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%