Not good news

Yesterday, the US experienced 1,908 Covid-19 deaths. This wasn’t the highest recent number; that was 2,384 on July 22. I had hoped that might be a peak and things would come down rapidly since then. But it looks like that was just another triumph of hope over reality – reality always wins in those cases. The even worse news is that yesterday was the first day the 7-day growth rate in total deaths was at 6%. The last time it was at this level was June 9, when it was in a rapid decline. We all know how that turned out.

Since my projections of deaths are based entirely on the most recent 7-day growth rate, I’m now projecting that deaths for August will be about 9,000 higher than I projected yesterday. The papers were concerned this morning that we’re passing the milestone of 150,000 deaths so far in the pandemic. However, my projections now show us passing 200,000 at the end of August. In early June, I was thinking we might never even pass that number. Shows how things have changed.

The question is no longer whether we can open schools safely in September – we can’t, except in a small number of areas. The question is whether we need to again lock down a lot of the country again, simply because we didn’t do it right the first time.

But don’t worry, President Trump still believes the answer to our problems – besides hoping that an safe, effective and affordable vaccine is developed – isn’t wearing masks, but it is hydroxychloroquine. And he retweeted a video to prove it, from a noted doctor who has said in the past that some diseases are caused by people who have sex with demons in their dreams. It’s great that our president is getting advice from such experts. No wonder we're doing so well!

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 6%.

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	5,476	782
July 25	6,971	996
Month of July	28,098	906	117%
August 1	8,848	1,264
August 8	9,370	1,339
August 15	9,923	1,418
August 22	10,509	1,501
August 29	11,129	1,590
Month of August	44,749	1,444	159%
Total March – August	202,969

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 152,358

Deaths reported yesterday: 1,908

Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 6% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 5% two days ago. 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: 4,498,887

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 65,355

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 14%  

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

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 2,189,592

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 152,358

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 7%

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