Coronavirus Stats – the Global Case – 04/16/2020 Update

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Total Cases -- The above table shows the hardest-hit countries in the world with at least 25K coronavirus cases (as of 8pm on 4/16). China has been left out. It makes no sense to include China's unreliable reporting; doing so would simply skew the real stats. The worldwide total has now exceeded a mammoth 2.18M cases. The US has been the epicenter of this pandemic outbreak (since 3/25) with nearly 675K cases (31% of the worldwide total). Italy, Spain and France have peaked as their new daily cases, based on 2-day moving averages, have lately been flat-lining or trending down. Spain remains at the top of the list with 185K, followed by Italy, France and Germany with 169K, 165K and 138K, respectively. Of late, the UK has been climbing the chart quite vigorously with 103K cases and overtaking Iran, one of the original victims.

Deaths -- Though the US death rate of 5.1% has been below the worldwide average of 6.7% (well above the WHO's estimate of 3.4%), some of the hardest-hit European countries have been continuing in the 10-14% range. In fact, Belgium, Italy and UK's death rates have exceeded an alarming 13%. Fortunately, Germany and Switzerland have been maintaining significantly lower death rates. Iran's rate has been holding steady at around 6%, while Canada, Russia and Turkey are doing well. 

Recovery -- Given the asymmetric outbreak around the world, it's too premature to confirm the current worldwide recovery rate of 25.1% as a good base rate that all individual country rates would be compared with. Similarly, despite the explosive outbreak in the US, its recency makes it difficult to confirm the current low rate of 8.5% as its baseline recovery rate. Germany, Spain and Switzerland have been registering better recovery rates than the other European countries. Obviously, Netherlands, Russia and Turkey are struggling. Brazil and Canada are getting better while Iran has been maintaining a high recovery rate. The UK situation is still evolving so its rate is unpredictable at this point.  

Active Cases -- Since the US situation is very fluid, its active cases account for 86%, though down from 92% a week ago. The active percent in Europe remains high, generally in the 60% to 70% range. The countries with more recent surge, including the UK, Netherlands, Turkey and Russia, have active cases in the upper 80's. Canada has been steadily trending down. Since Iran has peaked, its active cases are well under 30%, which is one bright spot amid this mayhem.

Serious/Critical Cases -- Some of the hardest-hit European countries are still faced with 3% to 5% serious/critical cases. Brazil has a mind-boggling high rate of 21.8%. Of course, the lack of uniform guidelines to define this category often makes the comparison somewhat apples-to-oranges. Case in point: Switzerland's 1.4%, UK's 1.5% and Italy's 1.7% rates could be anomalous.  

Tests and Positive Cases -- The US is the only country to have administered over 3M (3.4M as of today) tests, followed by Germany (1.7M), Russia (1.6M) and Italy (1.2M). France and Brazil have high positive rates -- nearly 50% --Germany and Switzerland are showing far lower positive rates. UK, USA, Spain and the Netherlands have been recording very high positive rates as well. The reason Russia and Canada have low rates is that their tests might include a part of the asymptomatic population. Due to the paucity of test kits worldwide, most countries are zeroing in on the symptomatic population only.  

Data Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 

Stay safe!

-Sid Som

homequant@gmail.com