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Tuesday 28 April 2020

COVID-19 28th April 2020


Summary

New
Cases
Change Deaths Change
Rec'ry
Rate
Death
Rate
IT 1,739 -25.17% 333 +28.1% 71.18% 28.82%  Increasing
ES 2,793 -2.68% 331 +14.9%  83.71%  16.29%  Increasing
DE 988 -21.40% 150 +51.5% 94.92% 5.08%  Reducing
FR 3,742  +2209.88% 437 +80.6% 66.15% 33.85%  Reducing
UK 4,309 -3.45% 360 -12.8% 1.60% 98.40%  Reducing
US 23,196 -12.50% 1,384 +19.6% 70.99% 29.01%  Increasing

Let's take a look at what's happening globally:

Total Cases 3,073,356
Deaths 211,766
Recovered Cases 924,637
Active Cases 1,936,953
Death Rate 6.89%
Recovery Rate 30.09%
Active Rate 63.02%

Commentary

UK
The first thing to comment on today is last night's BBC Panorama programme.  If you haven't watched it yet then watch it on iPlayer.  The essence of the programme was the findings of  Exercise Cygnus which was a study of preparedness for a flu-like pandemic originating in east asia in Oct. 2016 which the government deemed 'too terrifying' to be made public'. Daily Telegraph, The Guardian.  A group of doctors are now pursuing a judicial review under the Freedom Of Information Act to force the government to disclose the findings. 

The programme concluded that there was insufficient PPE (personal protection equipment) especially gowns, eye protection, swabs and body bags which the government knew about in 2016 yet did not to act on the findings.  

What struck me most (and is systematic of this government) is their use of statistics to try and blind the public i.e. stating that a billion items of PPE have been delivered.  What does that actually mean?  Well the programme exposed it e.g. a pair of gloves for example were counted as 2 items - does that mean each individual swab was counted as one item?  Just like the recent flight to Turkey to collect PPE where they stated something like 80 tons of equipment - what does that actually mean?  Other recent examples include their election pledge on providing 50,000 more nurses which turned out to be more like 31,000 new nurses as they claimed they would try to prevent 19,000 leaving and building 40 new hospitals which was actually funding for 6 hospitals to upgrade!

One of the most disturbing things in the programme was that a UK manufacturer of material to make gowns had applied to government to provide it and has been ignored and now that material is being exported to US, yet UK government claims that there is a worldwide shortage.

The shortage of swabs may explain why there has been a lack of testing.  It will be interesting to see on Thursday how they 'massage' the target of 100,000 tests per day.  I very much suspect that they will claim that we have the capacity for close to 100,000 which will also explain the sudden rush in recent days to provide access to testing online - so that they can claim more tests being requested.

I'm sorry if this sounds cynical but you must 'listen' what these politicians 'actually' say.   They don't necessarily lie but the way things are phrased is very revealing.  Matt Hancock will claim that 100,000 test was a 'goal' and that he didn't actually commit to there being that number available.

Every time a difficult question is asked they have obviously been briefed to just respond with 'we are following the science'.

Just take a look at the latest stats and it is evident that the UK is highly likely to be the worst affected country in the world.  Yes world, as, whilst US has more that 6 times the number of cases, their death rate is less than half of UK's. 5.6% v 13.4%   - the global average is currently 6.89%

I stated earlier this week that UK is 1 or 2 days ahead of Italy's trajectory. Italy took 12 days to rise from 100,000 (101,739 30 Mar) cases to 150,000 (152,171 11 Apr), UK took 10 days 103,093 (16 Apr) 152,840 (26 Apr) and UK is almost 1,000 cases ahead of where Italy was one day later.  In terms of deaths Italy had 19,468 11 Mar UK has 20,732 26 Apr.  The UK has not seen fewer than 4,000 new cases per day since 7 Apr or less than 3,000 since 30 Mar.  The no. of new cases is almost exactly the same as it was 1 Apr (4,324 1 Apr v 4,309 26 Apr) nearly a month later. To look at it another way, two weeks after lockdown (23 Mar) you would expect new cases to decline, yet since 8 Apr there have been more than 4,000 new cases per day.

What still concerns me is that UK is the only country in the world not reporting the number of recovered cases.  I monitor the active cases charts which show total cases less deaths and recovered cases and indicates whether the active cases are increasing or reducing.  From this you can ascertain whether the peak has been reached which in the case of all other EU countries reported it has. Germany now has almost half of the active cases it had on 6 Apr (52.3%).  Without these figures we will never know how the UK is progressing.

US
US - over 1 million cases 1,010,507, almost 300,000 (298,004) of these in New York.

It was beyond belief when I saw images of beaches in southern california packed with people and especially 4 guys playing hand ball and high-fiving. California is the 5th worst affected state with currently 'only' 45,157 cases so perhaps these people think that because NY has 300k they have somehow avoided it. NY taking it for the team?  It will be interesting to see what the figure is in 10 days - I suspect it will be 100,000 or more given the relaxed attitude to social distancing.


Latest stats from Worldometers


Latest v previous day - Recovery rate v Death Rate

Total Active Conc. Recvd. Deaths Recvd% Death%
IT 199,414 105,813 93,601 66,624 26,977 71.18% 28.82%
ES 229,422 85,069 144,353 120,832 23,521 83.71% 16.29%
DE 158,758 38,132 120,626 114,500 6,126 94.92% 5.08%
FR 165,842 97,036 68,806 45,513 23,293 66.15% 33.85%
UK 157,149 135,713 21,436 344 21,092 1.60% 98.40%
US 1,010,356 814,569 195,787 138,990 56,797 70.99% 29.01%

Latest v previous day - increase / decrease

Country
New Cases
27 Apr
New Cases
26 Apr
New Case Increase
 
Deaths
27 Apr
 
Deaths
26 Apr
 
Death
Increase
IT 1,739 2,324 -585 333 260 73
ES 2,793 2,870 -77 331 288 43
DE 988 1,257 -269 150 99 51
FR 3,742 162 3,580 437 242 195
UK 4,309 4,463 -154 360 413 -53
US 23,196 26,509 -3,313 1,384 1,157 227

Latest v previous day - actuals

Daily 27-Apr 26-Apr
Country New Cases Total Cases No. Deaths Death Rate% Total Cases No. Deaths Death Rate%
IT 1,739 199,414 26,977 13.5% 197,675 26,644 13.5%
ES 2,793 229,422 23,521 10.3% 226,629 23,190 10.2%
DE 988 158,758 6,126 3.9% 157,770 5,976 3.8%
FR 3,742 165,842 23,293 14.0% 162,100 22,856 14.1%
UK 4,309 157,149 21,092 13.4% 152,840 20,732 13.6%
US 23,196 1,010,356 56,797 5.6% 987,160 55,413 5.6%

Latest v one week ago - actuals

Weekly 27-Apr 20-Apr
Country New Cases Total Cases No. Deaths Death Rate%
Total
Cases
No.
Deaths
Death Rate%
IT 1,739 199,414 26,977 13.5% 181,228 24,114 13.3%
ES 2,793 229,422 23,521 10.3% 200,210 20,852 10.4%
DE 988 158,758 6,126 3.9% 147,065 4,862 3.3%
FR 3,742 165,842 23,293 14.0% 150,278 20,265 13.5%
UK 4,309 157,149 21,092 13.4% 124,743 16,509 13.2%
US 23,196 1,010,356 56,797 5.6% 798,145 42,853 5.4%

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 100.9% 100.4% 110.0% 101.7%
ES 101.2% 100.2% 114.6% 98.4%
DE 100.6% 101.9% 108.0% 116.7%
FR 102.3% 99.6% 110.4% 104.2%
UK 102.8% 98.9% 126.0% 101.4%
US 102.3% 100.1% 126.6% 104.7%


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