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)
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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