CAUTION: TRIGGER WARNING — anxiety for those that obsess over numbers.
I really mean that. I thought writing about it would help stop obsessing over this stuff, but it has not. If you are feeling cooped up and anxious already and worried about what the hell is going to happen to your town, region, country, species… maybe find something political to get frothy about. If you want a midday update on numbers out of Europe and New York , along with a link to a good site to mash “refresh” on all day...
Italy has been posting their numbers in the afternoon lately. Today is worse than yesterday. In terms of new infections (5,986) and in terms of new deaths (627). It is worse than the day before that. It is worse than any other day so far, in both categories.
What stokes both sadness and dread in me about this is two fold. First, there had been a glimmer of hope when, after a week of lockdown, Italy did seem to be flattening the curve. There were a couple of days where new cases seemed to be holding steady or even taking a little dip. Second… we are next.
Now, the lack of better numbers, after more than a week of tightening restrictions on movement, DO NOT mean that those measures are not working. There are just too many unknowns. The rise in reported infections could mean that it is still running rampant through the population. It could also mean that testing dynamics have changed. There have been multiple reports of people not seeking treatment (and therefore not getting tested) in the north. Those people could now be getting tested. I have heard reports that in at least Bergamo, new cases are slowing. Less critical people could now being seeking care and getting added to the numbers. It could also mean that testing has ramped up in other parts of the country. I think most people on this site or with some common sense understand that most countries are probably harboring a sizable reservoir of infected people that have not been tested. Italy may be moving people from the “unknown infections” column to the “known infections” column. Still, the numbers are disheartening. I don’t have the numbers broken down by town, sorry. But here are some of the numbers of total cases by region.
www.statista.com/…
This shows that, besides Lombardy, all other regions (even in the North) of Italy have turned in much smaller numbers. Could these continuing bad numbers from Italy be a result of uncovering more cases in those regions that had lurked unseen or that other regions are now seeing widespread infection? Yes. Dunno. Chickensoup. Can’t find daily trackers by region. If you have any info, please share it below.
But, in the end, grim.
For comparison, here is screen shot from the news two weeks ago:
TAKE A LOOK.
Yeah, two weeks ago, we just passed 100,000 worldwide with about 80% in one province in China. We are now between 250,000 to 300,000 depending on when you read this.
But the really grim number here is that two weeks later, the numbers of deaths is about two thirds of what the total number of cases were of the seventh. Also, the number of new deaths today is about half of what total number of new cases were two weeks ago.
That’s freaking grim.
More grim numbers from Europe:
Switzerland added over 1200 cases in the past day, bring the total to over 5000. But what is really grim is that it brings its number of infections per inhabitant (597 per million people) closer to Italy’s (779/M). Lets hope it is due to better testing.
Germany had about 4,400 new cases in the past day. That compares with about 3,000 per day for the past couple of days.
Hopeful (tempered) numbers from Europe:
Spain’s new cases are down. Yes, the narrative from Madrid seems bleak, and yes, the new deaths number has grown, but it is something to watch with a hopeful eye. Also, UK daily totals are still growing but the rate of increase seems to have slowed a bit.
Where am I getting these numbers?
WorldOmeters. It marks the days from GMT, different countries report at different times, so sometimes cases that are close to each other time-wise might end up on the current day or might be in the cumulative numbers.
www.worldometers.info/…
They compile a table which can be sorted of all the countries (and territories) that have reported cases with categories for cases, deaths (both new and cumulative), recovered cases. There are graphs as well that you can view in linear or logarithm mode. You delve deeper into many countries. The have a chronologically arrange roll of narrative updates with sources. So much data. But there is one number on this whole chart that really gets me down. It’s that last number. I mentioned it earlier. It’s the number of cases per million people. And what freaks me out about that number is that it is just not that big. Italy, with 778 cases per million has been pushed to the limits in places and has been the witness of horrors that nobody could have imagined a few weeks ago.
778 cases for every million people
That’s it. That’s how few people it takes to throw a nation into a very dire place. For those who prefer percentages, here’s a grim number:
.0778%
Okay, but there’s alot of folks who are probably infected but who aren’t tested and counted, right?
Sure… I’ve heard quite a few wild guesses about the number of those lurkers, too. I’m going to pick a common one that also makes the math easy: 10. Lets say the real number of infected is ten times the reported number. That means it takes a whopping .78% of the population to be sick to really cause some serious misery. Considering various sources claim that we can expect an eventual infection rate somewhere around 50% (80%) for Madrid or California, depending on who is holding the crystal ball. Maybe just 40%. Or the hopeful 20% target gained through serious social measures.
So, the best case for the future is twenty times Italy today? Wow. That is fucking grim.
But most are in one region of Italy, right? Lombardy has had the worst of it, so lets look at that rate of infection. 10 million people, 20,000 cases… that’s 2000 per million which is .2%. Sounds grim at first, but maybe there are ten times the number of infections there (personally I doubt the number is that high, but let’s hope that the infection rate is much higher with a great portion of people suffering only mildly and becoming immune), which means they are really at a 2%. Nevermind. That’s grim. They’re only one tenth of the way through this ordeal.
Does that mean we can look forward to a Lombardy situation for ten times the duration that they have already (maybe in waves if we end up cycling through more permissive and more restrictive policies and measures)? I have no idea. But right now the numbers look pretty damn grim to me.
For reference, you can see that the US is at 50 per million (or .005%).
One out of every 20,000 Americans is confirmed positive
With our shitty testing, the real number of infections may very easily be ten times what has been reported. That’s still only one out every 2,000 people. It’s going to be long ride.
Here’s a screenshot from 5 days ago
So, less than a week ago, NY reported its first death. Then another. By the next day NYC had 5 deaths as they passed the 300 mark for cases. How are things today?
About 5,000 those are in the city. Or 500 per million. Or about .05%. Or about one in 2000. Or about two thirds the rate in Lombardy. And, even though PPE is scarce and the city is on lockdown, they are not in the dire situation Lombardy is, so is going to be okay there? I doubt it, because, like most numbers that catch my eye, there is a grim number in that chart. It shouldnt be grim, but it is to me today. Total deaths. The low number (compared to Eurooean numbers that are ahead of us by a week or more. It says to me that NYC really hasn’t seen the wave crash yet. We all kind of know that, I suppose. But with a population similar to Lombardy and prospects that aren’t much better and could be worse, it looks we are a week or ten days away from NYC alone seeing a thousand deaths or more everyday.
I hope my math is wrong. I hope i missed something important that makes this all look less grim.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
EDIT: Updated title to reflect info in the comments regarding Italian numbers.