Coronavirus dashboard for April 30: the US has the worst record in the world, by far

Coronavirus dashboard for April 30: the US has the worst record in the world, by far

Here is the update through yesterday (April 29):

Number of new and total reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com and 91-divoc.com):

    • Number: South Korea: ZERO (4 detected from incoming flights at airport)
    • Number: Taiwan: ZERO
    • Number: Vietnam: ZERO
    • Number: Germany: 1,627 (up from 988 on April 27; 3 day average of 1,256 down -81.5% from 6,790 peak on April 1-3) (highlighted in graph below)
    • Number: US: up +24,114 to 1,040,488 (vs. day/day high of +36,161 on April 24; 3 day average of 24,709, down -26.1% from 33,437 peak on April 8-10)(#1 in the world, 5.7x #2 Spain)(outlier at top of graph below)

Figure 1

There has been a slight decrease in the number of new cases in the US. The US has the worst record in the world, by far.
I have discontinued tracking the rate of new cases and deaths each day. That was to determine if we were “bending the curve.” We were. the issue now is whether cases will continue to go down in any significant way or not.

Number of deaths and infections and rate of increase of testing (from COVID Tracking Project)

  • ***Number of deaths: Total 52,525, increase of +2,700 day/day (new daily high)
  • Seven day average of deaths: 1,722 vs. 2,058 peak on April 21
  • Number of tests: 230,442 (vs. 300,833 daily peak on April 25*)**
  • Ratio of positive tests to total: 8.4:1 (vs. 8.7 on April 27)

In the past two weeks, as shown in the graph above, the percentage of positive to total tests has declined from about 20% to 12%,or an average of -4% a week. If this should fall to 6%, then based on the history of South Korea, lockdowns can begin to be judiciously lifted and a thoroughgoing regimen of “test, trace, and isolate” can be begun.

 *ex.-Calif clearing its backlog

Summary for April 29

  • The US leads the world by far in new infections (including per capita) and deaths; and is second among significant sized countries only to Spain among total cases per capita; while several other countries, including developing country Vietnam, have brought their caseloads to zero. This is abject failure on a horrid scale.
  • The total US population remains under total lockdown has declined substantially due mainly to the renegade States in the Confederacy.
  • The number of daily new infections, adjusted for testing, appears to have peaked one to two weeks ago.
  • The number of daily new deaths also appears to have peaked about one week ago.
  • The trend number of daily tests has improved dramatically in the past 6 days from an average of about 150,000-160,000 to about 220,000. Better still, for the last 4 days, new infections have declined, even with higher testing – a very positive, if preliminary, sign.
  • My personal suspicion remains that the actual number of total infections in the US is about 5x the official number, or roughly 5 million at present.
  • Going forward, it will probably be important to separate out those States which are “opening up” without sufficient testing or precautions, which I expect to see a new wave of infections, vs. States which want to drive the number of new infections close enough to zero to follow an intensive “test, trace, and isolate” approach.