Month: June 2020

Every Graph Tells a Story (Daily COVID-19 data update XCIX)

Graphs day 99, pandemic day 106, day 176 since the first cases were diagnosed. Today, rather than do an update of all the usual graphs, I’ll focus on two results: one is an update of an earlier prediction, and the other is a brand new result. But first:

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 9,229,049

Total deaths: 477,269

Predictions old and new

Back on May 17th, I made some predictions about the future course of the epidemic; six weeks later, that has become the past course as they epidemic continues to rage. So how did it go?

In terms of total worldwide cases, reality arrived ahead of schedule. I predicted we would hit five million global cases on May 23rd, and six million global cases on June 1st. Instead, we hit five million cases one day early, on May 22nd. We hit five days early, on May 31st.

In terms of deaths, though, I am pleased to say that my predictions were too high. I predicted we would hit 400,000 deaths on June 4th and 500,000 deaths on June 17th. In reality, the 400,000 death mark arrived on June 8th, and as of June 24th we still have not reached 500,000 deaths.

If you are planning to judge me on my predictions, then: how accurate were your predictions of the future course of the COVID-19 pandemic? If you didn’t make any before, now’s the time. Now’s the time for me too – here are my predictions of future deaths based on the last month of data.

The graph below shows the cumulative number of deaths from COVID-19 from the beginning of the epidemic to today. On May 26th, public health authorities in Spain issues a revised death toll, removing some people who had died of other causes. Deaths by day since then are shown by yellow squares; the black line shows the best fit to those numbers.

Total number of deaths per day in 2020. The green squares show early numbers; the yellow squares show deaths since May 26th, the day Spain revised its death toll. The black line shows the best-fit line to deaths since that date. Click for a larger version.

Since that May 26th update, deaths have been growing steadily at the rate of about 4,500 people per day. The good news is that the death rate is not increasing; the bad news is that it is not decreasing either. That steady rate lets me make predictions of when we will reach the next two death-related milestones.

Five hundred thousand deaths: Tuesday, June 30th

Six hundred thousand deaths: Wednesday, July 22nd

If you think you can do better, make your own predictions in the comments!

The United States: cases by state

The United States continues to lead the world in overall cases of COVID-19 (although Qatar and Chile far surpass us in cases per million people). The U.S. is such a big, diverse, politically decentralized country that it makes sense to look at cases not just in the country as a whole, but by state and county.

Remember that the state data is one day behind the national data, and comes from a different source. So there will be some differences, but the differences are small and explainable.

On Monday, I showed some map of the number of reported cases by state, per million people. Here is the map of cases, updated through yesterday:

Cases per million people in U.S. states (click for a larger version)

This is total cases reported, including both people who have died of COVID-19 and people who have recovered. But how have these numbers changed over the course of the epidemic?

Presenting here, for the first time, a graph of COVID-19 case rates (per million people) in individual U.S. states. The date axis (horizontal) starts on March 10th, two days before overall cases in the U.S. reached the magic number of 1 case per 1 million people. The vertical axis is “Qatar scale,” from zero to 700 cases per million people.

I picked several interesting states to show you in this first view: some northeastern states that had high rates early (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland), some southern states that have seen their rates increase recently (Florida, Texas, Arizona), and of course, the granddaddy of them all, California.

Cases per million people per day in nine U.S. states (click for a larger version)

The graph tells an amazing story: some states have gotten their COVID-19 epidemics under control, some are simply looking on as the pandemic spins out of control today.

There is so much more I could say about this graph. I’m looking forward to exploring it with you in more detail in the coming days.

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You can get the U.S. state data from the Corona Data Scraper site; choose today’s data as CSV.

If it would help you to start from my Excel templates, please use them! The county data and analysis is in my national-level data template (now version 4.2). Data and analysis for U.S. states is in my new state-level template (version 1.0).

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

Daily COVID-19 data update XCVIII: Nine million cases

Graphs day 98, pandemic day 105, day 175 since the first cases were diagnosed. Today let’s do a quick update of national-level data. That look will reveal two countries that have switched from getting worse to headed in the right direction. At least for now – the situation could change at any time. Sadly, there are other countries ready to take their place on the getting worse graph.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 9,063,264

Total deaths: 471,681

Earth has arrived at nine million cases worldwide:

Cases of COVID-19 reported each day worldwide. The blue line is the actual reported number of cases; the red line is the smoothed number of cases (10-day moving average smoothing), showing the overall trend. Click for a larger version.

…but the good news is that the death rate seems to be slowing down as COVID-19 leaves Europe and moves into countries with younger age distributions:

Cumulative deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the epidemic (click for a larger version)

The global case fatality rate has dropped from 5.9 percent to 5.2 percent since March.

Cases and deaths by country

Here are are our four usual categories, some of which have new members. Graphs show cases per million, labels show deaths per million (dpm).

Countries where COVID-19 was quickly contained

Countries where COVID-19 case rates were never high (click for a larger version)

I’ve heard rumors of a second wave of cases in China (red), but I don’t see anything in the graph that makes me worry. Japan (purple) had a second wave in April, but thanks to decisive action by the Japanese government and people, it passed quickly.

Countries where COVID-19 is now under control

Countries where COVID-19 is currently under control (click for a larger version)

Notice that unfortunately one country is gone from this graph – the epidemic has gotten worse again in Serbia. Also, if you’re wondering where Germany is, the curve for Germany is nearly identical to the curve for France.

Countries that are headed in the right direction(-ish)

Welcome to this graph, Sweden (pink) and Saudi Arabia (orange)!

Countries where newly-reported cases per million people are steady or decreasing (click for a larger version)

Sweden and Saudi Arabia have both been on the list of countries getting worse for the past few weeks. Their curves have flattened enough that we can consider these countries headed in the right direction.

They are particularly interesting because both have flattened from their second wave of cases. Sweden’s first peak was in late April; Saudi Arabia’s was in mid-May. They are now hopefully at the top of their second wave of cases, and cases will decrease from here.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

Sweden and Saudi Arabia are no longer getting worse; Serbia is back to getting worse. Also getting worse: South Africa. All of Africa, really, but South Africa has about 1/3 of the cases in the continent. Serbia is pink in the graph below, South Africa is black.

Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse (click for a larger version)

Cases in Chile are still skyrocketing, with no sign of when they might peak.

Tomorrow: graphing cases in U.S. states.

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You can get the U.S. state data from the Corona Data Scraper site; choose today’s data as CSV.

If it would help you to start from my Excel templates, please use them! The county data and analysis is in my national-level data template (now version 4.2). Data and analysis for U.S. states is in my new state-level template (version 1.0).

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

Daily COVID-19 data update XCVII: The State of the States

Graphs day 97, pandemic day 104, day 174 since the first cases were diagnosed. I still have our usual graphs of cases and deaths by country, and today I’ll also present the much-anticipated first results of my deeper look at the COVID-19 epidemic in my home country, the United States.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 8,926,399

Total deaths: 468,257

We will almost certainly reach nine million cumulative cases worldwide tomorrow. Worldwide cases by day are shown on our usual graph below; actual cases in blue and smoothed cases in red to see the overall trend:

Cases of COVID-19 reported each day worldwide. The blue line is the actual reported number of cases; the red line is the smoothed number of cases (10-day moving average smoothing), showing the overall trend. Click for a larger version.

Countries that are headed in the right direction(-ish):

Countries where newly-reported cases per million people are steady or decreasing (click for a larger version)

And countries whose epidemics continue to get worse – although see the discussion below for what is probably some well-deserved good news.

Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse (click for a larger version)

Plenty of bad news to go around: Chile is still Looney Tunes increasing, Brazil is back up after what looked briefly like a plateau, and the U.S. is definitely on its way up. But for good news, look at Sweden. There was clearly a high peak in early June – higher than the previous peak of mid-April – but numbers are falling back down to April levels. If case numbers in Sweden are even lower tomorrow, I will gleefully move them into the “headed in the right direction” category.

A closer look at the United States

I’ve spent lots of time the last few weeks looking at various data sources to get a more detailed look at cases and deaths by U.S. state and county. Today I’ll show the state data; in the near future I’ll show the county data as well. I’m plotting data from the Corona Data Scraper website. State and county data are one day behind the national-level data.

For today, we’ll look at today’s data on a map of the U.S. Tomorrow, I’ll show a preliminary version of the kinds of graphs I’ve been making for countries, but for U.S. states. Which states have COVID-19 under control for now, and which do not? Find out tomorrow!

Maps

I’m quite proud of these maps. In addition to the work I’ve done the last couple weeks to show the data, I’ve quietly done a lot of work on mapping techniques (shapefiles and projections). Just figuring out how to properly show Hawaii took me nearly a week. I’m pretty happy with the results you see below.

Cases by state

As always, I like to start by plotting the thing that was actually measured, before doing any adjustments to provide additional insights. In the end it will be most useful to plot cases per million people (which will allow us to directly compare states to other countries), but first here is a map of total cases in each of the 50 states:

Total reported cases of COVID-19 by state (click for a larger version)

Remember that for each state, this map shows total cases reported since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes people who have since recovered, people who have died of COVID-19, and people who are still sick. Each of the people represented in this graph counts toward the 8,926,399 cases reported worldwide.

Cases per million people by state

Dividing the numbers in the above map by the population of each state, and multiplying by one million, gives a better measure of how tragically COVID-19 has affected each state. Doing that and putting the numbers on the same U.S. map:

Reported cases of COVID-19 per million people by state (click for a larger version)

Because closer interactions between people lead to more opportunities for viruses to spread, it might make even more sense to adjust by population density as well. I’ll play with that in future maps.

Deaths by state

The previous two maps were both of reported cases. As mentioned above, that includes people who have since recovered. But nobody recovers from death, so a map of the total number of people dead from COVID-19 makes for the most useful comparison. Here is that map:

Total reported deaths from COVID-19 by state (click for a larger version)

Note that no one has yet died of COVID-19 in Hawaii. I’m a bit surprised by that given how much international travel there is into Hawaii, and it’s always possible that I did something wrong in my analysis. If you know differently, leave a comment.

Deaths per million people by state

Just as I did with cases, I divided the total deaths in each state by that state’s population, multiplied by one million, and plotted the results on the same kind of map:

Reported cases of COVID-19 per million people by state (click for a larger version)

Whew, that was a lot of work and a lot of fun. Tomorrow, I’ll start showing time-based graphs for states like I do for countries. That means we can compare states to one another and to various countries. New York has almost the same population as Chile (about 19 million each), and Massachusetts has almost hte same population as Serbia (about 7 million each). How to the graphs compare?

Fun with data

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You can get the U.S. state data from the Corona Data Scraper site; choose today’s data as CSV.

If it would help you to start from my Excel templates, please use them! The county data and analysis is in my national-level data template (now version 4.2). Data and analysis for U.S. states is in my new state-level template (version 1.0).

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end. And an additional post coming Wednesday, about something other than COVID-19.

Daily COVID-19 data update XCVI: Looney Tunes

Graphs day 96, pandemic day 103, day 173 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 8,795,672

Total deaths: 466,189

Worldwide cases by day, shown as actual cases in blue and smoothed cases in red, showing the overall trend:

Cases of COVID-19 reported each day worldwide. The blue line is the actual reported number of cases; the red line is the smoothed number of cases (10-day moving average smoothing), showing the overall trend. Click for a larger version.

Notice that worldwide cases are clearly trending up again. It seems that every time we think the case rate has plateaued, it starts to increase again. Daily cases now stand at 19.3 per million people worldwide, even though the world’s two largest countries (China and India) are doing pretty well.

As usual, let’s look first at the case history of countries where the daily rates are at least headed in the right direction:

Countries where newly-reported cases per million people are steady or decreasing (click for a larger version)

A friend described the curve for Qatar as a “Looney Tunes graph,” which I think is a wonderfully appropriate name. Eventually Qatar will Looney Tune its way back down onto the main graph. The good news is that the curves for all countries on the graph are definitely on their way down, even Russia.

Next graph, countries where epidemics continue to get worse:

Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse (click for a larger version)

Chile has also Looney Tuned its way off this graph, with no sign of when they will return to the main graph. Sweden looks like it might finally be on its way down; if cases continue to decrease over the next few days, I’ll move Sweden onto the “headed in the right direction” graph.

Coming tomorrow: a closer look at cases and deaths in the United States.

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.

Daily COVID-19 data update XCV: Off the chart, maybe back on soon

Graphs day 95, pandemic day 102, day 172 since the first cases were diagnosed.

I’m looking in more detail at cases and deaths in the United States, and I’m working on a more detailed post with state-by-state data. That’s coming possibly tonight, probably Monday.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 8,633,778

Total deaths: 462,676

Worldwide cases by day, shown as actual cases in blue and smoothed cases in red, showing the overall trend:

Cases of COVID-19 reported each day worldwide. The blue line is the actual reported number of cases; the red line is the smoothed number of cases (10-day moving average smoothing), showing the overall trend. Click for a larger version.

COVID-19 is still under control in the countries where it was under control two days ago, so we don’t need to look at those today. Instead let’s look at the case history of countries where the daily rates are at least headed in the right direction:

Countries where newly-reported cases per million people are steady or decreasing (click for a larger version)

One new feature of today’s graph is that I have added Qatar to the the main graph as well. You can see that on April 22, cases in Qatar went literally off the chart by passing 200 cases per million people per day. If cases in Qatar continue to decrease, then at some point they will fall below 200 per million per day again, and the red curve for Qatar will once again appear on the main graph. I look forward to that day, and so does everyone in Qatar.

Next, countries where epidemics continue to get worse, sadly still including the U.S.:

Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse (click for a larger version)

Chile has the same deal as Qatar – cases went off the main chart starting on May 24th. Someday cases will drop back down below 200 per million per day again – although as you can see from the inset graph, there’s no telling when that might be.

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.