Covid-2019 - 2023-01-01

As we enter the New Year, there's only one jurisdiction we track where we can say with confidence that there is exponential spread of Covid -- that's Japan. We're not seeing it in China, because our measure is based on reported deaths, and China always claims that there are just one or zero on any given day. Meanwhile in the US, it's still almost exactly 500 deaths per day, as it has been reliably since April. In its own way, that data feels as suspect as China's zero, given that neither of them ever vary. But because they don't vary, that shows spread is not growing exponentially -- it's not growing at all.