who found Italy a favored vacation spot. We’ll see. I hope politically correctness doesn’t mar present and future studies.
5. We agree: We’ll only get concrete answers after the fact, in retrospective studies.