Graphs day 86, pandemic day 91, day 162 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 7,401,717

Total deaths: 417,807

I will continue plotting the number of newly reported cases, resulting in a curve that goes up and down as the pandemic waxes and wanes. Here’s what that type of graph looks like for the entire world over the entire history of the pandemic:

Unfortunately the trend seems to be that the pandemic is continuing to infect slightly more people every day.

Cases per million people by country

Here is a map of today’s cumulative cases per million people (since the beginning of the epidemic):

Remember that the map shows you the total number of COVID-19 cases reported up to and including today. I might change the map so that it shows today’s cases, and today’s cases only. Is that something you would like to see?

As I mentioned above, plotting the history of cases reported each day produces a graph with a line that goes up and down as each country’s local epidemic waxes and wanes. These graphs allow us to divide countries into four categories:

• Countries that contained the epidemic quickly
• Countries that experienced a surge in cases but now have the epidemic under control
• Countries that are still reporting new cases at an appreciable rate, but at least the number of new cases is steady or decreasing with time
• Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse

No countries have changed categories today, although some seem to be on the verge of changing. I also added Australia and New Zealand to today’s graphs. Which category will they appear in? Keep reading to find out!

Countries that quickly contained their COVID-19 epidemics

These countries intervened so early in the course of the epidemic that they never had a high COVID-19 case rate to begin with. I’m using the same vertical axis scale for all the graphs (zero to 375 cases per million people), and when I use that scale for countries in this category it becomes clear just how much lower the case rates are there.

This is where Australia (gray) and New Zealand (green) ended up. Their case rates peaked just a little higher than South Korea’s, and about a month later. But the case rates in all these countries are down near zero now.

Countries that have COVID-19 under control now

These countries experienced a higher peak in cases, but thanks to the public health interventions they put in place, the peak has passed and they are now reporting very low numbers again.

This category includes Italy and Spain, which just a few week ago were considered the hardest-hit countries in the world. The one country that worries me is Belgium, where cases have steadily increased from 10.2 per million to 11.5 per million over the last four days. That still might be statistical luck – or I might need to move Belgium to the “getting worse” category.

Countries where cases are steady or decreasing

These are countries that are still reporting an appreciable number of cases, from 20 per million people in the U.K. to 570 per million in Qatar. But all the countries in this category are experiencing fewer daily cases than they did one or two months ago.

I would love to say that these are countries where the number of cases per day are decreasing – but as the graph shows, that is now true only in the U.K. and Qatar. Cases in the United States, Russia, and Belarus are all holding steady, and in fact seem like they might be starting to go back up. I would hate to move any of these countries into the “getting worse” category.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

These are countries where the number of cases reported is still generally increasing.

Two days ago, it looked like cases in Peru were on their way back up – but yesterday’s cases were down and today’s are steady, and all of the past few days have been below the peak of a couple weeks ago. I think we’re on the verge of moving Peru back in to the “steady or decreasing category,” but I’ll wait a few more days.

Possibly even better news is that it looks like maaaaaybe Chile and Brazil are on the verge of peaking and starting to decrease. I certainly hope so, and I’ll be keeping an eye on those countries.

Deaths per million people by country

When it comes to death, the dead stay dead, so it makes sense to consider cumulative deaths, resulting in the usual map style and incurves that steadily increase with time. Here’s the map of deaths per million people, focused on Europe and the Americas:

Those curves, for the 10 countries we’ve been following most often:

Want to try out some of these graphs 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’re still welcome to use my Excel template – I added a section for making the deaths graph to what is now verison 4.1, so that is the only one you need.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.