The numbers rule!



Today, my projected deaths numbers dropped dramatically, so that I’m now projecting “only” (!) 746 deaths a day from Covid-19 in July, vs. 1,154 two days ago. Why did this happen? It’s because there was a huge spike in deaths a week ago (at least as reported by the Worldometers site). Since my projection for each day is based on growing the number seven days ago by the current 7-day growth rate, the fact that there was no such spike yesterday brought the rate down from 5% to 4% - and of course that drove all the other projected numbers lower.

This result was nice to see, but it needs to be weighed against the startling increases in daily new cases. July 1 set a record with 52,156 new cases, and yesterday (July 2) set another record of 57,460 cases. In fact, five of the last seven days have set records for new cases. Since deaths today reflect cases about two weeks previously, and since the new cases on June 18 (two weeks before yesterday) were 29,128, this means we need to wait two weeks before we break out the champagne.

There’s been speculation that the link between new cases and new deaths in later weeks has been attenuated because a) the people getting infected now are younger than before; b) the medical profession has learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t in treating infected people; c) the moon is currently in the “waxing Gibbous” phase; or d) something. One can only hope this is true. But the fact that hospitalizations are sharply rising in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona calls for tempered hope.


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
4,769
 681

July 11
4,946
707

July 18
 5,130
733

July 25
 5,321
760

Month of July
23,111
746
97%
Total March – July
153,233


Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 131,503
Increase in deaths since previous day: 705
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 5% 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: 2,837,612
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 57,460
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 13%

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 1,191,938
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 131,503
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 10% (vs. 10% yesterday)
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.


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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