Covid Context

 I was going to wait exactly a month from Covid+7 to do an update, but wanted to point out some things about today's data (as always, I am using Worldometers as my data source).

The USA today reported 173,000 new covid cases and 1,956 deaths, large numbers by any standards.

1.  Given the trend I expect both figures to increase over the next 2-3 weeks.

2.  The fatality numbers are the highest in the world today as an absolute number but, in reality, the U.S. has a lot of company with high fatality (and case) counts.  I went through today's data for every country with a population of more than 1 million and then scaled them up to the population of the U.S.  There are 34 other countries with elevated (more than 1,000) deaths on that scale and our neighbor Canada stands at 900.

The countries range from Slovenia (6500 deaths in U.S. equivalents), Belgium (6500) and Poland (5000) at the top end to Brazil (1100), Germany (1000), Russia (1000) and Colombia (1200) at the low.  The U.S. experience is, sad to say, not abnormal.  It includes countries not renowned for medical care as well as some with among the finest systems in the world, such as Switzerland.  A full list of the countries can be found below.

3.  The fact that the U.S. is not abnormal also indicates that while there is, as explained in Covid+7, variation in how countries account for deaths, there is also nothing to indicate that the U.S. death count is being "rigged" or "pumped up" compared to the rest of the world.

4.  Because of testing and analysis issues the number of Covid cases as an absolute figure has limited value; however it does have great value in trying to identify trends.

5.  Temporal aspects remain important.  If I had done a similar "scaled up" comparison this summer, Latin American countries, not European, would have topped the list.

6.  What we are seeing in the U.S. is now broad based across most of the lower 48 states.  Unlike the early spring, which saw a few states take the brunt of covid, everyone is now in the game.  Even states like Maine, which had stayed relatively unscathed, have seen a sharp increase over the past month.

7.  If you look at the countries and U.S. states it is difficult to find any consistent pattern in the public health measures and the outcomes we are seeing.  Covid doesn't do politics and we are continually humbled by what we don't know.

Country death counts for November 18 scaled up to USA population:

More than 3,000

Slovenia (6500), Belgium (6500), Poland (5000), Bulgaria (5000), Bosnia & Herzogovina (4700), Czech Republic (4000), Switzerland (4000), Italy (3800), Austria (3500), Hungary (3200)

2,000 to 3,000

Croatia (3000), Georgia (3000), Armenia (2900), Tunisia (2800), Lithuania (2800), Romania (2600), Spain (2500), UK (2400), Portugal (2400), France (2100)

Less than 2,000

USA (1956), Iran (1900), Jordan (1900), Greece (1800), Ukraine (1800), Argentina (1700), Netherlands (1500), Moldova (1400), Slovakia (1300), Colombia (1200), Brazil (1100), Panama (1100), Serbia (1000), Guatemala (1000), Germany (1000), Canada (900)