Death, on a Pale Horse
When the Lamb opened the fourth
seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come and
see!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named
Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a
fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild
beasts of the earth. (Revelations 6:7-8)
Yesterday’s numbers (from
Worldometers, as of about 7 PM EDT March 27)
Total US confirmed cases: 104,256
Increase in cases since previous
day: 18,507 (vs. 17,155 increase yesterday)
Percent increase in cases since
yesterday: 22% (vs. 25% yesterday)
Percent increase in cases since
7 days previous: 438% (vs. 522% yesterday)
Total US deaths as of yesterday:
1,704
Increase in deaths since
previous day: 400
Percent increase in deaths since
previous day: 31% (vs. 26%
yesterday)
Minimum expected US deaths over course of
pandemic: 60,003, based on yesterday’s cases
(assumes complete lockdown of US starting today, with new cases dropping to
zero 14 days from now)
Projected as of April 3 (7 days
from yesterday):
Total expected* cases: 456,641
Total expected* deaths over course
of pandemic (based on 4/17 case figure, but with same assumptions as above): 262,812
Projected** number of actual deaths
on 4/3 alone: 2,150
Case mortality rate used to
compute total pandemic death estimates: 3%
Projected as of April 10 (14 days
from yesterday):
Total expected* cases: 2,000,089
Total expected* deaths over course
of pandemic (based on 4/24 case figure): 1,151,115
Projected** number of deaths on
4/10 alone: 11,530
* Calculated by growing yesterday’s case number by growth rate in cases
for last 7 days: 438% (Note: this is the lowest this rate has been since the
beginning of March. It’s probably an outlier, but the number I should use
(785%, or the average of the 7-day growth rates over the last 7 days) is too
horrible to consider at the moment).
** Calculated by growing yesterday’s death number by average of 7-day
growth rates in deaths for last 7 days: 536%.
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday (3/27): 2,525
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 1,704
Deaths as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 40%
I have revamped the numbers I
show today (and plan to continue with them, until I revamp them again), since
the ones I used before were hard to understand (even for me). There are still
two hard numbers driving the others: total confirmed cases (i.e. tested
positive) and total deaths. What has changed is the projections I’m making off
of those two numbers:
- Going
forward, I plan to grow the total cases number by the average of the 7-day
growth rates over the past 7 days. Of course, total expected deaths over
the pandemic is directly tied to total cases, since expected deaths (as of
day X) equal total cases (as of day X) times the case mortality rate (i.e.
the number of cases that end in death – this number can only be known
after the pandemic is over).
- But when
I put together the spreadsheet this morning, the projections based on the
7-day average of 7-day growth rate in tests (785%, based on yesterday’s
figures) were too horrible to publish here, and I allowed myself to be
swayed by the fact that yesterday’s 7-day growth rate in cases was the
lowest since the beginning of March (when my data begin). That rate was 438%,
while previous 7-day rates were between 522% and 839%. So rather than use
the 7-day average of the 7-day growth rates, I used yesterday’s number, on
the theory that maybe the limited social distancing that’s been put in
place in a number of states was beginning to have an effect. Hopefully,
the numbers will bear me out shortly, and this trend will continue.
- I’ve
been using 3% as the case mortality rate so far, but that may be too low
for three reasons. First, the rate worked out to be around 3.9% in China,
which is more or less at the end of the pandemic. Second, if you look at
the data so far (at the bottom of my numbers above), the mortality rate
for closed cases so far in the US is 40%. This is presumably artificially
inflated by the fact that closing a case when the person is still alive
will normally lag a long time, since no doctor will want to close a case
and then have it turn out the patient was still sick. It will come down,
but will it come down to 3%? 4%? 10%? Too soon to say. Third and most
importantly, the mortality rate is very dependent on the degree of
hospital overcrowding – shortage of beds, shortage of ventilators,
shortage of masks for the staff members, etc. In the next two weeks, as
the full onslaught hits NYC, we’ll see how serious this overcrowding and
lack of resources turns out to be.
- I was
previously publishing a number for estimated deaths across the pandemic,
based simply on the day’s case number times the 3% mortality rate. But I
realized this morning that this is a cop-out. It assumes that, by some
truly miraculous occurrence, there will be no new cases after today. Of
course, given the number of people out there who have the virus but haven’t
been tested yet (either because they haven’t showed any symptoms, or
because they’ve tried to get tested and haven’t been able to), this is
completely unrealistic.
- My new
realistic minimum number assumes that as of the day in question, a
total lockdown on the country is imposed – in fact, every member of a
family is locked down separately from every other member of that family
(as eventually happened in Wuhan, since whole families ended up infected
before they did this), and the lockdown works perfectly. Given the 14-day
incubation period, this means that by the end of 14 days, the authorities
will have identified every case anywhere (because it will have shown
symptoms or else it will have gone away). They can then lock down each of
these people; they don’t have to trace contacts, since after the person
has been isolated for 14 days, they won’t be able to spread the virus
because they don’t have it – at least that’s how it works in theory. In
other words, everything goes perfectly. This is of course not realistic,
but hopefully a close-to-total lockdown would lead to a close-to-total identification
of all current cases. We’re currently far away from being able to do
either of those, of course.
- So I get
my new estimate for total cases during the pandemic by finding the total
projected cases 14 days later; total deaths during the pandemic are 3% of
that case number. This means that, by my previous method, I would have
said total expected cases given yesterday’s case number were 3,128. By the
new method, total expected deaths as of yesterday are equal to the projected
case number on April 10 (2,000,089) times 3%, or 60,003.
- For the
first time, I’ve started projecting actual daily deaths (i.e. the number
you hear on the news – it was 1,704 yesterday), not just deaths over the
course of the epidemic. I previously didn’t do this because the only good
way to estimate it would be based on medical knowledge of how the virus will
progress in each person, etc. But nobody has this knowledge yet anyway, so
I decided to grow the daily reported number by – again – the 7-day average
of the 7-day growth rates. This yields an estimate for each day going into
the future.
Now let’s look at the results,
and – even though they are probably all underestimates – they’re truly
horrific:
- As I
already said, just using the actual case figure from yesterday and the
projection based on a lowballed growth rate, the minimum number of US
deaths over the course of the pandemic are 60,000. And that’s based on the assumption
that the entire country was locked down as of yesterday, which obviously
didn’t happen. So 60,000 is the bare minimum number of deaths we can
expect going forward. This is 2,000 more than the total number of
Americans that died of all causes in the Vietnam War. Note that actual
deaths reported yesterday were 1,704.
- Let’s
say we wait until April 3 (next Friday) and do our total lockdown that
day. Then, total deaths over the course of the pandemic are 262,812. However, the projected
deaths on that day are 2,150.
- Now we’ll
go to April 10 (two weeks from yesterday), and start the lockdown that
day. Then, total pandemic deaths are – are you sitting down? – 1,151,115. Just as horrific, on
that day alone, reported deaths will be 11,530.
And believe me, this trend
continues. What will stop it? A total lockdown is the only thing that will help.
Italy tried a partial lockdown at first (just applying it to the north, where
the hotspots were), and found that did very little good. And the reason for
that is simple, as I’ve said earlier: Given that growth of the virus is
exponential, it will keep growing exponentially outside of the places you’ve
locked down. And with exponential
growth, you end up with the same numbers you would have had if you hadn’t
locked down at all, just a little later. I read today that Trump wants to lock
down NY state, NJ and Connecticut. This isn’t likely to have much ultimate
impact, since the other hotspots will continue to grow, and new ones will keep
appearing (remember, the virus had plenty of time to spread through the country
undetected in February, due to lack of tests. It’s everywhere now). A couple
weeks after the total lockdown (which of course isn’t quite total. It never can
be), the rate of new infections is falling, but Italy can’t loosen up at all
until it’s fallen to zero. If they do, infections will just spring back again –
remember, exponential.
So you now know the cost of
waiting to impose the total lockdown. If we did it yesterday, there would “only”
be 60,000 deaths over the epidemic in the US. If we wait until next Friday,
total deaths will be 263,000. The following Friday, we’re at well over a
million, plus our daily rate of deaths is now close to 12,000 – which is
equal to close to four times total deaths on 9/11. In fact, starting about Sunday or Monday, April 5 or 6, the daily death toll will go above the 9/11 total toll –
and that will continue to be true for probably months. Do you remember the
trauma of 9/11, and how it reverberated for months and years? How much trauma
do you think there will be when there’s a 9/11 every day, then two 9/11’s, then
four 9/11’s, then…This is why I said earlier
that April will be hell on Earth. And May will be worse, barring a drastic change in policy from Washington.
I know you’ll find these numbers
unbelievable. So do I. But I’ve played with the numbers a lot today (so much
for getting any work done on my day job!), and if anything I think they’re too
low. But if anyone can point out anything I’m doing wrong – or if you want to
discuss any of the assumptions I’ve made – I’d love to do it.
So get ready. For the next 2-3
months at least, Death will be sweeping through the country. Riding on a pale horse. Reaping
a terrible toll. God help us.
Comments and questions are welcome. You can reach me at tom@tomalrich.com.
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