China really is in their second wave



Note: If you just read these posts in the email feed, you missed Tuesday’s post. If you’d like to read it, go here.


Yesterday, there was a, lot of well-justified derision of Mike Pence’s claim that the US had essentially won the fight against the novel coronavirus and there would be no second wave – while nine states, almost all in the South, set records for daily cases or 7-day average increases, and while Tulsa, site of Trump’s rally this Saturday, broke another record for new cases on Wednesday. Dr. Fauci agreed with him, but did this because we’re still very much in our first wave, just in different states now.

However, China did actually appear a month or so ago to have beaten the virus, since there were now no new domestic cases (i.e. caused by local transmission, as opposed to people coming from overseas, who were all quarantined); and of course, their total deaths from Covid-19 so far (around 4,000) are less than each of our weekly deaths numbers (see below). But as described in an article in the Washington Post this morning, last week a man in Beijing became the first locally transmitted case in China in 55 days.

The article continues “Authorities soon discovered dozens more cases, mostly linked to a sprawling market in Beijing’s southeast. On Saturday, it reimposed strict “wartime” measures to prevent a second wave of infections.” Specifically, “The number of cases remains small for a city of 22 million. But authorities are taking few chances: 1,200 flights in and out of Beijing’s two airports were canceled on Wednesday. Schools closed just a month after reopening. Since Tang’s case was announced, the city claims to have tested more than 3.5 million people.”

So even China – who took much more drastic lockdown measure than the US did, and who really seemed to have beaten the virus – has to go back into partial lockdown mode, since they are really worried about this outbreak becoming a second wave. But note they have massive testing capability available – which is one reason why they don’t have to go into total lockdown.

Of course, Pence’s claims (in a WSJ op-ed) were ludicrous. But even worse, they show this administration is going to do everything they can to obstruct preparations for any new wave of the virus, including what they should be doing now: making an all-out effort to put in place the testing, contact tracing and isolation that will be required to deal both with the current wave and the very likely second wave in the fall.

If they don’t do that, the country may well be forced into new lockdowns, both now (in southern states and northern states like New York, which still hangs on a knife’s edge and probably will for a while) and even more importantly in the fall. Remember, the lockdowns this spring were imposed when Covid-19 deaths were growing at 400-600% per week (vs. 4% now), even though lockdowns wouldn’t have been needed had there been adequate testing, contact tracing and isolation available. Let’s not be in the same position this fall.


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 the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4%.

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 significant intervening changes.

Week ending
Deaths reported during week/month
Avg. deaths per day during week/month
Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
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
1,474%
May 2
13,183
1,883

May 9
12,592
1,799

May 16
10,073
1,439

May 23
8,570
1,224

May 30
6,874
982

Month of May
42,327
1,365
71%
June 6
6,544
935

June 13
5,427
775

June 20
4,903
700

June 27
5,107
730

Month of June
23,094
770
55%
July 4
 5,320
 760

July 11
 5,542
792

July 18
 5,773
825

July 25
 6,014
859

Month of July
 26,253
 847
114%
Total March – July
155,545


Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 119,943
Increase in deaths since previous day: 798
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% yesterday. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, 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 three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases
Total US reported cases: 2,234,854
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 26,147
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 1%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 8%

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 918,796
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 119,943
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 12% (vs. 12% yesterday)
For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – 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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