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)
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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