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

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.

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):

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:

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.