COVID-19 27th March 2020

Where do I start today?  The biggest story is that the US cases now exceed China's. From having 13,779 cases one week ago they now have 85,435 ... that's a 600% increase.  It was always suspected that the number of US cases as much higher than reported due to the lack of testing, but now that they have started testing it is quite stark. What did president Trump have to say ...'It's a tribute to the amount of testing we're doing, we're doing a tremendous amount of testing .. and I'm sure you're not able to tell what China is testing or not testing'

The UK saw new cases exceed 2,000 for the first time, up from its highest day yesterday of 1,452 to 2,129 and the first day that the number of deaths exceed 100 (144).

On the 21st Mar I speculated that if the UK cases continued at the rate we were seeing (doubling every 3 days) then by 28th we would be seeing 16,000 cases which would confirm that UK is on exactly the same trajectory as Italy (i.e. on 12th/13th March).  We are at 11,658 with 2 days still to go!

Germany also saw its highest number of new cases, after being lower than the previous high of 6 days ago of 4,528 for the last 5 days, the number of new cases spiked to 6,625.

Italy now has more than double the number of deaths than China (8,215 v 3,292) and is approaching the same number of cases 80,589 v 81,340 (which I expect it will exceed today) and Spain has now exceeded China's death rate 4,365 v 3,292 with 71% of the number of cases ( 57,786 v 81,340).

France also had its highest number of new cases up from 3,838 3 days ago to 3,922  and its highest number of new deaths 364 v 240 2 days ago.

It all looks very gloomy, however, if we look at China's stats from 1st March (approx 5 weeks from when they first starting reporting) the number of cases was 80,026 and 26th Mar 81,340, that's only 1,314 new cases in almost 4 weeks (average 50 per day) and the overall recovery rate is 96%. Let's all hope that the figures we are seeing in the West (especially Italy and Spain) is approaching the peak.  I fear that the UK and US are trailing by at least 2 weeks and the worst is yet to come.

Latest stats from Worldometers.

NB I have now added US figures

26/03/2020
Daily	26-Mar				25 Mar (-1 Day)
Country	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	6,203	80,589	8,215	10.2%	74,386	7,503	10.1%
ES	8,271	57,786	4,365	7.6%	49,515	3,647	7.4%
DE	6,625	43,938	267	0.6%	37,323	206	0.6%
FR	3,922	29,155	1,696	5.8%	25,233	1,331	5.3%
UK	2,129	11,658	578	5.0%	9,529	465	4.9%
US	17,224	85,435	1,295	1.5%	68,211	1,027	1.5%

Weekly	26-Mar				19 Mar (-1 Week)
Country	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	6,203	80,589	8,215	10.2%	41,035	3,405	8.3%
ES	8,271	57,786	4,365	7.6%	18,077	1093	6.0%
DE	6,625	43,938	267	0.6%	15,320	44	0.3%
FR	3,922	29,155	1,696	5.8%	10,995	372	3.4%
UK	2,129	11,658	578	5.0%	3,269	144	4.4%
US	17,224	85,435	1,295	1.5%	13,779	206	1.5%

	Daily		Weekly
Country	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor
IT	108.3%	101.1%	196.4%	122.8%
ES	116.7%	102.6%	319.7%	124.9%
DE	117.7%	110.1%	286.8%	211.6%
FR	115.5%	110.3%	265.2%	171.9%
UK	122.3%	101.6%	356.6%	112.6%
US	125.3%	100.7%	620.0%	101.4%