Are new cases going down? Up? Nowhere?

I haven’t updated my numbers for more than two weeks. Meanwhile, there’s been lots of talk about the rates of growth in coronavirus cases and deaths are dropping. I looked at the numbers, and can confirm that the 7-day growth rate for new cases is now at 1.9%, vs. at almost 11% in late November. This is progress, although you also need to consider:

1.      We’re still at a 7-day average number of daily deaths of 3.1%, vs. 6.6% or so in mid-January. This is a nice improvement (more than 50% drop), if you ignore the fact that, since the total number of pandemic deaths has grown so much for them, this only translates into about a 33% drop in daily deaths.

2.      Anyone who thinks that 2,276, the average daily deaths over the last seven days, is some sort of great achievement should get their head examined (unless they’re Gov. Noem of South Dakota, since there’s no reason to examine her at all. At the CPAC conference yesterday she proclaimed that her state “nailed it” on the coronavirus, even though they’re no. 2 in the nation in cases per capita and number 8 in deaths per capita. I guess she thinks it’s a good thing that anybody’s left alive in the state at all. If that’s the case, she’s certainly in line with the thinking of her hero, whose gilded icon was presented for worship at the conference).

3.      The 7-day growth rate in cases has essentially been unchanged since Feb. 18. It’s important to watch that, since the fast-growing UK variant is appearing more now and will be the dominant variant by the end of March, according to the CDC. And we have the other fast-growing variants (South African, Brazilian and now the new one in NYC) all fighting it out for dominance.

But it’s clear that the states that are now relaxing all restrictions (I heard about one state that has allowed massage parlors and gyms to reopen – there are probably some that never closed them in the first place) are just asking for trouble. If the growth rates start to drop significantly again, there will certainly be time to do that. But it’s definitely not now. 

The numbers

These numbers are based on reported US Covid-19 deaths reported on the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along. 

Month

Deaths reported during month

Avg. deaths per day during month

Deaths as percentage of previous month’s

Month of March

4,058

131

 

Month of April

59,812

1,994

1,474%

Month of May

42,327

1,365

71%

Month of June

23,925

798

57%

Month of July

26,649

860

111%

Month of August

30,970

999

116%

Month of Sept.

22,809

760

75%

Month of Oct.

24,420

788

103%

Month of Nov.

40,169

1,339

164%

Month of Dec.

83,070

2,680

207%

Total 2020

354,215

1,154

 

Month of Jan.

98,604

3,181

119%

 

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 527,778

Average deaths last seven days: 2,276

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 3.1%

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 29,255,365

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 49,433

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 1.9%  

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

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 19,964,342

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 527,778

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 2.6%

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. Until the beginning of January, it was steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. Since then it’s been flat.

IV. 7-day average of test positive rate for US: 4.6%

For comparison, the previous peak for this rate was 7.8% in late July, although the peak in early April was 22%. The rate got down to 4.0% in early October but then resumed climbing. It peaked at 13.6% in early January, and has been going down since then. 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.

 

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