COVID-19 17th April 2020

Summary

US - new cases 30,206 (-639), Deaths 2,174 (-308)

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

62.42% v 37.58% Recovery Rate Reducing

ES - new cases 4,289 (-2,310), Deaths 503 (-54)

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

79.48% v 20.52% Recovery Rate Increasing

IT - new cases 3,786 (+1,119), Deaths 545 (-13)

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

64.43% v 35.57% Recovery Rate Increasing

FR - new cases 17,164 (+4,520), Deaths 753 (-685)

Another strange reporting day from France who's range is normally 2,000-8,000 cases but on 3 days now in APril have reported 23,060,11,059 and now 17,164 new cases.

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

64.68% v 35.32% Recovery Rate Increasing

DE - new cases 2,945 (+1,119), Deaths 248 (-61)

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

64.43% v 35.57% Recovery Rate Reducing

UK - new cases 4,617 (+14), Deaths 861 (+100)

Recovery Rate V Death Rate

2.44% v 97.56% Recovery Rate Reducing

Note UK does not appear to be removing recovered cases from acitve cases which results in active cases not reducing distorting the Recover v Death rates

Commentary

US - New York has more cases (226,198) than any EU country, New Jersey (75,317) will soon exceed the 'benchmark' of China of 80,000. US continues to have around 30,000 new cases per day and have had less than 25,000 every day in April so far. Deaths have been between 1,500 and 2,500 per day since 7 Apr. So ... the question is which set of figures is Donald Trump seeing to state that the US epidemic is slowing down sufficiently to remove shutdown?  Could it be that 20m people are now unemployed and the Dow Jones is down 20% and there is a presidential election in November?

To put this in context the US has 5 times the population of UK (330m v 68m) and has exactly the same urban population density 83% but a much smaller general population density 94 per square mile v 727 per square mile and a lower median age 38.3 v 40.5. If all things were equal you would expect UK to have 20% of US cases i.e. 135,000 in total or 6,000 per day, which it doesn't, so suggests that US is in a worse state than UK which is continuing lockdown.

Source Worldometers

France - once again sees a massive spike in new cases of 17,164 after the biggest spike in deaths to date yesterday of 1,438.

UK - as I predicted 5 days ago, UK now has more than 100,000 cases (103,093) exactly in line with the trajectory of Italy (101,739) on 30 Mar, but although 17 days behind Italy's curve, UK has a higher death rate 13.3% v 13.1% (which is the highest of all countries). NB Italy's death rate on 30 Mar was 11.4%. (Note death rate is no. of deaths as a percentage of total cases)

Germany - continues to have lowest death rate (2.9%) and is the only western country showing real signs that they have the situation under control. i.e. new cases have reduced to what they were a month ago and their active cases are reducing daily.  Their recovery rate is the highest at 95%.

Italy - after 5 consecutive days of reduced new cases saw an increase of 1,119 new cases and only on one day since 20 Mar have deaths been lower than 500.  Their active cases continue to rise indicating that unfortunately whilst cases are slowing it is gradual and shows no real signs of ending quickly.

Spain - active cases have been flattening since 1 Apr and for the first day have actualy reduced indicating that they may now be over the worst. Deaths have almost halved from the peak of 961 and seem to be reducing daily. Also, their Recovery Rate is increasing and is the 2nd highest after Germany at 79.5%.

China - have today 'adjusted' their reported deaths upwards by (very curiously) exactly 50% (by 1,290 from 2,579 to 3,869) on the same day they announce negative GDP!  Given the figures reported by the 6 major western countries, you would really have to question the accuracy of the Chinese 'official' figures.  They 'claim', that from 571 cases on 22 Jan to 80,026 on 1 Mar (38 days), that there have been only 2,341 new cases since (16 Apr 82,367).  i.e. on average only 50 new cases per day.

All 6 countries I am reporting (except UK) have already reached 38 days since first 500 cases and show absolutely no signs of a reduction in new cases to below 100 per day!

IT 48/49 days - (470 cases 26 Feb / 655 cases 27 Feb) - low since peak 2,667 15 Apr

DE 42 days - (545 cases 5 Mar) - low since peak 2,138 14 Apr

ES 40 days - (525 cases 7 Mar) - low since peak 3,268 13 Apr

FR 41/42 days - (423 cases 5 Mar / 653 cases 6 Mar) - low since peak 2,866 5 Apr

US 39 days -  (541 cases 8 Mar) - low since peak 25,400 5 Apr

UK 35 days - (590 cases 12 Mar) - low since peak 4,342 13 Apr

Russia - Conspiracy theorist amongst us may also have been wondering why Russia's figures have been so low but they seem to be 2-4 weeks behind, with their first 500 cases reported on 31 Mar, and are now seeing new cases rise consitently each day to now 3,448 with almost 28,000 cases.

Latest stats from Worldometers

Latest Recovery Rate v Death Rate

	Total	Active	Conc.	Recvd.	Deaths	Recvd%	Death%
IT	168,941	106,607	62,334	40,164	22,170	64.43%	35.57%
ES	184,948	90,836	94,112	74,797	19,315	79.48%	20.52%
DE	137,698	56,646	81,052	77,000	4,052	95.00%	5.00%
FR	165,027	114,295	50,732	32,812	17,920	64.68%	35.32%
UK	103,093	89,020	14,073	344	13,729	2.44%	97.56%
US	677,570	585,445	92,125	57,508	34,617	62.42%	37.58%

Latest v prevous day - increase/decrease

Country	New Cases 16 Apr	New Cases 15 Apr	New Case Increase	Deaths 16 Apr	Deaths 15 Apr	Death Increase
IT	3,786	2,667	1,119	545	558	-13
ES	4,289	6,599	-2,310	503	557	-54
DE	2,945	2,543	402	248	309	-61
FR	17,164	4,520	12,644	753	1438	-685
UK	4,617	4,603	14	861	761	100
US	29,567	30,206	-639	2,174	2,482	-308

Latest v previous day - actuals

Daily	16-Apr				15-Apr
Country	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	3,786	168,941	22,170	13.1%	165,155	21,625	13.1%
ES	4,289	184,948	19,315	10.4%	180,549	18,812	10.4%
DE	2,945	137,698	4,052	2.9%	134,753	3,804	2.8%
FR	17,164	165,027	17,920	10.9%	147,863	17,167	11.6%
UK	4,617	103,093	13,729	13.3%	98,476	12,868	13.1%
US	29,567	677,570	34,617	5.1%	644,089	32,443	5.0%

Latest v one week ago - actuals

Weekly	16-Apr				09-Apr
Country	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	3,786	168,941	22,170	13.1%	143,626	18,279	12.7%
ES	4,289	184,948	19,315	10.4%	153,222	15,447	10.1%
DE	2,945	137,698	4,052	2.9%	118,235	2,607	2.2%
FR	17,164	165,027	17,920	10.9%	117,749	12,210	10.4%
UK	4,617	103,093	13,729	13.3%	65,077	7,978	12.3%
US	29,567	677,570	34,617	5.1%	469,124	16,712	3.6%

Latest v one week ago - percentage rate increase

	Daily		Weekly
Country	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor
IT	102.3%	100.2%	117.6%	103.1%
ES	102.4%	100.2%	120.7%	103.6%
DE	102.2%	104.2%	116.5%	133.5%
FR	111.6%	93.5%	140.2%	104.7%
UK	104.7%	101.9%	158.4%	108.6%
US	105.2%	101.4%	144.4%	143.4%