On April 2nd, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the latest data for the COVID-19: 896450 confirmed cases and 45526 deaths all over the World. The contagion is nowadays spread globally, with very few exceptions (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports).
The begin and the velocity of the contagion´s spread is different between the countries and some of the most important factors (population, population density, transportation systems, restrictive measures) were highlighted in former articles and discussions http://www.emigrantrailer.com/2020/03/22/corona-virus-covid-19-summary-tables-to-understand-the-situation-in-different-nations-and-italian-regions/
The number of deaths linked to COVID-19 is also very different between nations and some of possible impacting factors (age over 65, % of smokers, % of overweight/obesity, general status of public hospital facilities indicated by Health expenditure per capita) were also analyzed in former articles.
Today, I focus on the status for ten Nations which I look at since the beginning of the crisis.
Number of cases
Figure 1 shows the number of confirmed cases in the latest forty days.
The situation in USA dramatically changed in the last two weeks. In fact, the cases here had a steep increase, bringing USA to exceed those in Italy and to the unfavorable first position, with almost 190000 cases confirmed. The trend is definitively not good.
Italy is still in a very “high risk” situation. The slope of the increase is slightly better than in the first weeks of March. But, as published in a former article (http://www.emigrantrailer.com/2020/03/31/corona-virus-covid-19-how-effective-is-quarantine-and-social-distancing-latest-data-from-italy/), it is still far away to relax and loosen the restrictive measure, due to the fact that some regions do not show yet positive signals.
Spain is nowadays the European country with the worst outlook. The contagion started in Spain with some days of delay compared to Italy (about ten days) but, looking at the green line (Spain) and light blue line (Italy), if nothing changes, it is expected that Spain will overpass Italy in the next days.
China shows a quite stable trend: the increase is almost imperceptible.There are several discussions on the official Chinese numbers, but honestly, when you look to the first three weeks of February (not shown in this chart), the trend was the same as for Italy or other European countries.
Germany shows a similar trend to the Italian one, but at lower general absolute values: the two lines seem to proceed in parallel. A similar consideration for the France´s status, even if the last few days indicated negative signals with a steeper increase.
Until 20th March, the Republic of Iran was the third country for number of cases. After that, the increase has proceeded but with a slower slope compared to the other countries, that overpassed Iran in the last few days.
The United Kingdom showed a relatively calm situation until March 15th with less than 1000 cases. After that, the increase is more or less aligned to the French one, with about one week of delay.
Like China, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) shows a quite stable trend or with a slow increase: about 1000 cases in the last eleven days. Indonesia has “just” 1677 cases. So, overall is a number very low compared to all the others. However, I am looking carefully to this country since it had 0 cases at beginning of March, and more than 1000 cases in the last seven days. In addition, my attention is also driven by the fact that one of the hope to reduce the effectiveness of the virus is the help from weather conditions (sun, higher temperature, air conditions, etc.). Well, this country has these conditions and I´d like to understand if they really play an important role in reducing the current crisis. I will dedicate a specific analysis to this aspect.
Number of deaths
Figure 2 shows the number of deaths linked to COVID-19.
Italy is still leading this special and sad ranking. Today, while I am writing, the updated number is very close to 14000 people. This is really a sad number. And, I still do not understand those “clever” persons who keep stating: it is like a flu or every year in Italy we have more deaths for respiratory problems. I repeat what I stated in a specific analysis dedicated to the topic (http://www.emigrantrailer.com/2020/03/27/corona-virus-covid-19-historical-data-of-deaths-from-respiratory-diseases-in-italy-and-current-situation/): in Italy , the annual average value of deaths for flu is about 600, for pneumonia is about 10000 and for chronic respiratory disease (like asthma) is about 20000. Here, with COVID-19, in about 40 days, the number is close to 14000 people. What is it still not clear in comparing these numbers?
Spain follows Italy and the outlook is that Spain could even exceed the Italian deaths in about ten days, unless something changes.
France and USA have recently overpassed China for number of deaths. The Republic of Iran is also on the way to exceed the Chinese deaths, which tend to be more or less stable.
Very recently, the United Kingdom has showed a steep increase, similar to the Spanish trend. This is not a good signal. Germany has also a slightly faster increase of deaths compared to the first weeks of March.
Korea and Indonesia show a slow increase, similar to China.
Thus, in conclusion, both Figure1 and Figure 2 provide the current status and outlook for these selected ten Nations.
Following the recent increase of cases in Africa, South America and Russian Federation, in the next days, I will update the summary table for nations published some days ago (http://www.emigrantrailer.com/2020/03/25/corona-virus-covid-19-summary-table-for-nations-updated-status-at-24-03-2020/). The aim is to compare the latest data published by WHO with some factors (population, population density, overweight/obesity, etc.) characterizing the selected worldwide nations.
Andrea De Filippo
