Category: Uncategorized

I love flags, and it’s Flag Day.

I love Australian rules football, and the Australian Football League just signed a broadcast deal with ESPN that will bring unprecedented exposure to the sport in the U.S. and worldwide.

And instead of talking about either of those things, here I am giving you another damn update about this damn global pandemic.

Graphs day 89, pandemic day 94, day 165 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 7,759,691

Total deaths: 430,127

Here is the usual graph of cases reported worldwide each day. The blue line is actual number of cases, the red line is a smoothed average.

Clearly we still haven’t hit the peak of cases worldwide, and it’s likely to be a long slow slog until we do.

Cases per million people by country

Here is a map of today’s cumulative cases per million people (since the beginning of the epidemic):

Cases in Chile are continuing to skyrocket; soon I’ll need to rescale the map once again.

Countries headed in the right direction

Great news from this graph today – cases per million people in the U.K. are almost down to the level of Belgium, a country where the epidemic is clearly under control. And Belarus, where the curve looked like it might be flat, is definitely decreasing. Curves for the U.S. and Russia continue to be flat as a delicious American pancake. This might require a new category in my next update.

Countries getting worse

Although cases in Chile decreased today, cases are often down on weekends. I think Chile is still getting worse. The curves for Saudi Arabia and Sweden now overlap completely, at least for today..

Deaths per million people by country

Here’s the map of deaths per million people, focused on Europe and the Americas:

and the curves of cumulative deaths over time in our usual ten countries:

After a long period of very few deaths in Chile, deaths are now increasing rapidly.

Coming up tomorrow: it’s a Monday on the usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, so look for a longer post. It’ll still be about COVID-19. It’s always about COVID-19 these days.

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 version 4.1, so that is the only one you need.

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end. Then months and months of just flags.

NCAA Cup results

And, just for fun at the end of this post, an update on the ongoing NCAA Cup.

Yesterday’s results

McNeese State 89 Stony Brook 86

South Florida 81 Kansas State 53

Kansas 87 New Mexico 60

Today’s schedule

Noon ET: Hartford (19-14, NET #246) at Illinois State (10-21, NET #196)

4 PM ET: Charlotte (17-13, NET #176) at Texas-Arlington (13-18, NET #129)

8 PM ET: Butler (23-9, NET #19) at Nebraska (8-25, NET #199)

Graphs day 88, pandemic day 93, day 164 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 7,625,883

Total deaths: 425,931

However, as not-fun as it is, the COVID-19 show goes on, and as long as there is still an officially-designated global pandemic, I’ll keep making these maps and graphs. Here’s the plot of daily cases worldwide:

Total cases are headed in the wrong direction. Smoothed cases look like they could be headed in the wrong direction too. We should know more tomorrow.

Cases per million people by country

Here is a map of today’s cumulative cases per million people (since the beginning of the epidemic):

COVID-19 continues to be under control in the places where it was previously under control, so I’ll only show the graphs from countries where it is headed in the right direction or getting worse.

Countries headed in the right direction

Cases in the U.K. are looking really good. In another few days, I might be able to move them to the “under control” category. Belarus is also clearly headed in the right direction. I’m still worried about Russia and the United States, but at least they’re not getting worse.

Countries getting worse

Cases per million people in Chile, Peru, and Saudi Arabia are increasing. Cases in Brazil are decreasing, but honestly I suspect it has more to do with Brazil intentionally underreporting cases than any true decrease in cases. When a country tells you they are going to underreport cases, believe them.

Deaths per million people by country

Here’s the map of deaths per million people, focused on Europe and the Americas:

and the curves of cumulative deaths over time in our usual ten countries:

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.

Graphs day 87, pandemic day 92, day 163 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 7,481,063

Total deaths: 421,190

What’s more fun than COVID-19? Well, just about everything, but I was thinking specifically of March Madness, the championship tournament of college basketball in the United States. And if you think March Madness is fun, you will love the NCAA Cup, a championship tournament that I just made up.

Everybody qualifies, all matchups are random, and winners advance. Read about it in the post I wrote earlier today, see the scores in real time at my Twitter feed (@fixthemadness), and read the full results on my NCAA Cup page (in progress).

However, as not-fun as it is, the COVID-19 show goes on, and as long as there is still an officially-designated global pandemic, I’ll keep making these maps and graphs. Here’s the plot of daily cases worldwide:

Cases per million people by country

Here is a map of today’s cumulative cases per million people (since the beginning of the epidemic):

COVID-19 continues to be under control in the places where it was previously under control, so I’ll only show the graphs from countries where it is headed in the right direction or getting worse.

Countries headed in the right direction

I was worried about the U.S., Russia, and Belarus, but it looks like cases there have decreased slightly.

Countries getting worse

Chile is getting so much worse that I had to rescale the graph, increasing the vertical axis to 300 cases per million people per day. And I have still have no idea what’s going on with Sweden.

Deaths per million people by country

Here’s the map of deaths per million people, focused on Europe and the Americas:

and the curves of cumulative deaths over time in our usual ten countries:

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.

What’s madder than a 68-team single-elimination college basketball tournament that takes a month?

A 351-team single-elimination tournament that takes five months.

That’s the plan for the NCAA Cup, an imaginary college basketball tournament going on right now.

The Rules

It’s inspired by the Cup tournaments in international soccer, like the FA Cup in England and the Copa del Rey in Spain. Those tournaments, and in the NCAA Cup of college basketball, follow these rules, each more insane than the last:

1. The tournament proceeds in rounds
2. For each game in a round, the winner advances and the loser goes home
3. Every single team qualifies for the tournament
4. All matchups are determined randomly

That’s right, each round’s matchups are random. That means that Gonzaga (#1 in the NCAA’s NET rankings) is just as likely to play #2 Kansas as they are to play the lowest-seeded team, #351 Chicago State.

The home team is also selected randomly, which means that Duke could start off playing on the road somewhere out of the way, like at Idaho State or Hawaii.

Winners of the first round games move on to the second round, and the matchups get picked again. In other words:

Get ready for some madness!

The Schedule

The 2020 NCAA cup began on April 7th, the day after Duke lifted the imaginary 2020 NCAA tournament trophy. The championship game is August 29th, the same day that the 2020 college football season starts.

Because NCAA Division 1 has an odd number of teams (351), two teams were randomly selected for a “round 0.5” play-in game. Half the teams are eliminated in each round; when this results in an odd number of teams, two are randomly selected for another play-in game.

Here is the schedule of when each round starts and stops:

Round	Start Date	End Date
0.5	Tuesday, April 7, 2020
1	Friday, April 10, 2020	Sunday, May 31, 2020
1.5	Wednesday, June 3, 2020
2	Sunday, June 7, 2020	Friday, July 3, 2020
3	Saturday, July 4, 2020	Tuesday, July 28, 2020
4	Friday, July 31, 2020	Tuesday, August 11, 2020
5	Thursday, August 13, 2020	Tuesday, August 18, 2020
5.5	Thursday, August 20, 2020
6	Friday, August 21, 2020	Sunday, August 23, 2020
6.5	Tuesday, August 25, 2020
7	Wednesday, August 26, 2020	Thursday, August 27, 2020
8	Saturday, August 29, 2020	Saturday, August 29, 2020

Every game is simulated on the whatifsports.com college basketball simulator, and results are announced in real time on the twitter feed @fixthemadness.

Round 1 is now complete, and we are in the middle of Round 2. Here’s what has happened so far, round by round. This page gives some highlight games, and I am now in the process of posting the complete results at my NCAA Cup page.

Results

Round 0.5

The randomly selected matchup for the play-in game was Virginia Commonwealth at Navy. The final score (click on the score for the box score from whatifsports.com):

Date and time	Result
Wed Apr 8 8 PM ET	Navy 68 Virginia Commonwealth 59

…and so the Virginia Commonwealth Rams became the first team eliminated from the 2020 NCAA cup. That left an even number of teams for random selection in the first round – 350 remaining teams meant 175 games.

The games proceeded, three or four a day, from April 10th to May 31st. And here are the results!

Round 1

Round 1 is now complete! It began in America’s premier basketball city, New York City, with Columbia beating High Point 68-51, and it ended in Pullman, Washington, with Lamar upsetting Washington State 90-81.

I am in the process of posting the results of all 175 games to a separate NCAA Cup page, but here are some highlights – games by big-ticket teams, shocking upsets, and exciting games. The home team is listed first and the winning team is in bold. Click on the score to see the box score and game recap from whatifsports.com.

Date and time	Score
Fri April 10 8 PM ET	Oklahoma State 83 Auburn 86
Sat April 11 8 PM ET	Oklahoma 66 Nebraska 83
Sun Apr 12 2 PM ET	Vermont 86 Northwestern 83
Sun Apr 12 8 PM ET	Incarnate Word 57 East Tennessee State 79
Thurs Apr 16 8 PM ET	Santa Clara 84 Saint Louis 85 (OT)
Fri Apr 17 8 PM ET	Penn State 63 LSU 73
Sunday Apr 19 2 PM ET	Pittsburgh 81 Idaho 88 (2OT)
Sun Apr 19 8 PM ET	Virginia 70 Stephen F. Austin 65
Mon Apr 20 Noon ET	Marshall 109 Green Bay 108 (3OT)
Fri Apr 24 8 PM ET	Coastal Carolina 74 Florida 87
Sat Apr 25 8 PM ET	(16) Ohio State 93 Georgia Tech 86
Sun Apr 26 20:00	Kennesaw State 48 (6) Duke 90
Thurs Apr 30 8 PM ET	Clemson 77 Indiana 68
Sat May 2 4 PM ET	(21) Kentucky 80 Loyola (MD) 50
Sat May 2 8 PM ET	Purdue 80 Xavier 82
Fri May 8 8 PM ET	(18) Maryland 85 Bradley 59
Sat May 9 10 PM ET	UNLV 82 (1) Gonzaga 71
Sun May 10 4 PM ET	Drexel 79 Arkansas 73
Fri May 15 8 PM ET	St. Mary’s 80 Tennessee 70
Sat May 16 4 PM ET	Southern U 62 (2) Kansas 81
Thurs May 21 4 PM ET	South Carolina State 73 (7) Michigan State 89
Thurs May 21 8 PM ET	Texas State 69 Texas A&M 67
Fri May 22 6 PM ET	(3) Dayton 72 Northwestern State 62
Fri May 22 8 PM ET	(10) Florida State 81 Buffalo 63
Fri May 29 4 PM ET	Weber State 82 (9) BYU 93
Sat May 30 8 PM ET	(11) Creighton 73 California 51

The biggest surprise: overall top seed Gonzaga is already gone in the first round, knocked out by UNLV!

Round 1.5 (play-in game)

The 175 winners of the first round games moved on. But that once again left an odd number of teams, so two were randomly selected for a play-in game: Radford at Toledo. And the result:

Date and time	Result
Wed June 3 8 PM ET	Toledo 70 Radford 72

Round 2

Round 2 began on Sunday, June 7th – and it began with an incredible upset, with top team Iowa losing on the road to #315 Central Arkansas. Here are some of the highlight results from the 18 second-round games so far:

Date and time	Results
Sun June 7 Noon ET	Central Arkansas 94 Iowa 86 (OT)
Sun June 7 8 PM ET	Louisville 72 Florida State 68
Tues June 9 4 PM ET	Drexel 75 Liberty 67
Thurs June 11 8 PM ET	South Carolina 85 Rhode Island 95

Round 2 continues through Friday, June 3rd. These games are happening today:

Fri June 12 2 PM ET	Sam Houston State 86 Georgia Southern 76
Fri June 12 4 PM ET	American (17-14, NET #197) at Vanderbilt (12-21, NET #142)
Fri June 12 8 PM ET	USC (23-9, NET #45) at Utah (17-15, NET #85)

Follow all the results in real time at the Twitter feed @fixthemadness, and see all the results in one place at my NCAA Cup page.

Enjoy the madness!

Graphs day 86, pandemic day 91, day 162 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 7,401,717

Total deaths: 417,807

I will continue plotting the number of newly reported cases, resulting in a curve that goes up and down as the pandemic waxes and wanes. Here’s what that type of graph looks like for the entire world over the entire history of the pandemic:

Unfortunately the trend seems to be that the pandemic is continuing to infect slightly more people every day.

Cases per million people by country

Here is a map of today’s cumulative cases per million people (since the beginning of the epidemic):

Remember that the map shows you the total number of COVID-19 cases reported up to and including today. I might change the map so that it shows today’s cases, and today’s cases only. Is that something you would like to see?

As I mentioned above, plotting the history of cases reported each day produces a graph with a line that goes up and down as each country’s local epidemic waxes and wanes. These graphs allow us to divide countries into four categories:

• Countries that contained the epidemic quickly
• Countries that experienced a surge in cases but now have the epidemic under control
• Countries that are still reporting new cases at an appreciable rate, but at least the number of new cases is steady or decreasing with time
• Countries where the epidemic is still getting worse

No countries have changed categories today, although some seem to be on the verge of changing. I also added Australia and New Zealand to today’s graphs. Which category will they appear in? Keep reading to find out!

Countries that quickly contained their COVID-19 epidemics

These countries intervened so early in the course of the epidemic that they never had a high COVID-19 case rate to begin with. I’m using the same vertical axis scale for all the graphs (zero to 375 cases per million people), and when I use that scale for countries in this category it becomes clear just how much lower the case rates are there.

This is where Australia (gray) and New Zealand (green) ended up. Their case rates peaked just a little higher than South Korea’s, and about a month later. But the case rates in all these countries are down near zero now.

Countries that have COVID-19 under control now

These countries experienced a higher peak in cases, but thanks to the public health interventions they put in place, the peak has passed and they are now reporting very low numbers again.

This category includes Italy and Spain, which just a few week ago were considered the hardest-hit countries in the world. The one country that worries me is Belgium, where cases have steadily increased from 10.2 per million to 11.5 per million over the last four days. That still might be statistical luck – or I might need to move Belgium to the “getting worse” category.

Countries where cases are steady or decreasing

These are countries that are still reporting an appreciable number of cases, from 20 per million people in the U.K. to 570 per million in Qatar. But all the countries in this category are experiencing fewer daily cases than they did one or two months ago.

I would love to say that these are countries where the number of cases per day are decreasing – but as the graph shows, that is now true only in the U.K. and Qatar. Cases in the United States, Russia, and Belarus are all holding steady, and in fact seem like they might be starting to go back up. I would hate to move any of these countries into the “getting worse” category.

Countries where the epidemic is getting worse

These are countries where the number of cases reported is still generally increasing.

Two days ago, it looked like cases in Peru were on their way back up – but yesterday’s cases were down and today’s are steady, and all of the past few days have been below the peak of a couple weeks ago. I think we’re on the verge of moving Peru back in to the “steady or decreasing category,” but I’ll wait a few more days.

Possibly even better news is that it looks like maaaaaybe Chile and Brazil are on the verge of peaking and starting to decrease. I certainly hope so, and I’ll be keeping an eye on those countries.

Deaths per million people by country

When it comes to death, the dead stay dead, so it makes sense to consider cumulative deaths, resulting in the usual map style and incurves that steadily increase with time. Here’s the map of deaths per million people, focused on Europe and the Americas:

Those curves, for the 10 countries we’ve been following most often:

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.