AMERICAN THINKER -- COVID-19: The Numbers Tell The Fascinating Story

March 16, 2020
COVID-19: The Numbers Tell The Story
By Marc Sheppard
Updated.

By merging datasets recently made available by the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and Johns Hopkins University, I've gathered some truly fascinating trend statistics on the global penetration of COVID-19 that I'm now prepared to share. There are 20 infected countries on page one of my analysis — and these are their stories.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Global Penetration Statistics by Country as of 3/14/2020 08:00 GMT

Data Image Copyright © 2020 by Marc Sheppard.

You'll notice that this particular data snapshot contains population, new cases reported, deaths, and recoveries by country of exposure. I've added five columns for each metric: total, today, last 5 days, 6–10 days ago, and 11–15 days ago are calculated for each in order to spot trends.

I've also added percentages of cases per population, fatalities per caseload, and recoveries per caseload, by country and worldwide.

The 2020 populations came courtesy of a U.N. dataset, which I joined to an ECDC dataset for daily new case and death details and a JHU-CSSE dataset for recovery details. The latter two are updated daily at 0800 GMT.

I was tempted to submit the result-set without comment, but perhaps I should get the conversation started.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) — by the Numbers

Note: When reading this section, please keep in mind that its analysis was penned based on older data (3/14/20). I've added an update including latest data table in the final section. Together, the 2 days' data tell quite the fast-paced story. Hang on to your hat.

Note: This was Saturday.

Now, then, I've sorted the result-set descending by caseload, which puts the country where it all began, China, on top by a wide margin, with 80,973 confirmed cases, 3,194 deaths, and 64,196 patients recovered. Given a population of 1.44 billion, that's a 0.005626% infection rate (that's 1 in 19,011), a 3.94% mortality rate, and a 79.28% recovery rate thus far.

Additionally, over the past 15 days, cases and deaths are both trending way down while recoveries trend up — a great sign of successful countermeasures policy.

A note on mortality rates: There's high confidence that all are quite overstated in the case of COVID-19, due primarily to its tendency to manifest light or zero symptoms in over 80% of its hosts, who subsequently dismiss their illness as a common cold. As such, the denominator of its mortality calculations are heavily understated, causing the overstatement of the calculated percentage. As testing becomes more widespread, this problem should self-correct.

That said, to say that Italy is less encouraging than China would be quite the understatement. Italy places with 17,660 cases, 1,268 deaths, and 1,439 recoveries. Italy has the highest mortality rate (in the top 20) at 7.18%, and more than half its cases (10,285) were reported in the past 5 days (very bad). And of all nations with populations exceeding 500,000, Italy ranks #1 in infected rate at 0.029209 (that's 1 in every 3,424 people).

But it's the past 15 days that concern me the most. Eleven to fifteen days ago, there were 1,852 new cases. Six to ten days ago, 4,873. And the 10,285 in the past 5 days represent 58% of the nation's cases. Hmmmmm.

Italian fatalities in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments, were 63, 286, and 902. In the latest data, they reported 252 COVID-19-related deaths.

Italian recoveries in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments, were 440, 440, and 817. The latest data reported 394 COVID-19 recoveries.

The show position goes to, of all places, Iran: 11,364 cases, 514 deaths, and 2,959 recoveries. It has the second highest mortality rate at 4.52%, and 42% of its cases (4,798) were reported in the past 5 days. Infection rate is a moderate 0.01353 (1 in 7,390).

Cases reported in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments, were 2,091, 4,230, and 4,798. The latest data, they reported 1,289 COVID-19 cases.

Iranian fatalities in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments, were 51, 117, and 320. In the latest data, they reported 85 COVID-19-related deaths.

Iranian recoveries in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments were 738, 1,387, and 825. In the latest data, they reported no COVID-19 recoveries.

S. Korea (#4)'s infection rate (0.015772) is similar to Iran's. But check out the declining cases, flat fatalities, and rising recoveries over the past 15 days, while Spain (#5), France (#6), and Germany (#7) cases and fatalities have exploded in that time, although recoveries show a favorable trend.

Here at home (#8), as of 3/14/2020 datasets, there are only 2,174 confirmed cases in the USA. That's a 0.000007 rate (1 in 152,255). And, not to minimize these passings, but for all the hype, there've been only 47 deaths attributed to the virus (mortality = 2.16) in America ever.

But U.S. cases in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments were 65, 429 and 1620. In the latest data, they reported 511 new COVID-19 cases. And almost 75% of cases were reported in the past 5 days. Definitely on a steep rise.

And US fatalities reported in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments were 9, 12 and 26. In the latest data, they reported 6 COVID-19 deaths.

Pretty similar to Spain, France and Germany.

Except that US recoveries in the past 15 days, in 5-day increments were 0, 0, and 5. In the latest data, there were NO COVID-19 recoveries.

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