Category Coronavirus

Coronavirus – One year later

On 27 January 2020 I made my first post on the Coronavirus. It was appropriately titled: Plague? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The above photo was the one I used for that post a year ago. A few quotes from that post:

“This is tragic but the worse may yet to come. The human toll is going to tragically get worse. The virus apparently can spread before symptoms show. One wonder how bad it is going to be before it is contained.”

and:

“There could also be a significant economic cost”

and:

“Don’t want to be alarmist, but this does concern me. We have not had a major world-wide “plague” since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1920.”

and:

“The Coronavirus will hopefully be contained soon like SARS was, but the scenarios are frightening if it is not.”

I ended up doing a lot of other posts about the Coronavirus over this last year. In part, as a historian I am kind of aware of the significance impact various plagues have had over time. While we have not had a lot of experiences with such problems in the last hundred years, there is no lack of exposure to them in history. I could argue that if people had really properly studied their history and applied lessons from it, less people would have died. On the other hand, I am not sure I want to make that argument in a briefing to DOD on the value of historical analysis. 

Coronavirus Mortality Rates update 12

Well, the coronavirus is now the lead story of every news service. There are a lot of real experts now on TV talking about this. Not sure how much longer I will continue these coronavirus updates. But, since my last post the number of cases is up dramatically, sadly so are the number of deaths, and of significance, so is the mortality rate. In countries that previously had low mortality rates, like Germany, they have now risen to above 1%.

China continues to report very few new cases. On 11 March they reported 80.9K cases. Twenty days later they are at 82.3K cases. So it is only growing by around 70 cases a day. The Wednesday before last it was 81,102, last Tuesday it was 81,588 now it is 82,276. This is 1,174 new reported cases in thirteen days or 90 cases a day. This is not quite contained. The same story with S. Korea (and North Korea has no cases?). If one relaxes some of the restrictions for the sake of getting the economy working again, what happens? I understand that Hong Kong has had this experience.

 

Country……….Cases……Deaths……Rate

World Wide……803,650….39,033….…4.86%

United States….164,785……2,777+..….1.69%

Italy………..……101,739….11,591…….11.39%

Spain………..…..94,417……8,189….…..8.67%

China.……………82,276……3,290+.…….3.89%

Germany…….…..67,051….….682………1.02%

France……………45,209…..3,024……….6.69%

Iran…………….…44,605…..2,898……….6.50%

United Kingdom…22,465…..1,411…….…6.28%

Switzerland………16,176…….373………..2.31%

Belgium….………..12,775…….705…….….5.52%

Netherlands.……..12,662….1,039………..8.21%

Turkey…………….10,827……168……..…1.55%

Austria…………..…9,974…….128………..1.28%

S. Korea……….….9,786…….162………..1.65%

Canada………….…7,448……..84….……1.13%

Portugal.…..………..7,443……160…….….2.15%

Israel…….…………..4,831……..17…….…0.35%

Brazil………………..4,681…….167….……3.57%

Norway………….…4,599..…….36…….…0.78%

Australia……………4,559..…….12….……0.26%

Sweden…..…………4,435…….180……….0.83%

Czech Rep…………3,002………25…….…0.83%

Denmark..….………2,994………90………3.01%

Ireland………………2,910………54.………1.86%

Malaysia….…..……2,766…..….43…….…1.55%

Chile..……………….2,449……..…8….……0.33%

Russia…….…….…2,337….…..17……….0.73%

Romania……………2,245…..….72…….…3.21%

Poland………………2,215…..….32…..….1.44%

Philippines…….……2,084………88………4.22%

Luxembourg.……….1,988….…..22………1.11%

Ecuador.….…………1,966………62………2.87%

Japan………….……1,953…..….56.….…..2.87%

Pakistan……….……1,865….….25….…….1.34%

Thailand.…..………..1,651….….10.…….…0.61%

Saudi Arabia……..…1,563………10………0.64%

Indonesia….…………1,528…….136……….8.90%

Finland….……….…..1,418……..17………1.20%

South Africa….…..…1,326…….…3……….0.23%

India…………………..1,251………32.……….2.56%

Greece..….……….….1,212….….46…….…3.806%

Iceland…………..……1,135…….…2…….…0.18%

Mexico……………..…1,094……..28…….…2.56%

Panama……………….1,075….….27………2.51%

 

Forty-four countries around the world with over a thousand reported cases. Last week it was 26 countries, the week before that it was 16 countries. A few other entities of interest to this author that have less than a thousand cases so far:

 

Argentina…..……..……966……….25….……2.59%

Peru…..………………….950……….24….……2.53%

Singapore…..……..……926……..…3…….…0.32%

Dominican Rep..…….…901….……42….……4.66%

Slovenia……………….…802.………15………1.87%

Colombia…………….….798.………14……….1.75%

Serbia…………………….785.………16…….…2.04%

Hong Kong….……………714……..…4….……0.56%

Egypt…………..…………656……….41……….6.25%

New Zealand…………….647……..…1…….…0.15%

Iraq…..……………….…..630..……..46…..……7.30%

Algeria………..…..………584………35………..5.99%

Morocco………..………..574………33………..5.75%

Bahrain……….….………567……..…4………..0.71%

Ukraine…………………..549……….13……..…2.37%

Hungary………………….492.………16…….….3.25%

Lebanon……..………..…463..……..12…..…….2.59%

Bosnia………………..….411.……….12…….….2.92%

Andorra………………….370.…….…..8….…….2.16%

Tunisia……………….…..362.………10….…….2.76%

Taiwan………………..…322…………5………..1.55%

Burkina Faso……………246.…..…..12…….….4.88%

Albania……………….….243.……….13…….….5.35%

San Marino…………..…230………..25……….10.87%

Vietnam….…………..…207……….…0…….….0%

Afghanistan…………..…174….……..4…….….2.30%

Palestine…..…………….117…………1….…….0.95%

North Korea..…………..0……..…..…0…..….…0%

Syria……….……..……..0……..……..0…..….…0%

Yemen…………….……..0……..……..0….…..…0%

Libya……….…………….0………..…..0….…..…0%

Diamond Princess….712……………11……..….1.54%

 

Part of my concern is the spread of the disease across the Middle East and Central Asia. There are a number of countries in the region still at war, including Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. How does one contain a virus in a country at war? Do they then serve as a vector for the rest of the countries in the region?

Data is from Johns Hopkins CSSE 3/24/20 as of 10:01.43 AM EST. The data page is no longer showing count of less then 3 deaths in their tabulation, but shows it on their map. It makes it harder to count all the deaths in the United States as they are reported by country. The United States now has over 3,000 deaths. It is here: Johns Hopkins CSSE

 

A few more observations:

  1. It does appear that at best the mortality rate is around 1% if: 1) there is good health care and 2) there is good reporting.
    1. The 1% figure appears to be borne out by the reporting from South Korea and the more contained environment of the cruise ships.
      1. Still the South Korean mortality rate continues to grow to now 1.65%. I gather they have tested more than 300,000 people.
      2. The Diamond Princess deaths are at 11, for a 1.54% mortality rate. Is the mortality rate for an older population hovering around 2%?
    2. There are now few European countries that are reporting a rate of less than 1%. In most cases, it would appear that the mortality rate is going to increase over time. This has happened with German, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Ireland. Last week they were all around 0.50%, now they are all over 1%.
      1. Germany is at  1.02%. Switzerland is at 2.31%, Austria is at 1.28%,  Norway is at 0.78% and Ireland is at 1.86%.
      2. It appears that these numbers will continue to go up as more data comes in and unfortunately, more people become seriously ill.
    3. The actual mortality rate is a big issue if one is going to do any estimate of potential impact (population * percent infected * mortality rate and modified by improvements in care and developments of vaccines). I have been thinking about post about this at some point…but…
      1. Do I do an estimate based upon a rate of 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% or 2%? Makes a big difference.
  2. Needless to say, countries will high mortality rate obviously have a lot more cases than they are reporting. If mortality really is around 1% or less, then it appears there are already over a million cases in Italy and over a half-million cases in Spain.
    1. Now it could be that the natural mortality rate in Italy will be higher than what we are seeing for S. Korea. This will be explored in a future post.
  3. San Marino has a population of 33,562. With 230 cases, this makes it the “most infected” country in the world with 0.69% infected. San Marino also has a very high mortality rate at around 11%. They may well have over 7% of the country infected.
    1. The Holy See (Vatican City) is second with 6 cases in around 1,000 people (0.60%)
    2. Andorra with a population of 76,177 and 370 cases I gather is now third at 0.48%. Is Andorra a snapshot of the future of Spain like San Marino looks like a snapshot of the future of Italy?
    3. Italy with 60,317,546 people and 101,739 cases is fourth (0.17%), maybe (I haven’t checked every country).
      1. If they really have over a million cases then we are looking at almost 2% infected.
  4. I still suspect 44 U.S. passengers from the Diamond Princess are being double counted in CSSE database. They are now listed as a subset of the Diamond Princess button, but I suspect they are still being counted in the U.S. totals.
    1. Also, Hong Kong’s 714 cases are also counted under China. I just choose to separate out Hong Kong because there is/was a political protest movement of some significance going on there.

 

There is now a single line on this graph, which represents the entire world. The “Total Recovered” is reported at 172,869 out of 809,608 cases and 39,545 deaths (as of 11.11.10 AM).

Plague?

This is far from my area of expertise, but I am following the spread of the Coronavirus with concern. It has already killed over 50 80 106 people in China, forced them to shut down a city of 11 million people (Wuhan); and now there are three five cases in the U.S., three in France, almost 2,000 more than 2,700 confirmed cases in China (more than 4,500 on Tuesday, 28 Jan.), more than 40 confirmed cases outside of China in 13 places (more than 70 confirmed cases in 17 places on Tuesday, 28 Jan.). They say nearly 60 million people in China are on partial or full lock down in multiple cities. What we know

This is tragic but the worse may yet to come. The human toll is going to tragically get worse. The virus apparently can spread before symptoms show. One wonders how bad it is going to be before it is contained.

There could also be a significant economic cost. Considering that nearly 60 million people are on partial or full lock down….what does this do to production and work? As the virus spread, what is the economic cost? One can envision a scenario where Chinese economy stalls or declines and there is criticism of the government response (which is almost inevitable if this continues to expand). Does this created additional unrest or internal problems in China? Does this further impact the Chinese economy? Would a decline of the Chinese economy (which is 16% of the world economy) result in a stalling or decline of many other economies in the world? One could spin out a downward scenario here.

Don’t want to be alarmist, but this does concern me. We have not had a major world-wide “plague”  since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1920. According to some accounts it affected up to 500 million people and killed 50 million or more. More recently was SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) from 2002-2004. This came out of China, transferred to humans from bats in Yunnan province. It produced 8,098 documented cases resulting in 774 deaths in 17 countries. It was completely contained and no new cases have been reported since 2004. There has also been MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) or the “Camel flu” from 2012 to the present which has affected almost 2,000 people with a mortality rate of 36% among those diagnosed! It was not just confined to the Middle East with an outbreak in South Korea in 2015 that killed 36. There may be a large number of milder undiagnosed cases. This disease is still not contained.

The Coronavirus will hopefully be contained soon like SARS was, but the scenarios are frightening if it is not.

 

 

P.S. In the news Monday morning: Dow falls more than 400 points as the coronavirus outbreak worsens