The Projections must be adjusted – again

It is tiresome, but the historic US COVID-19 mortality record has had to be adjusted again. This is yet another reporting malfunction, supposedly now accounting for the new requirements that all deaths that occur from COVID-19 like symptoms are now counted as a COVID-19 death. The adjusted graph of the mortality growth rate is shown above. The decline in growth of the death rate is now showing significantly slower than our original runs, and this will undoubtedly impact the estimates of total mortality negatively. Below is our adjusted graph of weekly mortality. It shows a frustratingly slow decline in the daily death rate.

Is the mortality high?

There is a great deal of debate on when to lift the enforced shutdowns. We are researching the literature on the subject, particularly in the light of the changes in the mortality reporting. What we are able to do, is compare the mortality of COVID-19 to pandemics over the last 100 years, adjusted for population. That is illustrated in the graph below.

It can be clearly seen, that in the US, the “Stay at Home” policies have insured that the COVID-19 mortality has remained well within the limits of what we have experienced from other, supposedly more benign, viruses.

However, if we compare these pandemics to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919, then the difference is dramatic, as illustrated by the following - shocking - comparison. Clearly we seem to be avoiding the worst case outcome.

Some emergent data

Antibody test results are beginning to emerge…Governor Cuomo cited a New York study showing that 1 in 5 people in New York City tested had antibodies for the coronavirus; A Stanford antibody study last week in Santa Clara County in California estimated 2.49% and 4.16% of the population had been infected—50 to 85 times more than the official confirmed cases. Other studies, all in the early stages of formalization, seem to confirm that there are a multiple of people infected than we had previously thought.

There is a great deal of push-back to these early reports, but our assessment is that this is mainly politically driven, given the fraught political environment. We strongly subscribe to the emergent view that the virus is significantly less deadly (to those that are healthy and are under 75). This was our view originally, which is why we have been largely ignoring the published infection rates in making our projections. 

However, this is only one factor in making policy regarding how to proceed. Another is whether it is possible, and with what frequency and risk, to be re-infected with the virus. And finally, what treatment and vaccines are emerging or likely to emerge, and over what time frame.

It's a very complex subject, and there is so much that is unknowable, particularly about timing.

Further, the profound impact of the global recession - likely depression - which we have now entered, is going to be much more deadly than COVID-19. Depressions are more often than not followed by war, and that would be truly cataclysmic.

In the meantime, battle lines are being drawn around this subject on purely political lines. It's terribly sad. If ever in modern times we have needed to make really good decisions, this is the time. Instead we resort to petty political bickering. We are carefully researching the issue to formulate our own views, and look forward to sharing these shortly.

The US European Comparison

Each time we report, we track the comparative US v European COVID-19 mortality reports.

We now learn that the German data may contain the same error factors as the original US mortality data – Bloomberg is reporting that “Germany’s unusually low mortality rate may be helped by the fact that the country only counts deaths that have a positive virus test.” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-25/why-the-world-s-highest-virus-death-rate-is-in-europe-s-capital)

This is redolent of the tiresome restatements that we have undergone in the US mortality count: however, the differences in the German mortality rate and everywhere else seems to very significantly outweigh that factor. One way or another, it illustrates just how difficult really accounting for the damage done by this virus.

As we have done before, it is important to state that the reason the USA is performing so much better than Europe may be due to many factors besides political policy and its execution: regardless, the comparisons need be made on equivalent populations. The projection for total death by country is based on IHME statistical analysis (https://www.healthdata.org/), and were updated on 4/25/2019.  

Historic information is downloaded from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/