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| Data Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Click on the image to enlarge |
As the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak moved from China to Europe, the pandemic started turning into a colossal human tragedy. The total cases skyrocketed from 88,585 on 3/1 to 858,355 on 3/31 -- a heart-breaking 870% escalation. Of course, the daily chart (top) clearly shows the rate of growth in death rate was asymmetric in March. In fact, the curve reveals three competing segments with different slopes:
Segment-1 (Flat-lining): Between 3/1 and 3/9, the death rate remained virtually flat, moving sideways within a tight band of 3.44% (3/1) to 3.52% (3/9). The reason was simple: Back then, China was still a major player in controlling the global stats. They started reporting negligible new cases (<100) with very few deaths, thus forcing the curve to move sideways.
Segment-2 (Linear): Between 3/10 and 3/20, the epicenter moved from China to Europe and, therefore, China became less of an important player losing control of the global stats. Death rates started skyrocketing in Italy, Spain and France, thus making this segment up-sloping, with the rate rising from 3.52% to 4.13% and the slope of the renewed curve turning to linear.
Segment-3 (Exponential): Between 3/21 and 3/31, while the case-epicenter moved to the US, the death-epicenter continued to be Europe. Though the US added another 4,053 deaths to the overall toll, the 2.15% rate was far below Europe's. During this segment, the overall rate jumped from 4.13% to 4.93%. Needless to say, the European rate alone, mutually exclusive of the US's, would have been much higher. Nevertheless, the slope started turning exponential (backward-bending) from linear.
So, in one month, we went from flat to linear to exponential -- how horrific, considering we are talking about the death rate.
As expected, the regression line corrects both ends of the curve and returns a linear best fit, with a near-perfect r-squared of 0.998.
Stay safe!
-Sid Som
homequant@gmail.com
Data Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Also Read: Regression Analysis of US Coronavirus Stats – March, 2020
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