American exceptionalism
Once again, the 7-day rate of increase
in total Covid-19 deaths stayed at 7% yesterday, meaning the projected numbers hardly
changed at all. So once again I left the normal projections table out, since it’s
hardly changed from yesterday. I did update all the actual numbers below.
The big item yesterday was that new reported
cases doubled yesterday to 45,000, from the level of around 21-23,000 it’s been
at for weeks. This is the highest one day increase so far. Some of this is
undoubtedly because more testing capacity is available. But testing capacity
has been growing all along, and it’s hard to believe some huge amount became
available yesterday. Another possibility is that someone noticed some data that
had been overlooked previously and added it, which is very possible.
But the other thing that I’m sure is
going on is cases are increasing in the states that have pushed opening up the
most aggressively. Yesterday, Florida led the nation with 1,270 new cases,
while Virginia was close behind with 865 and Maryland with 712. Other leaders lately
are California, Texas, North Carolina and Tennessee. Meanwhile, the states that
used to be the leaders are now among those at the bottom – e.g. New York had 45
new cases yesterday.
Speaking of cases, it’s clear we’ll
pass two million cases either today or tomorrow. Just for perspective, total
cases worldwide are 6.7 million now. So we account for almost one third of
cases worldwide, whereas we’re about four percent of the world’s population; not
too coincidentally, we also account for almost a third of deaths worldwide. Is
this what people mean when they talk about “American exceptionalism”?
As I pointed out yesterday,
it looks like we’re now on a plateau where we can expect 800-1,200 deaths per
day for a while (I said 800-1000 yesterday, but I forgot to take into account
the entire 7-day cycle of reported deaths). As I did yesterday, I now ask: Is
this “tolerable”?
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 7%.
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 in the near term if there are no intervening
changes.
However,
it’s 100% certain that new deaths won’t stop at the end of June! They might
decline some more this summer, but Drs. Redfield (CDC head) and Fauci both
predict there will be a new wave of the virus in the fall, and one noted study
said there was a good probability the fall wave would be greater than the one
we’re in now, as happened in the 1918 pandemic.
I. Total
deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 111,394
New deaths yesterday: 1,184
Percent increase in deaths since previous day: 1% (this number
was 1% yesterday)
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 7% (This number
is used to project deaths in the table above – it was 7% yesterday. There is a
7-day cycle in deaths, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from
closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in
deaths, not the one-day percent increase I used to focus on).
II. Total
reported cases
I don’t try
to project cases anymore, but I think they’re worth looking at, since the huge
gap in testing seems to be narrowing somewhat (although, because the CDC has screwed
up their testing numbers so much, they can’t be relied on, any more than reported
cases)
Total US reported cases: 1,969,406
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 44,815
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 10%
III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far
in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 738,729
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 111,394
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases
(=deaths + recoveries): 13% (vs. 13% the previous day) Kevin Perry and Royce Howland have
pointed out that the recoveries number is inherently flawed, meaning the ratio
above doesn’t have much meaning as an absolute number. However, I think it has
value as a relative number. For example, the fact that the ratio has fallen
from 41% in late March to 13% yesterday, which is much faster than in countries
like Italy and France, indicates the US is doing something right – perhaps
having to do with hospitals being much better equipped to handle Covid-19
patients than they were in March. For further discussion of this issue, see
this post.
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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