The numbers are getting better

I don’t have time to write a regular post today, but I did want to let you see the numbers. The 7-day rates of increase in both deaths and cases both moved down by one percentage point yesterday (of course, that probably means the number fell from say 5.04 to 4.97, but it seems the 1-point changes don’t reverse themselves, meaning it’s likely they’ll continue their downward path – of course, barring a self-inflicted wound like opening up schools very rapidly and thereby seeding big increases in community infection rates, as happened in Israel).

What’s also encouraging is that the ratio of deaths to closed cases continues to fall, meaning that treatments are becoming more successful all the time in keeping people from dying of Covid-19. At 5%, we’re not far about China’s 4% number. On the other hand, it really should be below 1%, which it is in many countries.

I’ve started tracking a new number, the national test positive rate. As I discussed in my last post, this is probably the key number for tracking the progress (or hopefully lack thereof) of novel coronavirus infections.

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	5,476	782
July 25	6,971	996
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
August 1	8,069	1,153
August 8	7,153	1,022
August 15	7,556	1,079
August 22	7,379	1,054
August 29	7,695	1,099
Month of August	32,174	1,038	121%
September 5	8,024	1,146
September 12	8,367	1,195
September 19	8,724	1,246
September 26	9,097	1,300
Month of Sept.	36,337	1,211	113%
Total March – September	225,282

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 176,365

Deaths reported yesterday: 1,273

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% 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: 5,701,390

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 45,186

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 6%  

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

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 3,063,213

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 176,365

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 5%

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.

IV. 7-day average of test positive rate for US: 6.3%

For comparison, the recent peak for this rate was 27% in late July, although the peak in late March was 75%. This is published by Johns Hopkins.

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