Month: April 2020

Graphs day 34, pandemic day 40, day 111 since the first cases were diagnosed. I missed yesterday’s post, so this is data update XXXIII and data update XXXIV. More than 2.3 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and nearly 165,000 have died.

By popular request, Switzerland has returned to today’s graphs, in their traditional shade of… orange? I tried to make my colors roughly flag-based, but there are too many red and white flags.

Switzerland seems to offer some very encouraging news, as more than any other country on the graph its cases appear to be leveling off. France is leveling off as well, although the trouble with France is that its case fatality rate of 18 percent is the highest of any country on the graph. Linear growth continues in Belgium, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

The continuing linear growth of cases in the U.S. is especially clear when looking at the cases per capita since the “start of the local epidemic,” defined here as the number of days since the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000. Compare the United States to Italy and the United Kingdom to France.

When looking at number of deaths per million people, the United States is nearly caught up to Switzerland:

…and is ahead of where Switzerland was at this point in the epidemic:

I’ve made some progress on the maps, but they’re not quite ready yet. France is fixed, but I can’t seem to find the data for the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, or Turkmenistan. Czech back here tomorrow!

You can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template to make your own graphs; here is an updated version (version 2.3).

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 32, pandemic day 38, day 109 since the first cases were diagnosed. Nearly 2.2 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and more than 153,000 have died.

Remember how I was going to show you a map of cases by country today? It was going to be a beautiful map. Like best map ever. But my awesome map got Franced.

I’d show it to you, but it would have a giant hole where France should be. The problem is the “overseas departments” of France. France is divided into 101 “départments,” roughly equivalent to states in the U.S. or provinces in other countries. Ninety-four départments are in the European continent, two are in Corsica, and the other five are scattered around the world: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion. They are part of France just as surely as Hawaii is part of the United States. And the problem is that my geography data considers these five regions, and the European part of France, are considered six separate geographic entities – while the COVID-19 case and death datasets report cases from all areas together as France.

I’ll get this sorted out soon, but in the meantime it’s an excuse for some France jokes. Comment your favorites.

The map may be delayed, but the usual graphs are right on time. Here’s the graph of cases per million people for our usual eight countries: Spain, Belgium, Italy, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Japan. Sigh, I had to rescale the graph yet again because the case rate in Spain has passed 4,000 per million. In other words, more than 0.4 percent of the entire population of Spain has at some point been diagnosed with COVID-19. Reminder: COVID-19 did not exist four months ago.

Here is the graph of cases per million by “days elapsed in the local epidemic” – the number of days after the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000. This map makes it easier to see that, while the growth rate in Italy and Spain has fallen to sub-linear, growth continues at a linear rate in the UK and the US – and it appears to be continuing at an exponential rate in Russia. Meanwhile, Japan had the virus beaten but released its precautionary measures too early. Fortunately, those measures are back in place so we should soon see the rate fall again.

Belgium continues to lead the world in deaths per million people:

…and unfortunately it’s even clearer when comparing Belgium to Spain and Italy in terms of days elapsed:\

The usual graphs will be back tomorrow – and hopefully I’ll add maps of cases and deaths by country. France willing.

You can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template to make your own graphs; here’s the latest version with all the graphs including Russia and Japan.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 31, pandemic day 37, day 108 since the first cases were diagnosed. More than 2.1 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and more than 145,000 have died.

The graph of cases per million people shows that the case rate in Belgium is well on its way to matching Spain’s:

and also that the UK’s rate is nearing that of France. Also, note that, unlike in Italy or France, the rate of new cases in the U.S. has not slowed to sublinear. Quick, someone tell Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis!

The Abbott-DeSantis Effect (my new name for “people dying because governors won’t accept reality”) is even clearer when looking at cases per million with equivalent start times, where the line for Italy starts to bend down right at the point where the line for the U.S. continues to rise.

In terms of deaths per capita, Belgium has taken over first place from Spain:

…and unfortunately the death rate in Belgium shows no sign of slowing. The shocking pace of dying in Belgium is even clearer when looking at the graph from equivalent points in the epidemic:

I’m working on a Python script that will, among other things, let me make maps as well as graphs. Stay tuned for maps tomorrow!

You can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template to make your own graphs; here’s the latest version with all the graphs including Russia and Japan.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 30, pandemic day 36, day 107 since the first cases were diagnosed. Global cases have now passed two million, so sadly I’ve had to rescale the graph again. More than 135,000 people have died. But the good news is that, for the first time, we are seeing signs of a slowdown in the rate of new cases.

The graph of cases per million people shows that the case rate in Belgium has passed Italy and is rapidly gaining on Spain:

Looking at the plot scaled to equivalent points in the epidemic (measured as the number of days after the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000), it becomes easier to see that case rates are continuing to grow quickly in the US, the UK, and Russia:

The situation in Belgium looks even worse when looking at deaths per million people:

And looking at deaths per day elapsed shows that deaths are still increasing in France even as the rate of cases decreases. That’s to be expected, and the increase in deaths will come to an end soon.

You can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template to make your own graphs; here’s the latest version with all the graphs including Russia and Japan.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 29, pandemic day 35, day 106 since the first cases were diagnosed. All five of the usual graphs are back today, with Russia and Japan displayed. I thought for sure we would be over 2 million cases worldwide, but today’s dataset records only 1.95 million. More than 125,000 people have died. Global cases and deaths continue to grow at a linear rate, which is a hell of a lot better than growing at an exponential rate.

The graph of cases per million people, updated through April 15th and including Russia and Japan:

After being passed by Belgium, Italy has moved back ahead by a hair. The number of cases in Russia is clearly increasing. It’s hard to see the increase in Japan on this scale. It’s a bit easier to see when comparing all the countries from equal start dates – as in our usual graph, comparing the number of days since the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000:

It’s easy to see the increase in Japan after about day 45. Japan had this epidemic under control, but they released their precautions too early. Don’t be Japan. Don’t release the precautions too early.

The same countries by days since the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000:

And again, the U.S. tracks closely with Italy.

The graph of deaths per million by day – I keep hoping the rate of deaths in Belgium will slow down, but it keeps on going.

And in fact, when we look at the death rate in terms of days elapsed since the case rate reached 1 per 1,000,000…

The death rate in Belgium has passed the rate in Spain at the equivalent time in the epidemic. Meanwhile the increased case rate in Russia and Japan has not yet shown up in increased death rate – but sadly it will.

You can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template to make your own graphs; here’s the latest version with all the graphs including Russia and Japan.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic is over.