Month: July 2020

Graphs day 123, pandemic day 130, day 199 since the first cases were diagnosed. I just got back from a lovely five days of socially distanced camping in Shenandoah National Park. As much as I’ve enjoyed making these graphs for you most of the last 123 days, it was really nice to go five full days without graphs. But it’s nice to be back, and I’m energized and ready to go.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 14,055,299

Total deaths: 596,518

We’ll almost certainly reach six hundred thousand deaths tomorrow, fully four days before my previous prediction.

Cases by country

Quick global update today, with our usual graph style and usual four categories. Not much time for detailed analysis today, but I’ll have a more detailed post on Monday.

Countries where COVID-19 was quickly contained

Maybe a slight increase in Japan, I’ll keep a close eye on how things evolve there.

Countries where COVID-19 is now under control

I’m afraid that there has been an increase in cases in many of these countries, particularly Spain. This could indicate that a second wave is coming. But fortunately, the case rates are nowhere near what they were at the peaks.

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

Qatar and Chile are back on the main graph again, and it looks like the decrease in Sweden is a real decrease. The case rate in Belarus is currently 17.9 per million. If it drops below 10 per million, I will gleefully move it to the “COVID-19 is under control for now” category.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

The case rate in the U.S. and South Africa has exceeded 200 cases per million, at 202 and 206 respectively. Tomorrow I will reluctantly add a “Qatar scale” to this graph so we can see the full range of case rates.

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) COVID-19 data site. Click on csse_covid_19_data, then on csse_covid_19_time_series, then download all the CSV files. Or clone the whole repository from GitHub.

You are welcome and encouraged to use my Excel templates. I’ve tinkered enough that I’m plus-plusing the version to 5.1. I have two separate templates: a global data template and a U.S. state data template.

Update tomorrow, and approximately every day until the pandemic ends.

A special message today from the Grass Mud Horse:

Greetings, comrades! I hope you are having a productive and obedient year. This year has certainly been eventful. Except in Hong Kong, where nothing has happened.

But I write to you today not about our peaceful and prosperous nation, but about your United States of America. Specifically, your upcoming election between your own Dear Leader 川普 and Creepy Uncle Joe Biden.

You’ve probably seen some memes about how creepy Joe Biden is.

The Chinese Communist Party is not spreading those memes. Our glorious Dear Leader would never permit our glorious Internet Censors (which don’t exist, by the way) to interfere in a foreign election to promote our national interest.

But you should still spread them as widely as possible. As the kids today say: these hip maymays are 2 dank 2 yeet! YOLO BRO!

But you’ll certainly agree that Joe Biden is creepy, yes? After all, at least 28 separate women have accused him of sexual assault or harassment.

No, wait, that was Trump.

There is no evidence that Biden has ever even met the late Jeffrey Epstein, but in 2002 he had this to say about the convicted rapist and sex trafficker:

I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.

No, wait, that was Trump, in an interview with New York magazine

Biden is so creepy that he has been photographed sitting on a pornographic statue with his hand around a fifteen-year-old girl’s hip – she’s wearing a short skirt, a butterfly halter top, and no bra – while she strokes his face lovingly, and oh, the girl in question is HIS OWN DAUGHTER:

lol no wait that was Trump

So I guess all that evidence of Biden being creepy is actually evidence of Trump being creepy, but none of that matters because Joe Biden is creepy. Because the glorious Chinese Communist Party says so.

It’s very important that you listen to your Chinese Communist Party leaders.

Because if Biden is elected, he might actually reduce your national debt, which would reduce your reliance on our generous loans gifts which I’m sure we will never ask you to pay back because that would ruin your economy and leave us as the world’s only remaining superpower. Or he might cause your country to once again be respected around the world, so that other nations turn to you instead of us.

Whoops, I said the quiet part out loud again. I hate it when I do that.

But here’s the important takeaway:

The Chinese Communist Party wants you to think Joe Biden is creepy.

The Chinese Communist Party wants you to think Joe Biden is creepy.

The Chinese Communist Party wants you to think Joe Biden is creepy.

(I feel like there’s some sort of message to this post, but I can’t quite put my hoof on it.)

You’ll be seeing a lot of “Joe Biden is creepy” memes over the next few months.

Every time you see one, don’t forget to think of your benevolent silent overlords in the Chinese Communist Party!

Graphs day 118, pandemic day 125, day 195 since the first cases were diagnosed. Today Florida is in the spotlight!

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 12,910,357

Total deaths: 569,128

Yesterday I asked a simple question: if Florida were a country, how screwed would it be? Or: how do cases in Florida – just Florida, separate from the rest of the U.S. – compare to cases in the countries we’ve been following?

This has been an adventure, I basically had to start over with my spreadsheet to make this work. Fortunately, I am very very stubborn.

Usual graph style, Florida is in green. Blue is no longer the entire U.S., it’s now the U.S. minus Florida. (I should really make a page that explains the graphs for people starting the blog from this post.)

Countries where COVID-19 was quickly contained

To answer the question raised above: quite screwed. Look how fast the pandemic in Florida Looney Tuned off the main scale onto the Qatar graph. Florida is now leading all the countries on this graph in terms of cases per million people.

The good news is that the case fatality rate in Florida is lower, at just 1.6 percent. But that’s mostly illusory good news – so many new cases have been transmitted in the past two weeks that many people who will die haven’t reached the point of dying yet. Expect the CFR to climb to close to its value in the rest of the US.

Reminder: I’ll be camping in Shenandoah National Park the rest of this week, so no more COVID-19 updates until Saturday. But you’ll still see non-COVID posts on Wednesday and Friday this week.

Also, the Wang Mansion is still for sale!

Graphs day 117, pandemic day 124, day 194 since the first cases were diagnosed. I haven’t forgotten about “what if Florida were a country?,” it’s just proven more difficult than it first appeared. But I think I got it now, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 12,717,921

Total deaths: 565,139

Cases by country

Today is Independence Day in the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe. Conversely, Mongolia has no Independence Day – they’re the country that you celebrate your independence from – but this week is Naadam, the biggest holiday in the country.

So today we’ll include both those countries in the graphs. They have just 727 and 230 cases respectively. It’s good to be an island nation, and it’s good to have the lowest population density in the world.

Usual graph style, usual four categories of countries. (I should really make a page that explains the graphs for people starting the blog from this post.)

Countries where COVID-19 was quickly contained

You read that right, there have been zero deaths from COVID-19 in Mongolia (gold line). Happy Naadam!

Countries where COVID-19 is now under control

Sao Tome and Principe (pink) looks worse than it is because there are only 200,000 people in the entire country, about the size of Tallahassee, Florida or Arlington, Virginia. But after a few spikes, COVID-19 appears to be fully under control for now, just as it is in the European countries shown on the same graph.

Usual caveat: under control, for now. Let’s hope it stays that way.

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

Great news – welcome back to the main graph, Qatar!

There was an uptick of cases in Sweden yesterday. Are they going to fool me again? It’s only been two days of increase (from 43 cases per million people on Thursday to 57 cases per million people yesterday), so I’m still hopeful that cases there will start decreasing again soon.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

The good news is that cases in Serbia, India, and Australia seem to have stabilized for the moment – still new cases being diagnosed each day, but at a steady rate. The bad news is that South Africa has now taken over top spot on the chart, and they did it far more swiftly than previous leaders USA and Brazil.

This week in this blog

Heads up, I’m going camping from Tuesday to Friday, so tomorrow will be the last regular COVID-19 update until Saturday. But I’ll still have regular posts for you on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Tomorrow: what if Florida were a country? How f*cked would that country be?

Coming up later this week: a special guest post from everyone’s favorite special guest blogger, the Grass Mud Horse!

How to do it yourself

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) COVID-19 data site. Click on csse_covid_19_data, then on csse_covid_19_time_series, then download all the CSV files. Or clone the whole repository from GitHub.

You are welcome and encouraged to use my Excel templates. I’ve tinkered enough that I’m plus-plusing the version to 5.1. I have two separate templates: a global data template and a U.S. state data template.

Update tomorrow, then not again until Saturday, then again every damn day until this damn pandemic ends. Sigh.

Graphs day 115, pandemic day 122, day 192 since the first cases were diagnosed. Happy Independence Day to the Bahamas, but there are very few cases in the Bahamas.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide (another sad milestone): 12,268,518

Total deaths: 554,924

Quick global update to tell you that, sadly, the case rate in Australia has reached half of its former peak value, so I’m moving Australia into the getting worse category. They are the grey line below.

Coming up tomorrow: what if Florida were a country?

Want to try out some of these graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make the country graphs from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) COVID-19 data site. Click on csse_covid_19_data, then on csse_covid_19_time_series, then download all the CSV files. Or clone the whole repository from GitHub.

You are welcome and encouraged to use my Excel templates. I’ve tinkered enough that I’m plus-plusing the version to 5.1. I have two separate templates: a global data template and a U.S. state data template.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end or I lose my mind.