India is the only nation reporting more than 1000 fatalities today, with the next worst Brazil at only 310. So far the second waves in some European nations have been only a "casedemic," with relatively few fatalities.
Covid-2019
Covid-2019
Monday, September 7, 2020
Covid-2019 seems to be taking Labor Day off. New US cases back down to June levels (if there ever was a second wave, it is over). New cases down around the world -- not in every single country, but unanimously across all continents.
Covid-2019
Sunday, September 6, 2020
New cases in France and Spain are at new highs, a true second wave after the catastrophe in March. But as in the US sunbelt flare-up, there are few deaths, so the case fatality rate has been cut in half. This is being understood now as a "casedemic," a surge of cases, not deaths, suggesting that the first wave either killed or immunized the susceptible population, leaving the current class of infected persons carriers of the virus, but not sufferers of the disease. "Herd immunity" is a politically toxic term, but something like that seems to be happening.
Covid-2019
Saturday, September 5, 2020
Let's take a moment and celebrate how well the continent of Africa has handled the pandemic. 9 bp of population has been confirmed infected (world 35 bp). 0.2 bp of population has died (world 1.4 bp). Cases and mortalities have been coming down reliably for two months. What's the secret? The data is always questionable, but Africa comes into this crisis with a natural advantage: its median age is only 19.7 years!
Covid-2019
Friday, September 4, 2020
The modelers in Washington just never give up. As cases and fatalities subside in the US, they are now upgrading their estimate for peak daily fatalities to 2,861 on December 1, and cumulative fatalities by year-end to 389,00. They're even reviving the ventilator-shortage scare, calling for levels that never even materialized at the worst of the March and April outbreak.
Covid-2019
Thursday, September 3, 2020
New cases flare to new highs in Israel, one of the countries celebrated for having "gotten it right" with extremely strict lockdowns. New lockdowns are threatened now, yet Israel still leads the world with a tiny 0.79% case fatality rate.
Covid-2019
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
New cases creep up a bit, as they always seem to do mid-week. Florida reported over 7,000 new cases, more than tripling yesterday's number, but that was due to a backlog of cases unreported previously by Quest Diagnostics. We've smoothed out the data. Florida fired Quest.
Covid-2019
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
The virus resurgence in the US really seems to be exhausted -- and we did it without much reversal of economic reopening. Some European countries are having a second wave, but the big case numbers are now coming from India and South America.
Covid-2019
Monday, August 31, 2020
The fewest fatalities reported in the US since early July, before the flare-up in the sunbelt. New cases fell in all continents. Yes, Mondays are always the best day of the week. But progress is progress.
Covid-2019
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Like the US sunbelt hotspots in June and July, cases are flaring in an apparent second wave in France and Spain. Fatalities may follow after a lag, but so far the days-to-double-deaths indicator hasn't budged. This is a new phase in the virus crisis -- lots of infections, few fatalities.