The stats: Coronavirus mapped and quantified:
ADDED 6/4: STUDY: Hydroxychloroquine does not prevent healthy people from getting COVID-19. There was never any reason to think that it would, but now I guess it’s official.
ADDED 6/4: Wednesday’s numbers: The number of new cases was 121k, the third highest of all time.
In terms of fatalities, it’s not Three Blind Trumps any more. Now it’s the four Trumpsmen of the Apocalypse.
1. Brazil 1269
2. USA 1083
3. Mexico 470
4. UK 359
No other country topped 300 fatalities, but India hit its all-time high with 259, a dire omen of a raging epidemic in that country of 1.4 billion people.
In terms of total daily fatalities per capita, Sweden again led the way, as has become its habit, while Brazil and the UK again finished second and third. Eight countries had more than three Wednesday fatalities per million population. Armenia made its first appearance on the list.
1. Sweden 7.3
2. Brazil 6.0
3. UK 5.3
4. Chile 4.6
5. Armenia 4.1
6. Peru 3.9
7. Mexico 3.7
8. USA 3.3
Note that 18 US states plus the District of Columbia had fatality rates high enough to make that list. That included both Carolinas and some other states outside of the original hot spots: New Hampshire, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Mississippi and Iowa. Five US states had fatality rates higher than the highest country in the world.
The USA is still a long way from defeating the virus. We hear each night on the news that Brazil has been devastated by COVID-19, but New Jersey’s fatality rate on Wednesday was more than double Brazil’s.
The table below shows the USA’s daily COVID fatalities. Increases over the previous week are highlighted in red. Because of last week’s Monday holiday, you have to view Tuesday/Wednesday of this week and last week as combined periods. Doing that shows that the fatality rate is running about even with last week, as has been the case for several days.
|
4 Weeks Ago |
3 Weeks Ago |
2 weeks Ago |
Last Week |
This Week |
| Friday |
1,897 |
1,687 |
1,595 |
1,293 |
1,212 |
| Saturday |
1,691 |
1,422 |
1,218 |
1,036 |
1,015 |
| Sunday |
1,153 |
750 |
865 |
617 |
638 |
| Monday |
1,324 |
1,008 |
1,003 |
505 |
730 |
| Tuesday |
2,350 |
1,630 |
1,552 |
774 |
1134 |
| Wednesday |
2,528 |
1,772 |
1,461 |
1,535 |
1,083 |
| Thursday |
2,129 |
1,715 |
1,418 |
1,223 |
|
UPDATED 6/3: From the “No shit, Sherlock” department: Sweden finally admits it screwed up. “The architect of Sweden’s controversial lighter lockdown policy for dealing with coronavirus has for the first time conceded the Scandinavian country should have imposed more restrictions.”
From May 27th: Sweden over-Trumps the Trump Trio
Sweden’s stay-open strategy appears to have been a complete failure in every respect, because (1) it has the highest current fatality rate in the world over the past two weeks; (2) the most recent numbers are not moving in the correct direction; (3) herd immunity is far in the future
(only 7% of the residents of Stockholm have developed antibodies); (4)
“the economy will be just as badly hit as its European neighbors, if not worse.”
ADDED 5/31: France says, “Oops. Maybe we had the coronavirus before China!” “If confirmed, this is evidence that the virus was spreading in Europe well before COVID-19 had been officially identified in China.” At the same time, Chinese scientists have cast doubt on the theory that the virus originated in that famous wet market.
The South China Morning Post, citing Chinese government data, reported that the first documented case of someone in China’s suffering from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, occurred Nov. 17. The new French data suggests that their first case dates back to November 16th!
The mystery deepens!
ADDED 5/30: Vietnam pulled off the ultimate miracle. They had 97 million people, a long border with China, daily flights from Wuhan … and a COVID-19 death total of ZERO! Not one death. Not even one elderly person. How did they do it? All of my guesses were wrong. I figured it was being bathed in the blood of Jesus, having the localities bid against each other for PPEs, downplaying the virus as an alarmist hoax, shilling for unproven drug cures, investigating bleach cocktails, telling the regional governors to open their areas back up without meeting the criteria set by the health ministry, having the highest national officials refuse to wear masks, and holding large rallies as late as March. Damn, I was SO close! It turns out the true solution was for their prime minister to place his idiot son-in-law in charge of co-ordinating the medical supply chain. That would have been my next guess!
UPDATED 5/30: The number of American fatalities caused by the spread of the coronavirus pandemic seems to be understated by about 20,000 to 30,000. “Many Covid-19 deaths were simply listed as some variant of ‘respiratory failure’ or ‘multisystem organ failure.’” “U.S. deaths soared in the early weeks of the pandemic, far exceeding the number attributed to covid-19” At least two states, Florida and South Carolina, are suspected of falsifying the COVID numbers.
UPDATED 5/30: Another 2.1 million workers filed new unemployment claims last week. That’s another very high number, but there is some good news. The number of continuing claims dropped by 4 million, therefore the number of unemployed people seems to have dropped. That’s a ray of hope, but an analysis of the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on the labor market estimates that 42% of recent layoffs will result in permanent job loss.
ADDED 5/27:
ADDED 5/24: A massive new study puts the kibosh on hydroxychloroquine. A study of 96,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on six continents found that those who took the drug had a significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not. People treated with hydroxychloroquine were also more likely to develop a type of irregular heart rhythm, or arrhythmia.
“It’s one thing not to have benefit, but this shows distinct harm. If there was ever hope for this drug, this is the death of it.”
ADDED 5/22: American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic
UPDATED 5/22: An MIT study, Will Coronavirus Pandemic Diminish by Summer?, had previously suggested that 90% of transmission occurs within a narrow temperature band (37 to 63 F) and a limited band of absolute humidity. The scientists did not claim that transmission ceases outside those temperature and humidity bands, but that the spread occurs more slowly. A newer study from Harvard also shows that summer weather is beneficial, but the study also stresses that weather can’t stop the spread without additional proactive measures from humans.
“Our projections suggest warmer temperature, more humidity, and moderate outdoor UV exposure may offer a modest reduction in reproductive number; however, upcoming changes in weather alone will NOT be enough to fully contain the transmission of COVID-19.”
ADDED 5/21: Black Americans are dying of Covid-19 at three times the rate of white people
ADDED 5/20: The big question comes up again – Can people be reinfected by COVID-19? Thirteen sailors on the Teddy Roosevelt, all considered to have recovered and all having tested negative at least twice, have exhibited symptoms again after returning to duty, and have tested positive. “Whether the afflicted sailors were reinfected or still had the virus after multiple negative tests remains under investigation.”
ADDED 5/19: New polling shows that 49 of the 50 governors have a better approval rating than Trump for their handling of the pandemic. The one exception: Kemp of Georgia. Republican governors dominate both the top and the bottom of the list, with all the Dems in the middle: six of the top seven are Republicans; seven of the bottom eight are Republicans.
ADDED 5/16: President Trump actually said this in opposition to “overrated” testing: “When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”
UPDATED 5/9: In a bizarre irony, hospitals are making mass lay-offs in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The institutions are suffering financially because they have had to eliminate all the most profitable parts of their business in order to treat corona victims. In all, 1.4 million health care workers lost their jobs in April, 135,000 of those in hospitals.
ADDED 4/29: New evidence reveals: “Coronavirus infections greatly outnumber confirmed covid-19 cases, potentially by a factor of 10 or more.” My guess it that it’s somewhere between 3-to-1 and 6-to-1. The USA has a ratio of about 18 cases per death. The proper ratio, based upon South Korea and other countries, is probably between 50 and 100 cases per death, indicating a fatality rate between 1% and 2%. That’s a wide range because the calculation is an oversimplification on my part. There are many factors going into the fatality rate, and it’s not necessarily fair to compare areas, but my guess is probably in the right ballpark.
NEW 3/28: The data reveal that covid-19 is much more dangerous for men. The data are consistent from country to country: men make up 72% of the intensive care unit admissions in Spain, 73% in France, 75% in Norway, 71% in the UK. While researchers cannot yet determine how much of the gender disparity can be attributed to behavioral components, it seems clear that the significance of the gap across cultures means that there must be some biological explanation.
March 9:
March 4: “A lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor.”
Feb 26: “We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better.”
Feb 26: “We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time..”
Feb 26: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up..”
Feb 26: “The 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
Feb 24:
The Dow was at 27,960 that day. One month later it was at 18,592.
Jan 24:
Jan 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
