Author: Jordan Raddick

Graphs day 55, pandemic day 61, day 132 since the first cases were diagnosed. The total number of cases worldwide has passed four million, meaning it’s time for a new scale on the graph.

Current worldwide deaths: 282,244

It turns out the highest case rate in the world (excluding micro-countries like San Marino) is Qatar. So I expanded the Europe map to include Qatar:

The fascinating thing is that, while Qatar has a very high case rate, they have a very low death rate. Here’s the same map but for death rate:

The case fatality rate in Qatar is only 0.1 percent. I suspect the reason for this is that Qatar is testing the everloving flip out of the entire country, so they are catching more mild cases than other countries are. Deeper in the data I have measures of testing by country, so we can test this hypothesis.

I have also added Qatar to the tracking of cases and deaths by day. Qatar is purple in these graphs. Comparing the graph of cases and deaths makes the situation in Qatar particularly striking.

Cases per million people since mid-February:

and deaths per million people, same scale and colors:

As always, you can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (now at version 3.1); I’d love to see what you can build with it!

Update tomorrow-ish, and every day-ish after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 54, pandemic day 60, day 131 since the first cases were diagnosed. As of this morning’s data release, we haven’t quite hit four million diagnosed cases worldwide – but it’s the evening so we almost certainly have by now. That will require another graph rescaling, to be shown in tomorrow’s total worldwide cases graph.

More than 275,000 people have died of COVID-19. Numbers are hard to come by, but this appears that more people have been killed by COVID-19 than by Mexican drug cartels. Ever. Twice as many. (Source: Wikipedia, who got their numbers at least in part from this Washington Post article).

Skipping the maps for today and going straight to the graphs – it’s an even-numbered day, so here is the comparison of countries starting at equivalent points in their local epidemics.

Cases per million people:

It’s even more clear than yesterday the difference between countries where the rate of new cases has fallen to close to zero (e.g. Italy), countries where the number of cases continues at a steady rate (e.g. the United States), and countries where the rate of new cases continues to increase (e.g. Russia).

And deaths per million shows approximately the same trend:

As always, you can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (now at version 3.1); I’d love to see what you can build with it!

Update tomorrow-ish, and every day-ish after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 53, pandemic day 59, day 130 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Cases diagnosed worldwide: 3,898,658

Deaths worldwide: 274,290

It looks like it’ll be Monday, or maybe even Tuesday, when we hit four million cases worldwide. Hooray? The next sad milestone will be 300,000 deaths, which we will inevitably hit by the end of this month. But someday, the disease will burn itself out and this will end. How soon that happens is up to us.

Today’s map of case rates by country in Europe and South America (cases per million people):

and deaths per million people in the same countries:

Day 53 is an odd number, so here is the still-developing history of case rates of COVID-19 in nine different countries since mid-February:

and the same for deaths per million people:

As always, you can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (now at version 3.1); I’d love to see what you can build with it!

Update tomorrow-ish, and every day-ish after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 52, pandemic day 58, day 129 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Cases diagnosed worldwide: 3,807,852

Deaths worldwide: 269,068

The graph below shows that the number of new cases has held steady at about 80,000 per day for more than a month. That means that the global total will probably reach four million on Sunday or Monday.

Today’s map of case rates by country in Europe and South America (cases per million people):

and deaths per million people in the same countries:

Day 52 is an even number, so today we look again at national data in a relative sense – day zero is the start of the epidemic in each country, defined as the day at which the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000. Each line is labeled with the name of the country and the current case fatality rate, ranging from 1 percent in Russia (although it will certainly increase as the disease spreads) to 16 percent in Belgium.

The graph shows that countries fall into three groups: countries where the growth rate has slowed down (Spain, Belgium, Italy) and the infection has begun to pass; countries where growth is steady (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden); an countries in the early stages where growth is still speeding up (Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil).

The graph of deaths by country shows some of the same trends, modified by a time delay and the varying death rates:

As always, you can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (now at version 3.1); I’d love to see what you can build with it!

Update tomorrow-ish, and every day-ish after that until this pandemic is over.

Graphs day 51, pandemic day 57, day 128 since the first cases were diagnosed. We are rapidly approaching four million diagnosed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. Remember that this number includes people who have recovered. Remember also that we do not yet know whether having recovered from COVID-19 confers immunity against future infection.

More than 260,000 people have died, and there ain’t no recovering from death.

I mentioned yesterday that South America would also make for an interesting map of cases and deaths per million people. Look, it’s South America! I’m displaying it side-by-side with Europe, using the same color scale. Cases per million people:

and deaths per million people:

Countries that I realize are worth tracking, which I wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t made these maps: Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama. But for now, I’ll stick with the same countries as yesterday.

Here is a graph showing how the number of cases per million people have changed since mid-February. It’s an odd-numbered day, so we’re looking at the case rate in real calendar days as COVID-19 has spread around the world. The countries we’re following are Spain, Belgium, the United States, Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil:

We’ve been saying for weeks that the case rate in the U.S. is ahead of where Italy was at the equivalent point in the epidemic – and now, the U.S. has moved ahead of Italy in real case rate as well. The case rate appears to still be growing linearly in the U.S. and U.K. – and is speeding up in Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Deaths always lag behind diagnosed cases because it takes time for the disease to take lives. Here is the progression of death rates per capita in the same countries:

The spike in cases today in Belgium is likely due to catching up in reporting, while today’s flat curve in Spain comes from the continuing the grand Spanish tradition of reporting mañana. Note that we are beginning to see an uptick in deaths in Russia; that unfortunate trend is likely to continue over the coming weeks.

As always, you can get the data yourself from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (now at version 3.1); I’d love to see what you can build with it!

Update tomorrow-ish, and every day-ish after that until this pandemic is over.