Having no basketball or baseball to occupy me, I have been tracking and posting Covid 19 data for several weeks and, as long as there is any interest in the numbers, I’ll be posting here daily as well. The current data I grab is from the Worldometers, UW’s IHME, and Johns Hopkins websites, just after midnight GMT, which is when they flip the day.
The nations I’ve included have changed a bit since I began, the reasons too long to discuss – but, for comparative reasons, S. Korea was added as an ideal for comparing results with the U.S. Both countries diagnosed their first Covid 19 case on the same day – 1/20/20 – and second, because their initial responses were so radically different. The U.S. became narrowly focused on restricting travel from China (which didn’t really work) and then Europe; and testing, as a strategy, was put on the back burner, with the U.S. content to test only the symptomatic. South Korea, on the other, ramped up its testing, to include the symptomatic as well as co-workers, friends and family (ie. cluster testing), then isolate and quarantine. The Koreans conducted nearly 300,000 tests within two months of diagnosing their first COVID-19 patient. By contrast, the U.S. only conducted about 60,000 tests in that same time period; and, despite evidence and results which show that aggressive, widespread testing works, the U.S. still lags far behind most countries in testing per population. It will be interesting to track how S. Korea ends up in terms of the factors I’m tracking, and how quickly its economy rebounds as compared to the U.S.
ALSO, I’ve just added Sweden, a hero to some because, far from being a lockdown, social-distancing nation, are currently embracing Covid 19 and its consequences; a kind of damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead approach. Not sure about the thinking behind Sweden’s outlier response to Covid 19, but tracking them should serve as a good comparative study.
And, as several U.S. states begin to emerge from lockdown, it seems appropriate to begin tracking their rates of Covid 19 case increase, deaths, and testing. I’ve limited the number of states in these posts to the most populous, adding such states that have begun to reopen for business. Although these states are supposed to conform to the CDC’s protocols for reporting, some state numbers are a bit dubious, but their numbers are the only numbers, so they’re included.
Anyway, worldwide the case rate rose, thanks to the U.S. which now leads the pack in both Covid 19 cases, and the rate of increase. The death rate for the U.S. dropped a tad, and recoveries improved.
Texas has finally started testing seriously, but the number of reported deaths remains suspiciously low, as it does in Georgia. Massachusetts and Illinois are getting hammered, with Virginia and Pennsylvania not far behind.
The nations I’ve included have changed a bit since I began, the reasons too long to discuss – but, for comparative reasons, S. Korea was added as an ideal for comparing results with the U.S. Both countries diagnosed their first Covid 19 case on the same day – 1/20/20 – and second, because their initial responses were so radically different. The U.S. became narrowly focused on restricting travel from China (which didn’t really work) and then Europe; and testing, as a strategy, was put on the back burner, with the U.S. content to test only the symptomatic. South Korea, on the other, ramped up its testing, to include the symptomatic as well as co-workers, friends and family (ie. cluster testing), then isolate and quarantine. The Koreans conducted nearly 300,000 tests within two months of diagnosing their first COVID-19 patient. By contrast, the U.S. only conducted about 60,000 tests in that same time period; and, despite evidence and results which show that aggressive, widespread testing works, the U.S. still lags far behind most countries in testing per population. It will be interesting to track how S. Korea ends up in terms of the factors I’m tracking, and how quickly its economy rebounds as compared to the U.S.
ALSO, I’ve just added Sweden, a hero to some because, far from being a lockdown, social-distancing nation, are currently embracing Covid 19 and its consequences; a kind of damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead approach. Not sure about the thinking behind Sweden’s outlier response to Covid 19, but tracking them should serve as a good comparative study.
And, as several U.S. states begin to emerge from lockdown, it seems appropriate to begin tracking their rates of Covid 19 case increase, deaths, and testing. I’ve limited the number of states in these posts to the most populous, adding such states that have begun to reopen for business. Although these states are supposed to conform to the CDC’s protocols for reporting, some state numbers are a bit dubious, but their numbers are the only numbers, so they’re included.
Anyway, worldwide the case rate rose, thanks to the U.S. which now leads the pack in both Covid 19 cases, and the rate of increase. The death rate for the U.S. dropped a tad, and recoveries improved.
Texas has finally started testing seriously, but the number of reported deaths remains suspiciously low, as it does in Georgia. Massachusetts and Illinois are getting hammered, with Virginia and Pennsylvania not far behind.
