Another important recovery step
For yesterday, Worldometers.info
showed the lowest number of US Covid-19 deaths since March 30: 787 (yes, I didn’t
leave off a digit! This was the first 3-digit deaths number since April 2).
This will undoubtedly go back up in the next couple of days, if for no other
reason than the fact that deaths are lowest every Monday and Tuesday - most
likely because the local and state government offices that report deaths have
much lower staffing levels on weekends (as my new friend Royce Howland pointed
out to me this weekend).
This still may augur a lower number of
deaths this week than last, although that would require the 7-day growth rate
in total deaths to keep declining this week – as it has more or less steadily since
March 28. But even if we do end up with lower new deaths this week than last,
that doesn’t mean we’re on our way to zero new deaths (which of course would be
the best possible indication that we
have the virus under control. Of course, the best indication would be if new cases
were zero, but because of the severe lack of testing so far, the reported case
numbers are certainly some small percentage – maybe 10 to 20% - of the actual
figure, so there’s no way to know for certain whether total cases are declining
or not, although given that we added 20,000 new reported cases yesterday, it
would be very hard to say it isn’t increasing).
To get to zero deaths, the growth rate
in deaths would have to decline faster than the total number of deaths
increases. For example, if the 2% daily rate of increase holds true tomorrow, there
will be 15 more deaths than today, since tomorrow’s deaths will be 102% of
today’s – that’s what exponential growth means. Of course, it’s very hard to
see how we’ll ever get to zero deaths, without increasing, rather than
decreasing, social distancing measures.
However, if we were down to say 10-20
new deaths a day, that would be victory to a lot of people, and I would be glad
to see that. But real victory is only possible when we literally know every
person who has the virus in the country and they’ve been quarantined – along with
all of their close contacts, which means there is massive contract tracing. This
literally means testing almost everybody in the country every week or two. And
if we don’t do that, then we have to go with a total lockdown of the country
for at least a month, with prohibition of all non-essential travel over say
more than five miles. There simply is no other way to get the virus under control
– and even when that happens, there are certain to be various hot spots popping
up now and then, as happened just this week in China and South Korea.
One other thing about lockdowns: In a
good article
in the Washington Post today – which pointed
out flaws in the arguments for reopening now – there’s the factoid that 66% of
newly hospitalized Covid-19 patients in NYC had been sheltering at home. Of
course, this means people in lockdown are infecting their families. This was
observed early on in Wuhan, and the government there turned to putting infected
people in empty hotels to complete their quarantines. This needs to be done
here as well, along with massive testing and contract tracing. Of course, there
are lots of empty hotels now!
The
numbers
These
numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day
before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my
numbers all along). No other variables go into these numbers – they are all
projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19
deaths, which was 18%.
Note
that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4
weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted
very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the
people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick
with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the
trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks
previous.
However,
once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies
and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays
- after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an
effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in
just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some
indication of what will happen if there are no intervening changes.
Week ending
|
Deaths reported during week/month
|
Avg. deaths per day during week/month
|
Pct. Change from previous month
|
March 7
|
18
|
3
|
|
March 14
|
38
|
5
|
|
March 21
|
244
|
35
|
|
March 28
|
1,928
|
275
|
|
Month of March
|
4,058
|
131
|
|
April 4
|
6,225
|
889
|
|
April 11
|
12,126
|
1,732
|
|
April 18
|
18,434
|
2,633
|
|
April 25
|
15,251
|
2,179
|
|
Month of April
|
59,812
|
1,994 (= 1 death every 44 seconds)
|
1,474%
|
May 2
|
13,183
|
1,883
|
|
May 9
|
12,592
|
1,799
|
|
May 16
|
14,207
|
2,030
|
|
May 23
|
16,729
|
2,390
|
|
May 30
|
19,698
|
2,814
|
|
Month of May
|
68,022
|
2,194 (= 1 death every 39 seconds)
|
114%
|
June 6
|
23,194
|
3,313
|
|
June 13
|
27,311
|
3,902
|
|
June 20
|
32,159
|
4,594
|
|
June 27
|
37,867
|
5,410
|
|
Month of June
|
135,190
|
4,506 (= 1 death every 19 seconds)
|
199%
|
Total March - June
|
267,083
|
|
|
Red = projected numbers
I. Total
deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 80,787
Increase in deaths since previous day: 747 (vs. 1,418 yesterday)
Percent increase in deaths since previous day: 1% (vs. 2%
yesterday)
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 18% (This number
is used to project deaths in the table above)
II. Total
reported cases
I no longer pay
any attention to the reported case number. It is a huge underestimate of actual
cases, which is at least 5-10 times what’s reported. This is because of the
huge shortage of testing capacity. For reported cases to be anywhere near
actual cases, we would need to be doing millions of tests a day. I believe the
US has done fewer than 7 million tests since the start of the pandemic.
Total US reported cases: 1,367,963
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 20,645
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 15%
III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far
in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 256,336
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 80,040
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases
(=deaths + recoveries): 24% (vs. 25%
yesterday) Let’s
be clear. This means that, of all the coronavirus cases that have been closed
so far in the US, 24% of them have resulted in death. Compare this with the
comparable number from South Korea, which is below 3%. The reason this number
is so high is that total reported recoveries are so low. I’ve been assuming
since March 26, when the recoveries number was first published, that it would
rise, so that this percentage (which was 41% on March 26), would be far lower
than it is now. This number is very high, comparable with Italy and
France (China’s is 6%).
My guess is the fact that this number
is still so high is just another indication of the ongoing shortage of tests,
since if a person has clearly recovered, the hospital is unlikely to want to
“waste” a test on them. But if it stays close to the current level even as
testing capacity increases, this will be an indication of a deeper problem.
I would love to hear any comments or
questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com
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