Finally some good news for Sweden (Daily COVID-19 data update CXIV)

Graphs day 114, pandemic day 121, day 191 since the first cases were diagnosed. Happy Independence Day to Argentina and South Sudan, I’ll include you in today’s global update.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide (another sad milestone): 12,041,480

Total deaths: 549,468

Cases by country

It’s been a long time since I’ve shown a map of the COVID-19 death toll, so I’ll show that at the end of today’s post. But first, our usual categories.

As always, the graphs show dates on the horizontal axis, cases per million people on the vertical axis. The lines show new cases reported *on that day*. Each line is color-coded and labeled with the name of the country it represents; labels also include that country’s deaths per million people (dpm). Line thicknesses and label sizes represent the case fatality rate in that country (deaths divided by total cases).

Countries where COVID-19 was quickly contained

Countries that quickly contained their COVID-19 epidemics (click for a larger version)

South Sudan (pink) is one of the world’s poorest countries, but they have managed to keep COVID-19 cases fairly low, primarily due to the lack of mobility of the population and lack of international travel to and from South Sudan. Meanwhile, cases continue to increase in Australia: yesterday 170 new cases were reported, for a smoothed per million people rate of 6.5 cases per million Australians. I said that if the case rate exceeds 6.8 per million, I’ll move Australia into the “getting worse” category. That could happen tomorrow, we’ll see.

Countries where COVID-19 is now under control

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

No major changes to the “under control” category this week.

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

I knew I said I’d wait another day before moving Sweden into the “countries headed in the right direction” category, but the level of cases reported is back down to the level of late May.

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

There’s no way to know whether Sweden will stay on its current course, or whether another wave will begin and send cases higher than ever before. But for now at least, Sweden looks pretty good.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

It’s Nueve de Julio in Argentina, so we’ll check in with them on today’s graph (ilght blue.

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

Unlike in their neighbors to the west, Chile, the epidemic in Argentina continues to get worse. Case growth has slowed down in Serbia and Brazil, but continues with distressing speed in the U.S. and South Africa.

Deaths per million people by country

And because I like to check back in every once in a while with things we’ve seen before, here is a map of deaths per million people in countries around the world. These are total deaths since the beginning of the epidemic, because the dead stay dead.

Deaths due to COVID-19 per million people, colored according to the color scale at the bottom. Click for a larger version.

and a close-up of Europe and the Americas:

Deaths due to COVID-19 per million people, close-up of Europe and the Americas, with countries and death rates labeled.

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.

July Madness (imaginary sports imaginary update plus brief COVID-19 update CXIII)

The first casualty of COVID-19 in the American sports world was the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. “March Madness” is one of the joys of the American sports calendar, and this year, it was gone.

Five Duke basketball players take the court
Aw crap, not these guys again (the 2020 Duke men’s basketball team)

I decided to take up the challenge and simulated the entire 2020 tournament – from announcing the teams to playing the final. Sadly, Duke won. And then I had an even better idea.

The NCAA Cup is the college basketball tournament for everyone, designed after European soccer tournaments like England’s FA Cup. Every team qualifies. At the beginning of each round, all matchups for that round are selected randomly.

I simulate each game on the whatifsports.com college basketball simulator, and announce the results in real time on Twitter at @fixthemadness.

Winners advance to the next round, and the process repeats until one team wins it all. The NCAA Cup has been going on since early April. I’ve given an update once before, but now it’s time for a more thorough update.

Rounds 1 and 2 are in the books, and round 3 has just started. I won’t cover everything here, but you can see the full and complete results on my NCAA Cup page.

Round 1

A Naval Academy basketball player attempts a shot
This is probably what it looked like when Navy won the play-in game

Round 1 began with the play-in game on April 7th, the day after Duke won the imaginary 2020 NCAA tournament. Because there were an odd number of teams (351), two teams were randomly selected for a play-in game Navy upset Virginia Commonwealth to advance to the first round proper, along with every other team.

Each of the 350 remaining teams was randomly paired one against another, and the home team for each was selected randomly too. That made 175 games, which were played between April 9th and May 31st.

The games in round 1 proper went mostly as expected, with a few minor upsets. Nebraska beat Oklahoma in Norman, LSU won at highly-ranked Penn State, Missouri beat Texas in Austin. No great surprises – until there was.

On May 9th in Las Vegas, UNLV shocked overall number one seed Gonzaga 82-71, behind 27 points by sophomore guard Bryce Hamilton. The Runnin Rebels’ tight defense held Gonzaga’s star power forward Filip Petrusev to just 15 points. Gonzaga, which had come into the Cup as the favorite to win it all, was knocked out at the first stage. It was an upset on par with UMBC’s win over Virginia in 2018.

I wish I had video of the UNLV’s win over Gonzaga, but it was imaginary. It probably looked like this, though.

The last first round game was held on May 31st at 10 PM ET, when Lamar beat Washington State 90-81.

Some facts about the first round:

The 175 first round winners advanced to the second round.

Round 2

Once again there were an odd number of teams (175), so a play-in game was required. In the play-in game, Radford beat Toledo. Radford, along with the rest of the round 1 winners, advanced to the second round. Once again, all the matchups and home teams were chosen randomly.

A tall white guy in a number 55 Iowa Hawkeyes basketball uniform
This is probably what it Luka Garza looked like after his team lost to Central Arkansas

The second round proper began with another titanic upset. Iowa, ranked #34 in the NET rankings and led by All-American center Luka Garza, lost the first game to #315 Central Arkansas in overtime. Rylan Bergersen had 21 points for the Bears, and Hayden Koval had 16 points and 15 rebounds.

The next day, in a matchup of top 10 teams, Louisville beat Florida State 72-68. The rest of the second round went mostly as expected, until…

Remember UNLV? In the first round, they pulled off a stunning upset, knocking off top seed Gonzaga. In the second round, the same thing happened to them, as the Runnin’ Rebels lost on the road to the #302 team in the NET rankings, the Longwood Lancers. Jaylon Wilson scored 16 points for the Lancers, who won 65-55.

Some facts about the second round:

The 87 second round winners advanced to the third round.

Round 3

There were 87 winners of round 2 – one again an odd number, so once again a play-in game. East Tennessee state beat Oakland in the play-in game to advance to round 3 proper.

And that’s where we are now! One great game has been played already: #8 Louisville followed up its second round win over Florida State with a third round upset of #2 Kansas.

For the full list of round 3 matchups, see the NCAA Cup page. I won’t list them all here, but here are some of the most interesting games coming up:

Date and TimeMatchup
Saturday July 11th at 8 PM (#302) Longwood at (#44) Virginia
Friday July 17 at 8 PM(#22) Texas Tech at (#7) Michigan State
Saturday July 18th at 8 PM(#49) Saint Louis at (#36) East Tennessee State
Sunday July 19th at 8 PM(#16) Ohio State at (#4) San Diego State
Tuesday July 21st at 8 PM(#39) Illinois at (#52) Notre Dame
Thursday July 23rd at 8 PM(#295) McNeese State at (#6) Duke
Schedule of some of the most anticipated games of round 3

Who will win it all? The championship game is on Saturday, August 29th. Join us every step of the way at @fixthemadness!

Quick COVID-19 update

Lastly, a quick update on COVID-19 cases around the world and in New York State.

Graphs day 113, pandemic day 120, day 190 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 11,829,602

Total deaths: 544,163

Here is the graph of countries where the epidemic is getting worse:

Countries where the COVID-19 epidemic is getting worse: number of cases reported per day vs. time. Labels show deaths per million people.

Things do seem to be getting better is Sweden. But they’ve fooled me before; let’s hope it’s for real this time? If the downward trend continues for another two days, I’ll move Sweden to the “headed in the right direction” category.

You know who’s not getting better? The United States and South Africa.

Lastly, I discovered I made a mistake in yesterday’s graph of cases in different parts of New York – my case fatality rates were wrong. The corrected graph, including data for today, is shown here. I’ll update yesterday’s post with the correct graph as well.

Cases per million people per day in three regions of New York state: New York City, Westchester County, and the rest of the state

NCAA Cup updates throughout the third round and beyond. COVID-19 updates until the end of the pandemic or until I lose my mind.

Counting the counties (COVID-19 daily data update CXII)

Graphs day 112, pandemic day 119, day 189 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 11,620,096

Total deaths: 538,058

Today is independence day in the Solomon Islands, but there are NO CASES of COVID-19 in the Solomon Islands – one of the few places in the world to remain completely free of this new disease. Sounds like a good opportunity to take a closer look at cases in the United States.

Cases in the U.S. overall

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in the United States: 2,936,077

Total deaths: 130,285

Here is how the number of cases reported per day has changed in the U.S. over the course of the epidemic:

Cases reported per day in the U.S. The light blue line shows actual cases; the brown line shows the overall trend (10-day moving average smoothing)

We had this pandemic under control. Cases were steadily decreasing from early April through mid-June. And now the U.S. COVID-19 epidemic is worse than it has ever been.

Cases by state

Here’s the map of the total number of cases reported from the beginning of the epidemic in the 50 U.S. states (excluding territories, which is why the total number looks a bit different).

Total cases by state (click for a larger version)

The total amounts shown on the map above show the total impact of the epidemic in the U.S. from the beginning. Another way to look at the cases reported yesterday, giving us an idea of the state of the epidemic right now. Notice which states are experiencing the most cases right now. How is this map different from the map of total cases above?

Cases reported yesterday (July 6, 2020) by state. Click for a larger version.

Yet another way to look at the progress of the epidemic is to look at how the rate of cases has changed since the pandemic reached the U.S. in early March. Plotting all fifty states on a single graph would look like a plate of spaghetti, so how can we create a clean graph that displays as much useful information as possible?

After doing a lot of data exploring, I found a few different patterns that states have followed over the course of the epidemic. I chose one representative from each pattern and displayed them on one graph. The result is a graph of cases in seven key states around the country: Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, and Ohio.

Here is the graph, with all our usual formatting and labeling (“dpm” means “deaths per million people”):

Cases in each state over time. Click for a larger version.

The pandemic seems to be well-controlled in New York and Maryland. Cases are increasing in Ohio and California, but they remain at a fairly low level for now. Meanwhile, cases in Arizona, Florida, and Louisiana continue to increase quickly.

Cases by county: one example

I’ll close today’s update with a first look at something a new dataset will bring us a lot of exciting insights as we go: cases by county. We can take a much closer look what’s going on from place to place.

As a teaser for what the new county data will allow us to do, consider a question: what does “cases in New York” mean? New York State is a big and diverse place, including everything from Manhattan to small north country towns like Watertown. Looking as “cases in New York,” like we did above, compresses all those diverse places into one graph.

But now:

Cases per million people per day in three regions of New York state: New York City, Westchester County, and the rest of the state

Using the county data, I divided cases in New York State into three regions. The graph is plotted on “Qatar scale” (zero to 700 cases per million people), BUT Westchester County goes off that scale. The inset map goes up to 1,000 cases per million people.

There are so many other exciting things we can do with the county-level data. What would you like to see?

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 in GitHub.

You are welcome and encouraged to use my Excel templates. They’re now at version 5.1, and 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.

Update from the tree lobster (Daily COVID-19 data update CXI)

Graphs day 111, pandemic day 118, day 188 since the first cases were diagnosed. If you haven’t seen my other post today, learn the fascinating and beautiful story of the tree lobster.

Very quick update today, just with total case numbers and one updated graph.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 11,449,707

Total deaths: 534,267

Today is independence day in the southern African nations of Comoros and Malawi. Fortunately, there are not many cases of COVID-19 in either country.

Usual graph style: each country is color-coded and labeled, labels include total deaths per million people from the beginning, label sizes and line thicknesses represent the case fatality rate.

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

Tomorrow is independence day in the Solomon Islands, so I’ll definitely report on cases there, but I might do graphs of U.S. states instead. What’s your preference: states or countries?

And meanwhile, I’m starting to look at cases by U.S. county, which will let us ask questions like “how bad is the epidemic in Upstate New York compared to New York City?,” and “what is the correlation between medium-scale population density and number of cases?” That’s going to be fun, updates soon.

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 or scientists find me hiding under a tea tree bush on Ball’s Pyramid.

Except they weren’t: The Tree Lobster

An 8-inch-long red creature that looks like a huge cockroach combined with a small lobter
A specimen tree lobster (Dryococelus australis) from the Melbourne Museum. Click for a larger version.
Credit: Peter Halasz (Wikipedia user Pengo)

The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) was one of the strangest animals ever to walk the earth.

It lived only on Lord Howe Island, a tiny island of 300 people about halfway between Australia and New Zealand. It was eight inches (20 cm) long. It looked like a weird cross between a cockroach and a lobster, and so it was nicknamed the Tree Lobster. It had no natural predators. It was completely harmless, living in and munching on trees.

In 1918, the SS Makambo ran aground on Lord Howe Island, and thousands of rats escaped like, uh, rats from a sinking ship. The rats ate and bred, and the tree lobster never stood a chance. Within two years, the Lord Howe Island stick insect was extinct.

Except it wasn’t.

The Discovery

Thirteen miles (20 km) southwest of Lord Howe Island is Ball’s Pyramid, an extinct volcano that juts 1,800 feet (560 meters) up from the remote Pacific Ocean. It’s one of the world’s truly beautiful places, and one that very few people ever get to see. But you can see it in this photo:

Panorama of Ball’s Pyramid
Image Credit: Jon Clark (CC BY 2.0 license)

…and you can go there yourself with on Google Earth, embedded below. Be sure to zoom out until you can see Lord Howe Island, and then a looooooooong way farther until you can see the coast of Australia.

Scientists guessed – hoped, really – that some tree lobsters might have floated the 13 miles from Lord Howe Island to Ball’s Pyramid and established a sustainable population there. There are no trees on Ball’s Pyramid, but there are enough small bushes to provide a food and shelter for some stick insects. And so, two of them (scientists, not stick insects) decided to have a look for themselves.

In February 2001, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile traveled to Ball’s Pyramid to search. They climbed the rock, hundreds of feet above shark-infested waters, to search. And after a few searches, they found some sign of tree lobsters. And by “sign,” I mean “poop.”

But of course a few piles of poop isn’t enough evidence to conclude that a species has apparently risen from the dead. And the stick insect is nocturnal, so to find live animals, they knew they had to go back at night.

And so on the night of February 26, 2001, Priddel and Carlile went back to look again. “Went back” meaning “climbed up a sheer rock face above shark-infested waters in complete darkness.” Yes, they had safety equipment, but it must have still been terrifying.

And they found it: under a single tea tree plant (Melaleuca howeana) was the world’s entire population of Lord Howe Island Stick Insects. Twenty-four of them. The scientific paper Priddel and Carlile wrote uses detached academic prose, which completely fails to hide their excitement:

Two members of the survey team (N.C. and D.H.) ascended the Pyramid at night to conduct a nocturnal search of the area surrounding the shrub… Reaching this site at approximately [10 PM], they found, observed and photographed two adult female D. australis on the outer edges of the shrub (Figure 2).

These specimens, the first to be seen alive in more than 70 years, were highly conspicuous, their glossy bodies strongly reflecting the [flashlight]…

(Priddle, Carlile, Humphrey, Fellenberg, & Hiscox, 2003)

The Current Situation

A black-and-white photo of a stick insect seen in 2001. It looks like a giant cockroach crossed with a small lobster. It's sitting on some tea tree leaves.
This is it: the discovery photo of the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Priddle, Carlile, Humphrey, Fellenberg, & Hiscox, 2003, Figure 2, page 1395)

Two years later in 2003, scientists returned to Ball’s Pyramid to collect specimens. They returned with two males and two females, which they sent to the Melbourne Zoo to start a captive breeding program.

Seventeen years and fifteen tree lobster generations later, a healthy population of 14,000 tree lobsters lives in captivity – mostly in Melbourne, with some pairs in zoos all over the world. Once rats are eliminated from Lord Howe Island (which they’re also working on), the plan is to reintroduce the tree lobster to its original habitat.

It’s a rare success story in a world full of creatures we are driving to extinction. But let’s take our success stories when we can. There’s hope.

More information

If you’d like to learn more about this fascinating story, check out these resources:

How you can help

The captive breeding program is expensive, so if this story is calling to you through a world full of need, the Melbourne Zoo is accepting donations to continue their work. Here is a two-page fundraising brochure explaining the program. If you feel called to donate to conservation biology more generally, a good place to start is the World Wildlife Fund. Obviously no pressure to donate during these trying times. I have no affiliation with either entity, so no conflict of interest.

Postscript

This has been super-fun, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Here’s that animated film, embedded via Vimeo.

Sticky from jilli rose on Vimeo
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Be sure to check out the rest of my series on Things That Are Not What They Seem, Except They Weren’t.

Part 1: Joe Magarac
Part 2: Iron Eyes Cody
Part 3: Malba Tahan (with BONUS MATH!)
Part 4: Major William Martin
Part 5: Count Victor Lustig
Part 6: The Grass Mud Horse
Part 7: The Tree Lobster