Graphs day 75, pandemic day 81, day 152 since the first cases were diagnosed. We have hit six million cases worldwide, a full five days before I predicted. I hate being right.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 6,028,135
Total deaths: 368,944
The good news is that my predictions of deaths are still behind schedule. I might issue a new set of predictions soon. If I do, I’ll let you know. Here’s the graph of worldwide cases so you can follow along.
Today’s cases and deaths per country are presented as usual on maps, and in graphs using the new Big Ten Countries: The United States, The United Kingdom, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Peru, and Belarus. Today is an odd-numbered day, so we’ll look at the progress of the pandemic day by day since February.
Cases per million people by country
Deaths per million people by country
Please try it yourself! You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
With so much other news, it’s easy to forget that today is graphs day 74, pandemic day 80, day 151 since the first cases were diagnosed. I’ve got plenty to say about the murder of George Floyd and the urban vandalism that followed, and I’ll say some of it on my regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 5,899,866
Total deaths: 364,891
Two weeks ago, I had predicted that we would hit 400,000 deaths on Monday June 1st, and six million cases next Thursday, June 4th. It looks like the predictions will be behind schedule on the former and ahead of schedule on the latter. We could hit six million as early as tomorrow.
Today’s cases and deaths per country are presented as usual on maps, and in graphs using the new Big Ten Countries: The United States, The United Kingdom, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Peru, and Belarus. Today is an even-numbered day, so we’ll look at the progress of the epidemic on equal scales in each country.
Cases per million people by country
Deaths per million people by country
If you want to try any of this analysis for yourself, you can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
Graphs day 73, pandemic day 79, day 150 since the first cases were diagnosed. Cases and deaths per million in Spain, Belgium, and Italy have been stable for a long time, so I have done what would have been unthinkable just two months ago: stopped tracking cases and deaths in those countries.
Brazil, like Michigan, is second place in the Big Ten #iceburn
I’ve been referring to the countries I track as the “Big 10,” so today it’s time to change up the members of that club. I’m dropping Spain, Belgium, and Italy, and adding three countries where the case rate is still rapidly increasing: Chile, Peru, and Belarus.
All the maps below remain unchanged, and the graphs now include the new Big 10 lineup with Chile, Peru, and Belarus. And also, now that I’m changing up the countries I follow, this is a good time to review some other countries we had followed previously.
Cases and deaths worldwide
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 5,776,934
Total deaths: 360,089
Plot of total COVID-19 cases and deaths worldwide since the beginning of 2020
The trend of worldwide cases continues to be ahead of the predictions that I made on May 17th, and the trend of worldwide deaths continues to go a bit short of my predictions.
All the analyses below use case and death rates per million people, which allows us to compare countries by how deeply the disease has affected them. But it’s always good to remind ourselves of the real thing being plotted. Thus…
Total cases of COVID-19, cumulatively diagnosed from the beginning of the epidemic until today in each country, including the new ones:
Cases of COVID-19 since February 14, 2020 in each of 10 countries
and likewise, the total number of deaths in each country:
Deaths due to COVID-19 since February 14, 2020 in each of 10 countries
Cases per million people by country
Compare today’s map of cases per million to yesterday’s map, and you’ll see why I dropped Spain, Belgium, and Italy in favor of Chile, Peru, and Belarus – three countries where the case rate continues to increase rapidly.
Maps of cases per million people in Europe (left) and the Americas (right), with values for key countries labeled
Today is day 73, an odd-numbered day, so here is a graph of cases per million people from February 14th to today. You can watch COVID-19 move around the world in real time simply by reading the graph left to right. I have recycled colors onto the new countries: Chile is copper, Peru is green, and Belarus is black. Belarus literally means “White Russia” SEE WHAT DID THERE?
Cases per million people per day in each of 10 countries
The very, very good news is that it looks like the line for the U.S. is finally, slowly starting to flatten from its constant growth rate, indicating that the worst of this phase of the epidemic might finally be beginning to pass us by. We won’t know for sure for another two weeks.
Why do I say “this phase” of the epidemic? Take a look at the lines for Chile, Peru, and Brazil, all of which are tragically doing the exact opposite of flattening. Those three countries are in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is now approaching midwinter. The same thing might happen to us Global Yankees when winter comes around here.
Of course, the good news that course is not inevitable. As we revisit countries that we have previously tracked (including Italy, Belgium, and Spain), look for another prominent Southern Hemisphere country:
Cases per million people in some of the countries we tracked previously
Australia (the gray line between South Korea and Slovenia) remains just as flat as it has for the past two months. Curves for all the countries shown in the graph above seem to have remained flat – except Iran, where cases are increasing again. I’ll continue to keep a close eye on them, and if cases continue to increase I’ll add them back into our regularly tracked countries.
Deaths per million people by country
Here’s the map of deaths per million people by country:
Maps of deaths per million people in Europe (left) and the Americas (right), with values for key countries labeled
and here is the graph – it looks a bit lonely without the high death rate in Belgium at the top, but it’s important to use the same vertical scale here as the color scale in the map:
Deaths per million people in each of 10 countries
Happy news: here too, it appears that the curve for the U.S. is beginning to flatten. But likewise, we won’t know for sure for another two weeks or so. Also, note how closely Brazil (orange) and Peru (green) line up. They could continue to track together for a long time, or not. Remember how closely cases in the U.S. and Italy tracked together, before the U.S. sprinted ahead.
Lastly, following up on the death rates in some of the countries we have tracked before:
Deaths per million people in some other countries
If you want to try any of this analysis for yourself, you can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
Graphs day 72, pandemic day 78, day 149 since the first cases were diagnosed. The United States has now passed both Belgium and Spain to become the major country with the highest rate of COVID-19 in the world.
Cases and deaths worldwide
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 5,656,615
Total deaths: 355,355
Worldwide cases of, and deaths due to, COVID-19
The trend of worldwide cases continues to be ahead of the predictions that I made on May 17th, although the growth in new cases has slowed down somewhat. The number of deaths continues to be slightly behind my May 17 predictions, although the growth in deaths is increasing.
Cases per million people by country
Compare today’s maps with the ones you have seen the last several days. The comparison reveals that case numbers are stabilizing in Europe, and are rapidly increasing in South America.
Maps of case rates per million people in Europe (left) and the Americas (right), with values for key countries labeled
I am continuing to track the data for the “Big Ten” countries: the United States, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and India.
Today is an even-numbered day, so here is a graph of total cases per million people per day elapsed since each country’s day zero (defined as the day the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000):
Total cases per million per day (relative to each country’s “day zero”) for each of 10 countries
On day 81 of the U.S. epidemic, the United States passed Belgium and Spain to become the country with the highest rate of COVID-19 diagnosis among these 10 countries. The curves for Italy, Belgium, and even Spain are nearly flat, so I may do what would have been unthinkable back on day 30 – stop tracking these countries and replace them with others. Italy, Belgium, and Spain are – at least for now – major success stories in fighting COVID-19. The story isn’t over yet, though. We’ll continue to keep an eye on all these countries, and we’ll occasionally revisit other countries we looked at before.
If I do drop Italy, Spain, and/or Belgium, what other countries would you like to see graphed?
Deaths per million people by country
Here’s the map of deaths per million people by country:
Maps of deaths per million people in Europe (left) and the Americas (right), with values for key countries labeled
and here is the graph of cases per million people per day, since each country’s day zero:
The good news for the United States is that, even though the case rate is higher than other countries, the death rate is a bit lower. And if you’re wondering what happened with the up-and-down in Spain, I wrote about that yesterday.
If you want to try any of this analysis for yourself, you can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
Graphs day 70, pandemic day 76, day 147 since the first cases were diagnosed.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 5,459,526
Total deaths: 345,944
Cases and deaths worldwide
I am continuing to track the predictions that I made on May 17th, based on data from April and the first half of May. We hit five million global cases a day early. Up next is six million cases, which I predicted would happen next Thursday, June 4th – and will almost certainly happen sooner. I figured out how to get Excel to forecast a trendline ahead, so I can compare my predictions (the black line in the graph below) to reality (the red dots from May 17th to today). We are, sadly, far ahead of schedule, and getting farther ahead every day.
Global cases and deaths due to COVID-19 since December 31, 2019
The good news is that we are running slightly behind my predictions of the number of deaths. I had predicted 400,000 deaths on this Sunday, June 1st. It might still happen then, or it might happen a bit later. I would be happy to be wrong about this, because it would mean less dead people by this time next week. Less dead people is good, I hope that’s not controversial.
The maps are back today (yay!) and day 70 is an even number, so we’ll look at case and death rates on a relative scale, with day zero being the date on which each country’s case rate reached one in 1,000,000. Both case and death data are given below, but I’d like you to focus particularly on deaths for reasons I will explain in a moment.
Cases per million people by country
I’ve started referring to our usual group of countries – the United States, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and India – as the Big 10. Unlike the Big 10 of college football, this Big Ten actually has 10 entities.
Maps of case rates in the Big 10 plus several other countries:
Maps of Europe and the Middle East (left) and the Americas (right) with cases per million people labeled
And the history of cases per million since each country’s day zero:
Cases per million people from day zero to day 100
It’s now day 80 in the U.S., and we are ahead of where every other country was on its day 80.
Deaths per million people by country
Here’s the map of deaths per million people by country:
Maps of Europe and the Middle East (left) and the Americas (right) with deaths per million people labeled
Note that Sweden now has 10 times the death rate of neighboring Norway.
Today’s most interesting data comes from the graph of deaths per million people in each of the Big 10 countries. See if you can spot something that looks incredibly weird here:
This is a graph of cumulative deaths in each country – so what’s up with Spain, where the curve goes DOWN at day 86? Have people come back to life? Is it a miracle? Are there now zombies roaming the plain in Spain?
Obviously not – it’s an adjustment to the data. Some deaths that had been previously classified as being due to COVID-19 have been reclassified as being due to other causes. The adjustment changed the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Spain (remember, this is total, not per million) from 28,752 to 26,384.
That’s a six percent adjustment to Spain’s total, and not even a blip to the global totals because another 5,000 people died yesterday and the global total still went up.
¡Adiós, conspiraciones!
This adjustment is important because there are persistent ridiculous conspiracy rumors that every country is inflating its COVID-19 death count by intentionally classifying non-COVID-19 deaths as being due to COVID-19. They are doing this to make COVID-19 appear like a bigger problem than it actually is, because… reasons. I’m not clear on that, and I don’t think they are either.
Spain just bid adiós to those conspiracies by adjusting their numbers down to better reflect reality as we now understand it. And for people who say that this adjustment just proves there is a conspiracy – well, which is it? Are numbers intentionally overreported or intentionally underreported? Would you like some to have some of the delicious cake that you just finished eating?
People who believe in conspiracy theories would like to have some of this cake, but they already ate it.
A milder form of this objection is making an adjustment to the data just proves that all the data is unreliable anyway, and I’m wasting my time even trying to graph it. First, dude, seriously? If you’re reading this blog, you probably know me and don’t mean to insult me – and even if you do, well, it was never about me.
Setting that aside, I can see why someone would ask that question, but actually the adjustment proves exactly the opposite – that they are doing everything they possibly can to get it right. Scientists don’t try to hide their mistakes, and a scientist’s first duty is always to the truth.
If you still think the data is useless, I’ll ask a question I often ask: what’s the alternative?
Would you prefer that they not adjust the data, and just stick with data that they once thought was correct but now know to be incorrect?
Are you proposing that everyone should always get it right the first time, and that anyone who changes their mind is completely unreliable? If so – then, since I know you’re the kind of person who would never be hypocritical enough to hold someone else to different standards than yourself – how is the “always get it right the first time” approach going for you?
Are you instead saying that since the data is unreliable, we should just give up? And not only ignore the data, but also ignore 300+ years of medical knowledge on how to stop epidemics in favor of useless half-measures like “wear a mask, but only when you feel like it?”
I continue to stand behind the data I am using here as the best estimate we have for the extent of COVID-19 in the world, and I continue to stand for using it to make the best decisions we know how to make.
If you want to try any of this analysis for yourself, you can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
Graphs day 69 dudes!, pandemic day 75, day 146 since the first cases were diagnosed.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 5,371,700
Total deaths: 344,815
I’ve been playing with some new ways of visualizing the data. As I mentioned yesterday, it’s not clear what is the best way to show the number of cases. I’ve been showing cumulative graphs, in which the height of the curve on each day shows the total number of cases reported from the beginning of the pandemic.
The advantage of this approach is that it makes it easy to compare the overall toll of COVID-19 across countries. But a different approach would make it easier to see how the epidemic has evolved in real time: plotting the number of new cases reported on each day instead.
One potential problem with plotting new cases rather than cumulative total cases is that there can be major day-to-day variations in the number of cases, which can make it hard to see overall trends.
One way to address that concern about day-to-day variations is to “smooth” the data. That’s what I have done here. The blue line in the graph below shows the number of cases reported worldwide per day. The red line shows the smoothed data – the data point for each day has been replaced with the average value of that day, the five days before, and the five days after. That “10-day moving average smoothed” data is shown by the red line.
The red line shows the same overall trends as the blue line, with most of the daily variation removed. It’s much easier to tell the overall trend from the red line. And the overall trend is: we are very much in the middle of this pandemic.
Stay tuned for more graphs like this over the next week.
Cases by country
The rest of this update will be the graphs as I usually make them. Still no maps yet. Today is an even-numbered day, we’ll look at graphs of the number of cases per million people in real time as the virus has moved around the world.
The curve for the U.S. is now hidden behind the curve for Belgium, although the case rate in the U.S. is slightly higher (4,964 reported cases per million vs. 4,926 per million in Belgium). The curve will soon pass the curve for Spain as well, and then the graph will once again be easy to read. For the worst possible reason.
Also, Saudi Arabia seems to have joined Russia in switching from an accelerating growth rate to a constant growth rate, while it seems I was wrong yesterday – the growth rate in Brazil seems to still be accelerating.
Deaths by country
In terms of deaths per million people:
The United Kingdom has caught up to Italy.
You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!
Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.
