Tuesday Update

Submitted tonight without comment. Sorry, it's been a busy day.

Flattening the Curve

Western Europe is mostly holding steady. Germany posted a phenomenal 0.1% growth in active cases today, but I suspect that is a blip of noise, like France's 3% yesterday or Switzerland's -3% a few days ago. It's a great sign when it can get that low, however, even from a random undercount. Looking to some of the other countries of concern that we raised, Turkey's reported numbers are stabilizing somewhat, suggesting that the sudden surge was a result of under-reporting catching up. Iran hasn't changed.

The story in the US is looking a little better today. The national growth rate dropped to 14% today, marking three straight days under 20%. For a change, it isn't just NY and a few states driving the improvement- across the nation, growth rates were better than they were yesterday, showing that the message is starting to get through. To underscore that, KS, MD, NC, and VA all enacted statewide stay-at-home orders today. That makes a total of 22 states that have enacted stay-at-home orders in the past 6 days, which is the earliest we would expect to see results. While we are still a long way from a peak, Americans are getting smarter and buying some time.

Sunday Update

Numbers across Europe look good today. No country saw reduced numbers of infected today, but the growth rates were all smaller than yesterday. the difference between a 5% daily growth and 15% is incredible. Even Canada and the UK are seeing serious improvements from their shutdowns.

In the US, the daily growth rate is lower than it has been since they hit 100 confirmed cases. Again, this national number is mostly driven by NY, but other states are looking good today as well. In fact, WA posted a reduction in active cases today.

One caveat is that there seem to be several regions that are late reporting their numbers today. Many of these lower growth rates could be turned around with updated numbers tomorrow.

Europe Improves, Focus on Iran and Turkey

As a whole, western Europe continues to see a slow, steady decrease in the rate of infection. Italy and Spain, two of the most active countries, saw significant decreases to 5% and 7%, respectively. Switzerland jumped back up to 10% growth in active cases, but that gives them a 7% growth over the past to days, which is very admirable.

There are two more countries to keep an eye on as well, that may be flying under the radar right now. First, Turkey has seen incredible growth in confirmed cases over the past three days, exceeding 50% daily growth. This may be an artifact of reporting, since Erdogan's government keeps a tight grip on the flow of information. However, this is a very scary trend for even a short time. Given the country's critical strategic location, could have dramatic implications for many other countries in the region.

The other country of concern is Iran, another country with dubious reporting quality. Early on in the pandemic, Iran was front and center as their case numbers jumped way ahead of others. After awhile, the Iranian government seemed to get things under some semblance of control, reaching daily rates under 5%. However, reports out of Iran are painting a dire picture more recently, with reports of panic and chaos. Rumored remedies have driven a hysteria for strong alcohol, in a country that outlaws drinking. The alcohol that has hit the black markets is often tainted with toxic ethanol and bleach or other chemicals, leading to horrible cases of blindness and death. Some regions even claim that they are seeing more deaths from alcohol related poisoning than from COVID-19. Against the backdrop of this breakdown, new cases are surging again, and the exponential curve has re-established at 14% per day and growing.

The United States continues to see the rate of active cases drop to 18%, largely due to NY and a few other highly active states like CA, WA, and IL. NJ still hasn't been able to bring its new cases under control, and unless their shelter-in-place rules can start yielding results soon, they will have more cases than NY in 10 days. Over the next four days, we can expect MA to pass MI and CA.

Good News from Switzerland

Big news today- Switzerland has managed to REDUCE their number of active cases of COVID-19! It's too early to tell if this will be a regular trend yet, but it is an amazing accomplishment for their management that they managed to turn from an average 25% daily increase just a week ago to the point that there are more people who recovered than tested positive.

Other Western European countries are showing steadily low rates of growth, with Spain getting extra recognition for finally getting down to 10% growth after very recently looking like they would be the next place to break down like Italy. Speaking of Italy, their number of cases is still growing, but they have managed to maintain their growth rate under 10% for six straight days.

The US is not looking nearly as good. Today, they crossed 100,000 total confirmed cases. While the national growth percentage continues in the low 20s, that is mostly due to NY and WA keeping their numbers lower. Discounting those two states, the rest of the nation is still averaging 28% growth rate for the past few days.

Below, you can see the growth rates for individual states for today and the average over the past few days. For reference, I have also colored the state names based on whether they have a Democratic governor (blue) or a Republican governor (red). This is relevant, since Trump has increasingly made it clear that he will direct aid and supplies based on how much he likes the governor and how much they toady up to him.

Also, to the right you will see if the state has a shutdown/shelter-in-place order. In many states where the governor has not called for a shelter-in-place, local cities and counties have issued their own. Sometimes, if your president and your governor are unwilling to lead, your county commissioner has to be the hero. You may notice some correlation with the governor's party affiliation here (or mayor, in the case of DC). There is also some good correlation with the average infection rate (though some states have issued the order too recently to have had an effect on confirmed cases).

Here are the numbers for today. US and Canada numbers are still preliminary, and may change.
The good news is that the European numbers are staying low, like we saw earlier in the week. Social distancing and shutdowns can work, if we all agree to follow them.
The United States today hit the grim milestone today of having the most number of cases - total cases and active cases - in the world. Almost half of that is concentrated in NY. So, as we see shutdown procedures starting to have an effect in the Big Apple, it is driving the nation's infection rate to 23%. This is a huge improvement over the 35% daily growth we have seen. Unfortunately, the other states have not gotten the memo yet.

I noticed there was something odd in Europe's numbers a couple of days ago, but now I have three consistent days to show that they are not a fluke. Across the Western European countries, their daily infection rates just plummeted. Here's a list of the countries that I'm tracking, showing their average daily growth in infections from two weeks ago, compared to last week, compared to the past three days:

Germany: 30% -> 25% -> 10%

France: 26% -> 17% -> 13%

Spain: 37% -> 22% -> 17%

Italy: 18% -> 14% -> 8%

Switzerland: 30% -> 25% -> 13%

Netherlands: 20% -> 20% -> 10%

These numbers could well change in the future, but this is what is happening right now. Note that we don't need this daily infection rate to get to zero to make this pandemic manageable. Given what we are seeing for average times to recovery, something in the 7-10% daily infection rate could actually lead to a reduced number of active cases, as people can get better faster than new individuals are being infected.

The UK is noticeably missing from that list. Their policies are keeping them in the low 20% range (actually 23% last week, 19% the past three days) for now. In the US, we are seeing lower rates for NY, CA, and even FL, even as the rest of the nation is accelerating. 

The lesson here: stay safe and stay isolated, regardless of whether your President/PM/Governor is ordering you to or not, and we can see things turn around.