A look at the numbers again

New Covid-19 cases yesterday set a new daily record of over 72,000. We now have 3.6 million cases. By comparison, what we normally call Europe – the EU, the European Economic Area and the UK – has 1.6 million cases. And their population is 60% higher than ours. This means their cases per capita are about .003, while cases per capita in the US are .011 – in other words, about four times higher. Is it any surprise that we’re not welcome in Europe or Canada (and many other countries, of course. In fact, I read there are only around 12 countries that will allow Americans in at the moment)?

What about deaths? Yesterday was the first day in two weeks that deaths were over 1,000, but the 7-day rate of increase is still at 4%, after having been at a low of 3% a week ago. Meanwhile, cases are now growing at 15% every seven days, vs. a low of 8% about a month ago. The fact that deaths are still only growing at 4% can be seen as a good sign, given the growth in cases, but I’ll continue to watch that. If we go back up to 5%, I’ll call that bad news, although hardly unexpected given the doubling of the case growth rate.

One reason why new deaths aren’t growing as fast as cases (even cases lagged by 2-3 weeks) might be seen in the last number I track, deaths as a percentage of closed cases. That now stands at 8%, where it’s been for five days. It has declined from a high of 41% in late March, which is good news. This simply means that a much larger percentage of people with Covid-19 are surviving (although often with terrible side effects – physical, mental and financial). But this could also turn around, especially if we have a lot of hospital overcrowding in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona.

Of course, with more and more states requiring masks, that will help. On the other hand, testing is still far below what’s needed to control the virus and allow more reopening, which is 4-5 million a day. But a test alone doesn’t do any good, unless the results are available quickly. And just the opposite is happening now, with results often taking 5-7 days, mainly because of the huge increase in cases recently. If the person is asymptomatic, they’re very unlikely to quarantine themselves for a week, unless they got the test because they were exposed to someone who was sick. So they’re still infecting others until they hear they’re positive. And in Arizona (with Florida close behind), more than 20% of tests are coming back positive - when anything about 4% is cause for concern. The rate is now above 7% in California, and about 3% in Illinois.

And what’s the Trump administration’s plan for fully ramping up testing, as well as for opening schools safely and beating the virus in general? The Washington Post published a very sobering article yesterday making clear there’s no plan for anything except “We’re going to let the states do what they want.” This at a time when the states are begging for help, since many of these problems can only be solved on a national level.

And think about it: If the states are individually responsible for their own coronavirus responses, and given that those responses have been all over the map, that means the only way for any state to do the right thing – and not have all of their efforts be for naught due to travelers from other states that have been either less responsible or more unlucky – is to pretty much shut their borders to travelers from most or all other states – and even “essential” travelers like truck drivers need to be screened before they can enter. Does that sound like it will be good for the economy? Well, that’s where we’re headed. We’ll effectively be back in the Articles of Confederation.

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	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,383	769
July 25	5,593	799
Month of July	23,257	750	97%
Total March – July	153,379

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 140,166

Increase in deaths since previous day: 1,004

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: 3,618,474

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 72,196

Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 15% (vs. 14% yesterday)

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 1,646,675

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 140,166

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 8%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com