Graphs day 65, pandemic day 71, day 142 since the first cases were diagnosed. Time for a more extensive update of the data.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 4,960,975

Total deaths: 327,904

Last Sunday, I predicted that the number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide would reach five million this Saturday, May 23rd. Well, unfortunately, Worldometers says we’re there already. That doesn’t count as a successful prediction yet, though – I’m predicting based on my data, which is updated in the morning and thus lags behind the Worldometers data. But there’s no question that tomorrow, I’ll have to rescale the graph to above five million.

Here’s that graph. The black lines are still the best-fit lines to total cases and deaths from April 1st to today. They still fit well, but notice how the last six orange points are consistently above the line. That is the graphical representation of the fact that new cases are being diagnosed faster than my prediction suggested.

The next milestone is four hundred thousand deaths due to COVID-19. I had predicted that we would reach 400,000 on June 1st – but now it appears it could happen as soon as next Tuesday, May 26th. I don’t like being ahead of schedule.

Cases per million people by country

New to the maps this week, for both cases and deaths: I have encouraged people to compare the rates in Sweden to the rates in the countries around Sweden. I’ve made it easier to do that by adding data labels for Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Estonia.

and the graph of cases per million people in our usual countries:

The U.S. is getting perilously close to becoming the top country on the graph. And on the other end is India, just beginning to turn over – at the beginning of what could be a long, brutal stretch of sickness and death.

Deaths per million people by country

The comparison between Sweden and its neighbors is even clearer when you look at deaths per million people – 379 per million in Sweden compared to 43 per million in Norway.

and rounding out our usual graphs, the number of deaths over time in the same ten countries:

Don’t like what I graphed? Graph it yourself! You can get the data from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.2). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!

Coming tomorrow: my friend (the same one I talked about yesterday) asked this in a comment:

“What sets COVID apart from these other mass killers?”

– My awesome friend

I’m so glad he asked, because that’s exactly what I’ll be talking about tomorrow!

And more COVID-19 data updates, as long as we need them.