Graphs day 140, pandemic day 147, day 217 since the first cases were diagnosed. I had to look up how to write 140 in Roman numerals. Worst franchise ever.
Just a quick update of some national- and state-level data while I work on SOMETHING REALLY EXCITING!
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 18,282,208
Total deaths: 693,694
Earth is quickly headed for the new milestone of 700,000 deaths, probably later this week.
Today’s update is for some of the countries and states we have been following where cases continue at high rates. The main graph is on a slightly modified regular scale, running from zero to 250 cases per million people per day. The inset is on the infamous Qatar scale (0-700 cases per million people per day). Each region gets a unique color and is labeled close to the line with the same color. The label also gives the mortality rate (cumulative deaths per million people) in the region – cumulative because the dead stay dead. The thickness of the lines and the size of the labels depend on the cumulative case fatality rate – the number of people who died divided by the number diagnosed.
New cases diagnosed per day per million people in hot zones around the world
Florida is definitely doing better. California and Texas are a bit less clear, but hopefully they are moving in the right direction.
Stay tuned for SOMETHING REALLY EXCITING! Probably not tomorrow, but soon.
Want to try these graphs yourself? Go for it!!! I’ve updated my spreadsheet (still version 7) to restore the formulas. The upside is that you can now more easily make changes to make the graphs your own; the downside is that unless you are on a high-end computer, the calculations will be slooooooooooooooooow. To speed up calculations, replace formulas with values once you decide you have the right formulas. If you’re not sure how to do that, just ask – leave a comment, messenge me on social media, or send me an email at jordan.raddick@gmail.com.
Graphs day 139, pandemic day 146, day 216 since the first cases were diagnosed.
Not just an incremental update today, I’ve got a whole new way of looking at the data.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 18,079,126
Total deaths: 689,347
Everything we have seen so far has been at the level of entire countries or entire states (or in one case, the province of Hubei in China). But I also have county-level data for the United States, so we can look in grater detail at areas smaller than state or country. In particular, we can look at some places that have been identified as “hot zones” – areas with particularly high case rates. The regions we’ll look at today are:
New York City, Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Orlando, Hubei, Italy, Brazil
So how does the pattern of cases look in each of these “hot zone” areas?
The graph is below. The graph is on the “Qatar scale,” which runs from zero to 700 cases per million people. Each region gets a unique color and is labeled close to the line with the same color. The label also gives the mortality rate (cumulative deaths per million people) in the region – cumulative because the dead stay dead. The thickness of the lines and the size of the labels depend on the cumulative case fatality rate – the number of people who died divided by the number diagnosed.
New cases diagnosed per day per million people in hot zones around the world
Two observations:
The worst case rates have been in Miami, but the worst death rates have been in New York City
For all the early news coverage of China, Italy, and Brazil, the areas that have been hardest hit so far are all in the United States. Key word: so far.
Want to try these graphs yourself? Go for it!!! I’ve updated my spreadsheet (still version 7) to restore the formulas. The upside is that you can now more easily make changes to make the graphs your own; the downside is that unless you are on a high-end computer, the calculations will be slooooooooooooooooow. To speed up calculations, replace formulas with values once you decide you have the right formulas. If you’re not sure how to do that, just ask – leave a comment, messenge me on social media, or send me an email at jordan.raddick@gmail.com.
Another update on the state of the pandemic tomorrow, and every day until the pandemic ends or I do. And more of the regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday posts, which are way more interesting anyway.
Graphs day 138, pandemic day 145, day 215 since the first cases were diagnosed.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 17,849,843
Total deaths: 685,054
Dr. Arnoczy, probably
Dividing those numbers gives the global observed case fatality rate – the percentage of people diagnosed with COVID-19 who go on to die of the disease. That number is 3.8 percent. It has been steadily declining since I’ve been tracking the pandemic, down from 4.1 percent for COVID-19 daily data update I on March 18th. Why the decrease?
I’ll let one of my smart awesome friends explain. Here is Dr. Gretchen Arnoczy, an infectious disease doctor at First Health of North Carolina, with the explanation:
Testing testing testing.
As our testing capacity increases, we are able to identify more mild or asymptomatic cases. If we only test symptomatic people, the mortality rates look bad.
South Korea did this well early on, finding widespread infection across lots of age groups but symptoms only in older and high risk. Their mortality rate was around 1% or less. I expect the true mortality rate to be around 1-3%.
We still struggle with having enough tests. If our hospital only has 50 tests, we only test people who are sick enough to be admitted. If our hospital has 5000 tests, we can test everyone exposed in an outbreak and really understand the scope of disease better.
Dr. Gretchen Arnoczy
Jordyn Hoyos, probably
Speaking of smart awesome friends, my smart awesome (and excellently named friend) Jordyn Hoyos asked me to take a look at three more U.S. states: Texas, California, and North Dakota. How are these states looking?
Looking only at absolute numbers of cases, California has more cases than Florida or Texas, and North Dakota has very few. But, as I’ve said from the beginning, raw numbers are usually not a useful way of looking at the spread of a disease. It is much more helpful to look at rates of disease, measured in cases per million. And what happens when you look at rates of disease in Florida, Texas, and North Dakota (and also Peru and Ecuador)?
Cases reported per million people each day in various places
The graph shows that the pandemic is much worse in Florida and Texas than it is in California. And the graph shows that even North Dakota (black line), a state which is frequently cited as having successfully managed the pandemic without major economic disruption, has not actually been all that successful in managing the pandemic. The low number of cases in North Dakota is due to North Dakota’s low population – looking at case rates per million people shows that they are on par with Peru and above Ecuador, two countries I’ve been following for their high case rates.
The good news is that the downward trend in Florida appears to be continuing. Florida’s mistake back in May was to relax its social distancing policies too early. Let’s hope they stay the course this time.
Want to try these graphs yourself? Go for it!!! I’ve updated my spreadsheet (still version 7) to restore the formulas. The upside is that you can now more easily make changes to make the graphs your own; the downside is that unless you are on a high-end computer, the calculations will be slooooooooooooooooow. To speed up calculations, replace formulas with values once you decide you have the right formulas. If you’re not sure how to do that, just ask – leave a comment, messenge me on social media, or send me an email at jordan.raddick@gmail.com.
Another update on the state of the pandemic tomorrow, and every day until the pandemic ends or I do. And more of the regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday posts, which are way more interesting anyway.
Graphs day 137, pandemic day 144, day 214 since the first cases were diagnosed.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 17,591,968
Total deaths: 679,439
It’s Independece Day in the west African nation of Benin (pronounced ben-EEN), and fortunately like many countries in Africa, Benin has very few cases. Also, by popular demand, I’ve added Ecuador.
As I’ve feared for many days now, the number of cases in Spain and Belgium have both increased to more than five times their values of late June, and are continuing to increase – enough that it’s clear that they need to be moved into the “getting worse” category. But unfortunately, so many countries now fit that description that putting them all on one graph would result in an indecipherable graph. So how to split it up?
I think it makes the most sense to make a distinction between countries experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 infections and those where the first wave is still getting worse. It’s somewhat arbitrary to declare when one wave has ended and another has begun, but I’ve done my best to decide which is which.
Thus, starting today, there are five categories. All graphs are below, in the usual style. Countries are color-coded and labeled by name. The thickness of the lines and the sizes of the labels correspond to the case fatality rate in the country – thicker lines and larger labels indicate countries where a larger percentage of COVID-19 cases have led to death.
Regions where COVID-19 was quickly contained
Regions where COVID-19 was quickly contained
In honor of Benin’s Independence Day, I’ve added them to my data tracking for today only (purple line). I’m grateful that I can put them in this category.
Regions where COVID-19 is currently under control(-ish)
Regions where COVID-19 is currently under control
Sadly, Spain and Belgium have left this graph. But the good news is that one country has joined the graph: the rate of new cases diagnosed in Belarus has fallen to below 15 per million.
Regions moving in the right direction(-ish)
Regions where cases are decreasing
Belarus has left this graph for the Under Control graph. Sweden may join them soon – which I absolutely would not have predicted back in April, May, or June. On the other end, cases in Peru have increased to above 150 per million people per day, and so they move into the Getting Worse category.
Regions experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 cases
So many countries fit into Getting Worse category that I have divided it into two. First up, countries where the daily case rate had reached a very low level, then went back up again, and is continuing to increase. The regions I am tracking in this category, at least for now, are Spain, Belgium, Australia, Japan, and Serbia.
Regions experiencing a second wave of cases
Regions where the pandemic is getting worse
As before, I’m tracking cases in Florida separately from the rest of the United States. Ecuador could have gone in the second wave category, but I put them here because
Regions where things are getting worse
Florida appears to be on a downward trend, thank God. But I’m waiting at least until they return to the main graph before declaring them moving in the right direction.
I’ve updated my spreadsheet (still version 7) to restore the formulas. The upside is that you can now more easily make changes to make the graphs your own; the downside is that unless you are on a high-end computer, the calculations will be slooooooooooooooooow. To speed up calculations, replace formulas with values once you decide you have the right formulas. If you’re not sure how to do that, just ask – leave a comment, messenge me on social media, or send me an email at jordan.raddick@gmail.com.
Have a great rest of the weekend. Another update on the state of the pandemic tomorrow, and every day until the pandemic ends or I do.
Graphs day 135, pandemic day 142, day 212 since the first cases were diagnosed. It’s been a full week since my last update post; I’ve spent the whole week completely rewriting my spreadsheet.
There are enough cases in enough regions, and there have been for so long, that my spreadsheet became completely unworkable. Each calculation took more than a minute to complete. So I implemented two tricks: I switched rows and columns, and I replaced some complex formulas with their values. The result is that I am back here again giving you updates.
And what an update it is. Last time I posted, Earth had just passed 15 million total cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Today, we passed 17 million cases.
Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 17,029,155
Total deaths: 667,011
It’s Independece Day in Vanuatu, but Vanuatu is one of the few countries left in the world that has zero cases of COVID-19. Let’s hope they stay that way.
Here is an update on our usual four categories. Sadly, Japan has joined Australia as a country where COVID-19 had been contained but is now getting worse. Spain, Belgium, and Peru may soon join them. And then there’s Florida.
Always Florida.
Regions where COVID-19 was quickly contained
Usual graphs and labels for all four categories today. Note that Japan is gone from the “quickly contained” category this week, and that I’m reporting cases in Hubei (the province whose capital is Wuhan) separately from those in the rest of China.
Regions where COVID-19 was quickly contained
I continue to marvel at how well China controlled the spread of the pandemic outside Hubei. That is, of course, if you believe these case numbers. There are some reasons to believe that these numbers are correct, and some reasons not to believe this numbers are correct. All I can say is that I do the best job I can to clearly and objectively graph the numbers I get from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, and provide enough interpretation and guidance so you can understand what they mean.
But as I’ve said before: if you’re a COVID-19 denier, this doesn’t support your position, it supports the opposite of your position. Are you saying that China has reason to suppress their true number of cases but literally every other country has reason to exaggerate their true number of cases, because reasons?
Regions where COVID-19 is currently under control(-ish)
Regions where COVID-19 is currently under control
Tragically, cases in Spain continue to rise like Robbie Van Persie in the 2014 World Cup.
Regions moving in the right direction(-ish)
Regions where cases are decreasing
Sadly, there were more cases in Peru yesterday than in either Qatar or Chile. On the other hand, yesterday daily cases in Sweden dropped to their lowest level since late March. All along, Sweden has been betting that their less stringent approach to social distancing would produce better long-term results than other countries. And maybe they were right? But we still won’t know until we get longer-term death figures from many more countries.
Regions where the epidemic is getting worse
Reluctantly I had to rescale the main graph up to 300 cases per million people to accommodate Brazil and South Africa (although South Africa has since dropped below 200 daily cases per million again. Florida remains on the Qatar scale.
Regions where things are getting worse
In the past week, cases in Florida have stabilized – although they are still not decreasing, they are at least not increasing. Provided of course you believe the numbers from Florida. As with China, there are reasons to believe that cases are being underreported.
It’s time for a new version of the spreadsheet, now up to version 7. In the sheets called Finder and Cumulative, formulas have been replaced by values for faster calculation. The formulas are available next to the value blocks, but you’ll have to copy and fill them yourself if you want to try changing anything.
Pandemic updates tomorrow and every day until the pandemic ends or I do.
