President Trump points at a bar graph, Getty Images
We have reached several bigly pandemical milestones. Yesterday, the 'global confirmed cases' total passed three million; the 'global death' total passed two hundred thousand. Also yesterday, the 'US confirmed cases' total passed one million; the 'US death' total was just below sixty thousand. The US will pass the 'mythical' sixty thousand mark later today (link to an article by Mike Tomasky, a childhood acquaintance). The data model used to generate that sixty thousand number, at IHME, has revised its expected total to over seventy-four thousand. Today, Portugal has under twenty-five thousand confirmed cases, and still under a thousand deaths.
These are the top-level stats that we can use to measure the pandemic; they give us scale. Now, states and nations are moving to 're-open', at least in part. The White House published gating criteria for the regions to re-open. One of the most aggressive states is Georgia, which began to re-open on Friday. Its governor, Brian Kemp, is flagrantly ignoring the criteria. Almost making matters worse, Georgia is scoring well, relative to other states, with informational tools like testing, so Governor Kemp should know better. Georgia has tested at a rate of about fourteen thousand per million; Portugal has tested at thirty nine thousand per million.
Interestingly, Georgia has about the same population as Portugal, both with around ten and a half million. And both Georgia and Portugal confirmed it's first COVID-19 case on March 2. This sets up an intriguing comparison. One notable statistical difference is in land area: Georgia is about fifty percent larger than Portugal.
Yesterday, the Portuguese government announced the end of the State of Emergency starting May 3rd. They announced that the nation would drop to a State of Calamity, but the kinds of restrictions that will still be in place are similar to those announced in Georgia. However, it seems that, unlike Georgia, larger venues like movie theaters and dine-in restaurants will remain closed, though universities will be given the option to restart.
Portugal's State of Emergency and stay-at-home orders began on March 19th; Georgia closed schools at about the same time, but did not order shelter-in-place until April 2nd. On April 1st, Portugal had almost twice as many cases (8,251 vs 4,748), so the growth curves have been different. Georgia passed Portugal in cases and deaths in just the past two or three days.
Portugal's State of Emergency and stay-at-home orders began on March 19th; Georgia closed schools at about the same time, but did not order shelter-in-place until April 2nd. On April 1st, Portugal had almost twice as many cases (8,251 vs 4,748), so the growth curves have been different. Georgia passed Portugal in cases and deaths in just the past two or three days.
The White House and CDC criteria recommends a 'fourteen-day downward trajectory'; I could find no further guidance on how to calculate this. If we look at the confirmed cases data, we can apply, say, a ten-day rolling average trend line. Georgia's line rises steadily until about April 16th, then stays flat at just over eight hundred cases per day for about a week. From there it is on a downward trend for just a day or two when the state begins to re-open on April 24th. Portugal's line rises until April 5th, then stays flat at just under eight hundred cases per day until about April 10th. It has been dropping now for almost three weeks. Georgia's rolling average ending on April 28th is about seven hundred per day; Portugal's is about five hundred per day.
By yesterday, the datasets for Georgia and Portugal were running almost in parallel, when considering total cases and deaths. Georgia reported just under twenty-five thousand (24,844) total confirmed cases, and Portugal reported just a little lower (24,322). Georgia reported just over a thousand (1,036) total deaths, and Portugal reported just under (948). However, day over day, over the most recent two weeks Georgia's numbers are growing much faster than Portugal's: about four percent (4.10%, or 733/day) to about two and half percent (2.45%, or 491/day) – these rates correspond with the rolling averages above.
In terms of deaths, a lagging statistical indicator, Georgia is increasing faster as well. Georgia is growing about six percent (5.73%, or 34.1/day), and Portugal about four percent (3.89%, or 25.4/day). So I'm very curious to watch what will happen going forward. What difference will it make: the few days earlier that Portugal locked-down, and the few days later that Portugal will open up?
Another interesting snap-shot of the pandemic is posted on Kieran Healey's blog. Here, Healey has nerded-out with some Maps data that Apple made public a few days ago. City by city, Healey shows the impact the pandemic has had on iPhone travel data: walking, driving, and mass transit. There are interesting spikes, for example, in the transit graphs right before the lock-downs as, perhaps, travelers scrambled to get home (look at Barcelona, and Stuttgart, for example). Also shocking to see how little the pandemic affected data for the cities in Taiwan (Taichung, Taipei).
However, science requires peer review and confirmation through research, so I truly appreciated Healey's providing context:
The tendency to launch right into what social scientists call the “Storytime!” phase of data analysis when looking at some graph or table of results is really strong. We already know from other COVID-related analysis how tricky and indeed dangerous it can be to mistakenly infer too much from what you think you see in the data.Good words to hold onto while we move through the pandemic. Regardless, we still strive to make some sense of this. As scary as these times are, there is a kind of natural fascination at work, as we watch nations and people react. Like estimates, those reactions live between fact and fiction.
cases: 3,141,981 global • 1,037,416 USA • 24,505 Portugal • 429 Taiwan
deaths: 218,564 global • 59,221 USA • 973 Portugal • 6 Taiwan
Here is an interesting article on CNN about the scientists trying to find the origins and get ahead of the next pandemic.
Also, speaking of scientists, here is a video lecture with the Vice President of Taiwan, Dr. Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist trained at John Hopkins. Dr. Chen will soon be succeeded by Dr. Lai Ching-te, a medical doctor with a degree in public health from Harvard. Compare them to the Head of the US Coronavirus Task Force, VP Mike Pence – an anti-science, christian-conservative lawyer.
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