Estimate for today was within 1% again, except Italy was 2% lower on both infections and deaths. That is two days of increasingly lower rates than projected. GOOD JOB ITALY! Their March 22 numbers are on track to be less than the original 1week projection. Death rates are still high, at almost 8%. It’s hard to bring that down, especially since their population is 9 years older than the US, China, South Korea, etc.
The US has been consistently higher than projections. Authorities won’t test for COV19 if you test positive for influenza first. It’s likely the US reporting rate is less than the 14% that China had. On March 22, the US will be higher than the original 1week projection. Death rates are at 1.68%, which is suspiciously low. I am concerned that perhaps deaths are being attributed to other things, or testing is being avoided so that the stats look better. It could also be a new strain of the virus, but I would think that would get a lot of promotion from the government.
I’m having a discrepancy between World vs PRC + nonPRC, with WORLD going high. This may be a random error, but I’m wondering if China’s +30/day is false information. They have kicked out foreign press, and are in a propaganda war with the White House over who’s at fault. The difference is bigger than I would expect could come from the US’s reporting anomalies.
Because of reporting deficiencies, the real number infected is 6-8x the formal numbers, and that typically equates to about a week into the future as a SWAG for real but unreported cases. If you are still going out of the house with non-family members for recreational purposes, you are being selfish, and are a menace to society. If you are doing so to provide essential services, then please be extra careful.
Some of you may have noticed that, if the detection rate is only 14%, then that means the mortality rate is also a sixth of what we think. Yes, but it still spreads too fast, and the absolute numbers of people needing hospital care to survive still would overwhelm hospitals, leading to much higher death rates. So, even if the mortality rate is a flat 0.5% for everyone under age 64, and hospitalization needs are still only 2%, we still need to flatten the curve. At the current rate, and assuming 14% reporting rate, the US is on track to have the whole population infected in one month, with 6 million needing hospital care, and about a million needing external ventillation. We have about a million beds, and about 100k ventillators, with another 60k of old and less effective types. Also, if everyone is sick, who can be the caregivers?
Projections for tomorrow are WW 214086/8769; 81083/3243 PRC; 134076/5591 Non-PRC; 35476/2903 IT; 8901/137 US; 142/1 TX. I think we can expect the US to be 1-2% above projection, and Italy 1-2% below projection. Texas should have additional deaths any day now, but both TX and the US are still tracking substantially lower death rates than expected. I’m hoping to see a slow-down for the US next week. It seems a lot of people got the message for today, and have been reducing their out-of-house socializing.
