Will reality set in for Donald J. Trump?
Reid Blickenstaff sent me a link to this
amazing graphic that shows, much better than any set of numbers, how Covid-19 has
gone from a negligible cause at the beginning of February to by far the leading
cause of deaths worldwide today. I recommend you invest the 30 seconds or so that
it takes to watch it.
At Trump’s rally in Tulsa last night,
he acknowledged that Covid-19 cases are rising nationwide. But he wrongly
asserted that this was due to increased testing, since the “test positivity”
rate – the ratio of positive tests to total tests - wouldn’t be going up if
that were the case (actually, it might be good news that we’re finding
new cases both by increased testing and by getting more positives, since that
indicates we’re probably finding more people who are sick before they feel
symptoms – which means we’re preventing them from infecting other people while
they’re pre-symptomatic).
Of course, I somewhat doubt that Mr.
Trump is paying close attention to the test positivity rate, since there’s only
one set of numbers that matters to him: the polling numbers for the November
election. These of course haven’t been good for him lately, and his initial
reaction was to dismiss any polls that didn’t show him winning. But, as more
and more polls have come in that show he’s in a big hole – while if anything he’s
furiously digging it deeper - even he is
beginning to realize that his chances of winning a second term are declining
rapidly.
Of course, he and his campaign were
expecting last night’s rally to provide a real lift to two things: a) his
campaign, and b) his mental state, since rallies have been his number one
morale booster. Instead, the empty seats (and cancellation of a planned outdoor
companion rally) showed that his boast about a million people asking for
tickets was either way off or an indication that, after an initial bout of enthusiasm
about attending, the vast majority of people decided they had better things to
do than to seriously risk their health in a crowded indoor venue.
So where does Trump go from here? Will
he take a chance on more rallies, since the states where he plans to hold them –
Arizona, Florida, Texas, North Carolina – are all a) experiencing growth in new
cases, and b) nowhere near as solidly pro-Trump as Oklahoma is? Yet if he
suspends rallies until conditions improve, it might be months before they
actually do improve (after all, six campaign staff members and two Secret
Service agents tested positive before they even came to Tulsa. Not a great sign
that the pandemic is over in the US, as Trump would have us believe) – and his
campaign can’t wait months to do something to turn this around.
But let’s say that his next rally (in
Arizona, I believe) turns out to be the great success he hopes it will be. This
still isn’t going to arrest his slide in the poll numbers, which is
irreversible. When he’s down 23 points in Michigan, and he’s in a statistical
tie in Iowa, and some polls show him behind in must-win states like
Arizona, Florida and North Carolina, things aren’t good for Donald J. Trump, period.
Now, if an effective vaccine, that can be quickly launched into full
production, appears within say the next two months – and it starts to be rolled
out nationwide by October at the latest – I could see things turning around for
Trump. But there is literally zero chance that this will happen.
Whatever Trump is, he’s not stupid.
His own delusions will only get him so far. I predict that fairly soon, certainly
in the next two months, he’ll finally come face-to-face with the reality that,
barring a miracle, he won’t be president come January 21, 2021. What will he do
then?
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
|
4,457
|
637
|
|
June 27
|
4,626
|
661
|
|
Month of June
|
22,155
|
738
|
52%
|
July 4
|
4,801
|
686
|
|
July 11
|
4,984
|
712
|
|
July 18
|
5,173
|
739
|
|
July 25
|
5,369
|
767
|
|
Month of July
|
23,434
|
756
|
106%
|
Total March – July
|
151,786
|
|
|
Red = projected numbers
I. Total
deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 121,985
Increase in deaths since previous day: 578
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: 2,330,769
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 33,127
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 1%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 9%
III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far
in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 973,055
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 121,985
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 11%
(vs. 11% 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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