Starting on February 26 the number of global cases took an exponential jump. A few days later, as one would expect, the number of deaths took an even bigger jump as measure by slope on a logarithmic chart.
Yesterday, I was accused on Twitter of being a fearmonger. A second person said I did not understand exponential growth rates implying that I was watching linear charts.
Understated Charts
If anything, those charts, especially on the number of cases, are way understated.
Why?
- The data from China is not believable.
- The data from India india is not believable.
- The data from the US is not believable.
Explanations
1: China is a basketcase of manipulated lies. Virtually no one believes their numbers, especially on deaths.
2: India is the second most populous country in the world, with more than 1 billion citizens. The country is a sanitation mess. A staggering 344 million practice open defecation. For further discussion, please see Massive Surge in India Coronavirus Cases Guaranteed
3: US data is suspect primarily due to lack of testing, not lies or coverups.
We cannot fix data from India and Africa, both without a doubt growing exponentially, but we can look at what’s happening in the US or rest of the world excluding China.
US Cases
https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1237096395624058880
Excellent Charts From Jim Bianco
I think we need to track the US separately and also the developed world where testing is likely to be believable separately.
- US
- US, Canada, EU
- World Excluding China
I will ask Jim for that set of tracking.
Trending Fake News
Powell !!!!
Fake News on Fake News
I discussed fake news earlier today in Trump Blames Fake News Media and Oil
For fake news on Trump’s “perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan”, please see Trump’s Not Worried, So Why Should You?
Most Frightening Disease I’ve Ever Encountered
CDC Says Restrict Visits
Was this recommendation coordinated with media czar VP Mike Pence?
Amtrak Shutdown
What about Trump’s claim that everything is running?
Is that fake news?
Question of Leadership
An Appropriate Metaphor
I am sure relieved this is No Worse Than the Flu™.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Now if you simply add the fact that 82% of the people get Corona and have it without showing any real symptoms! It is a regular flu that is highly contagious because it is a new one. If you factor the 82% in, the kill rate is identical to a regular flu! China lies like hell freezes over, as bad as our politicians on both sides. Facilities are coming back on line in China and they are at 50% of capacity. My friend has 2 million silicon wafers ready to go into production and half have been processed. However he cannot get them out of China, since the port is closed! Container ships carry a crew of 15 to 25. They can test the crew for the virus and if clear let it make the 2 week trip over the seas! They will not get it the virus over the Ocean and should be clear when they come into port! Test them again to be safe! They lie like hell and are Morons. But smart enough to make the majority of of the ingredients for our prescriptions. I stocked up my inventories in October, I had no idea abut the virus myself. I have a feeling they did because I got great prices.
Surprise the Chinese might be telling the truth about drinking more fluids to wash the virus into your stomach, where in most cases, it dies. As you get older and I guess shrivel the virus gets stuck in your throat! Wash it away!
What looks like good info out of a WHO team that went to China:
“China can now produce 1.6 million test kits for the novel coronavirus per week.”
And that was as of some time between Feb 17 and late Feb…..
The Great Negotiator should see how many he can get them to spare a brother, in exchange for ending silly pogroms against Huawei….
I think too much has been said about this virus affecting older people. Look at what happen to this perfectly healthy 32 year old in New Jersey. Maybe this is why things are spreading so rapidly in South Korea and Italy. Italy is actually one of the healthier countries in the world with the Mediterranean diet and fewer chronic conditions. One of my thoughts is the virus is mutating before our very eyes to get stronger as it meets healthier people. I heard a virologist say this on XM Sirius. We are all screwed if that is the case.
Interestingly if you talk to millenials like my stepdaughter, they don’t care about this virus one little bit. It only affects old people, why should they be inconvenienced.
When i pointed out to her that 0.2% of 5 million UK 20-30 year olds is still 10,000 deaths she looked quite shocked.
So you are right, there IS too much talk about old people, who everybody seems to be selfishly writing off. If you want people to obey quarantine, you need to publicise the younger cases.
Only the fools could still contest the experimental datas coming out from China and now from Italy. Both countries were forced to impose severe containment measures to their whole population because they had no other choice.
The reason was that this virus is very contagious and induce easily pneumonia as a starter to the weakest patients Without severe containment measures, the medical system of the country is rapidly overwhelmed. Like Wuhan doctors had to do, Italian doctors must now decide amongst the “unexpected”(really unexpected? Italy was warned by Chinese experimental real life datas?) amount of critical cases which one will receive the needed intensive care unit assistance and probably survive because there are already too many cases.
Before we find a reliable remedy, this epidemy require at least “a la Chinese ” containment measures right now (including amongst other, bearing masks and gloves) . All the rest as of now is just dangerous vanity.
The US does have 4000 Ventilators in it’s strategic reserve, in preparation for a flu pandemic. If the US takes this seriously, and fights it aggressively, those will be useful. If they take the “It’s just the flu” approach, those will be a drop in the bucket, and not matter at all.
Yes Carl, but if we approach the situation with a payroll tax cut and sitting around on our asses for a few more weeks those vents will be a drop in the bucket, they will be used only on the yougest sick people while older men like me are shunted off to the hall outside the hospital morgue to die because fuck it, they are old anyway. Who cares if they die. I see America has become as craven and evil as Iran has always claimed we are and it is a tough pill to swallow.
The US didn’t have much in the way of a military at the onset of WW2.
Yet could quickly ramp up production as needed. As China did with Wuhan hospital beds, and I suspect ICU equipment as well.
Not sure if the US still has any such ability, aka real wealth, anymore. But ventilators good enough for emergency use, isn’t exactly the high point of complex manufacturing. Ecmo units, which the Chinese also employ(ed) when ventilators no longer work(ed), may be a different beast. Not sure where, who and how has the resources to multiply those should the need arise.
Even O2 machines may be difficult. Per the WHO information, something like 15% of the cases needed supplemental oxygen, and they needed it not just for a few days (average recovery time was 3-6 weeks, not sure how much of that was on oxygen).
We may quickly ramp up production of equipped ICU wards, but qualified personnel? Not so much. (As demonstrated by the Emerald Princess disaster, There is more to quarantine than meets the eye of amatures.)
Mish, a data set you might want to track is all cases excluding countries which are using a strategy to control the cases known to be effective. That would exclude China and S. Korea at the moment, and perhaps Singapore and Hong Kong as well.
And Taiwan.
Even poorer Asian countries seem to be doing a better job. Vietnam, say.
I personally also expected a large number of cases out of India, given the sheer population density, but I am here in the country and so far there’s been more fear and very few real cases. Time may show more, but the hot weather may help prevent spread. Also the current administration is fairly strong willed
and serious preventive action is being taken all around.
On a different note, India has been on a reinvention drive over the last few years under very strong leadership. Your data on open defecation is dated. Much has changed since in this sphere as well as many others, for the better 🙂 Except of course the population 🙁
Trump’s saying that the press is trying to infect him now. With their fake news hoax virus. This is getting surreal.
FAKE NEWS!
There are two threads on the medical situation that everyone should read about what is happening in northern Italy
Jason Van Schoor
@jasonvanschoor
Silvia Stringhini
@silviast9
A modern medical system is collapsing–all overwhemed by CV. Hospitals, equipment, doctors, nurses. People who need care but are in the demographic likely to die are not given care. It’s a view of what’s coming shortly to America. Meanwhile our Dummy in Chief plays golf, goes to birthday parties and belittles those that worry.
By the way,if you care, all but one of the patients in that Washington care facility have tested positive for CV.
All I know is I am royally screwed, being male and having started smoking about the time Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.
And I am buying a house 3,000 miles away so have to leave the 30th for a five or six day drive, if that is even still allowed by then. Sign the closing docs on the 6th of April, then fly back on the 7th to Oregon to get my car and drive that to the new house. United airlines has already emailed me to say thet through March 31 there will be no fee for cancelling or changing dates. And I have thousands in escrow and deposits, and spent more to get there and back for the walk through and inspections, and right now I would not bet a slender dime any of it is going to be possible because just as Italy has now quarantined it’s entire 60 million population the US is going to have to do likewise within a few weeks. I could leave, and get to the new house, only to find myself stranded there without access to any transportation at all. The new house is NOT within walking distance of a store, even if there would be anything to buy, or the stores are even open.
But, all this argument about death rates, it strikes me as sort of sad because the overall death rate is about 400% of the flu, but, the death rate among older males with health issues or who smoke is now over 15% while it is basically zero for kids, and well under 1% for young adults. It climbs rapidly after age 30, and becomes a Stephen King like apocalypse over 60 and I see nearly NO recognition or empathy for those who face such daunting chances of dying. In fact, I have read that in Italy they are simply relegating older males who smoke or have health issues to back hallways to die, they are so strapped for resources that they are rationing those to younger people who they think they have a better chance to save, even if those people likely would have lived anyway. The older males are just being hung out to die.
And it is coming to America in a matter of a few weeks at the latest.
Here is a great vid from Chris Martenson that explains the geometric/exponential progression in a way even the most uneduacated can comprehend and it tells you why we are on borrowed time and it is already too late for America to stop a full scale pandemic here.
Have a look and be prepared to be astonished.
We are weeks into this and today the Trump administration had another press conference about COVID 19 (diversionary tactic distracting market action). We heard mostly about how they are going to engage the SBA, cut taxes, ect. They craftily mix it the COVID info to make it seem that we are really going after this bad virus. Trust me, the only measures they are going to take is the financial ones to limp this crippled bitch of an economy to the November 3rd goal post for a touch down. It was all about the election and it was plain as day.
Good video. I had already done the math to see the doubling every 6 days, but the hospital bed math is new to me and important.
Why do you insist on going through with the move? Why not wait a while? If for no other reason, then to see if you may be able to pick up a house in Florida for the cost of disinfecting it, a year down the line?
Have no economic choice Stuki, I put the offer in on the house back in January and it was accepted, a contract written, flew to Tampa to walk through and pay for inspections, and now have an approved mortgage with escrow account and close date less than a month away, moving truck paid for, first class airfare for the return trip to get the car, all lost if I back out now. And we argue here about if the Fed is going to pump the hyperinflation gas pedal or slam on the deflation breaks, or if they have any control at all. Deflation would mean cheaper housing but also MUCH MUCH tighter credit standards. And anyway in a deflation borrowers are getting screwed because every month the money they pay gets more valuable, as opposed to inflation where every month your payment is made with cheapened dollars.
My situation is that as a disabled vet I am on a fixed income, if I do not buy now I will never be able to. I have written about this purchase before, though I did not write in relation to a massive pandemic, what I had said before was that residential real estate is indeed in an even bigger bubble than it was when it triggered the GFC. But, I am going to be 62 in a couple months and simply cannot wait any longer for that bubble to find a pin. If I do not buy now I will inevitably remain a renter the rest of my life and frankly I would rather get CoVid19. I hate not having my own house, on top of the fact that rents have risen to the absurd levels they have.
So, my plan is to buy this house I found on Zillow. I made sure it would be a very smart buy, that I could easily live out the remaining 10-20 years of my life with a stable payment in a place I love to be in. If you can do that then all other market factors are essentially meaningless, after all a house is a HOME if you love it, not an investment, especially at my age. I do not have the next 40 years to leverage up and up and up. I might end up as an economic prisoner in the house, so I am making sure if it does become one then at least it is a prison with all the perks of Club Fed, pool, decent land with it, few if any neighbors, quiet street in a good deed restricted subdivision. And the house is gorgeous.
When I say I am royally screwed I am really just talking about the virus, since I am well over 60 and a smoker. In fact my life, finding this house I so much want, means that in the space of about 3 or 4 months my life has taken an almost magical turn for the better, I would not have believed it if anyone asked in November. So there is a certain amount of waiting for that other shoe to drop, the pail of icy water of disappointment that hits just as you are about to reach your anticipated goal. You know how that is? I am doing my best not to be negative, and it looks like the deal is going to work out, but, why NOW? Why this month is there suddenly a pandemic killing older men? Why this time for a virus threatening to close down commerce and travel? By god I am going to go through with it even if it DOES kill me, at least I will die happy in my own beloved home and not some hyperinflated shithole rented apartment that has not seen maintenance in 25 years.
Such hope will surely give life to your dream, Harkie. I’m reminded of Robert Kennedy, who agreed to join a mountaineering expedition to name a newly discovered peak after his brother. When asked how he was preparing himself for the task, he replied, “Running up and down the stairs, yelling ‘Help!’”
Herkie, there is no reason to give up. Consider this:
Remember, in the end most people will NOT catch this. Be one of the ones who doesn’t by trying to follow safe practices.
“All I know is I am royally screwed, being male and having started smoking about the time Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.”
Oh stop with the passive voice. Say it properly, “All I know is that I screwed myself, having started smoking about the time Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.”
Nobody screwed you.
This is Trump’s “Waterloo”…
And that is truly sad because the next crowd to take control will be TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY anti-libertarian…. They’ve said as much…
The next group will not measure people by the principle of ‘live and let live’ – they will measure them by their purity of thought.
Mexico has 7 cases, Canada has 76. Guess which country Trump wants to shutdown the border with.
Epidemic / Pandemics exhibit an initial growth phase (denial), followed by a pullback (minimize risk), and completing the exponential pattern with a blowoff top (emerging before the all-clear). The epidemic / pandemic quenches itself when people become completely risk averse.
If this sounds like market dynamics, it’s because of human behavior. There is something structural about the way human brains are wired.
So which is it? Extremely dangerous and NOT spreading (low R0 and burning out) so we need fast action now? Or not dangerous and quickly spreading (high RO) so we can remain calm and carry on? You can’t have it both ways or else Wuhan would be a graveyard… and northern Italy… and S. Korea…
Spreading and dangerous.
Except that’s demonstrably false, or else we’d see the piles of dead bodies in the aforementioned areas.
“Extremely dangerous” and “not dangerous” are the only options?
Point taken, I did exclude the middle. It seems everybody goes one way or the other unfortunately (just the flu or worst thing ever).
What’s happening in Italy is bad. If you took their daily dead you would have a damn big pile, and the rate is increasing. Big piles of dead people every day in Italy.
“restrict visits to nursing homes & make sure ill staff don’t work”
If your day job includes providing for the needs of others in an enclosed setting, why are you not implementing barriers between your patients/residents/prisoners and visitors now?
deaths may surge if capacity is exceeded with respect to ICU beds, oxygen, ventilators and staffing. so slowing spreading will reduce the death rate by reducing overflow in the hospitals. that is the wild card.
Iowan, you need to enter the real world and read what is happening in Italy where the system is so overwhelmed that if you are in a demographic that is likely to die, they won’t give care.
Coming to you or your parents or your family members or friends who are struggling with a preexisiting condition. Count how many intensive care beds are in your corn field–no matter the number there’s way too few.
The time for your stupidity is past.
Welcome to the discussion. You might want to do some reading about the situations in China and S. Korea, though. The two countries have taken very different approaches to stopping the flu. China’s was clearly effective, and S. Korea’s appears to be effective, but they are still early in the battle.
As for Italy, at first they tried to take the approach “it’s just the flu”, and ignore it. As happened in Wuhan when they did the same thing, their cases exploded, and their hospitals were filled past the breaking point, and then the mortality rate shot up. In Italy, currently 5% of their cases have resulted in deaths, and another 10% are in serious or critical condition, so in the end, they will probably have about 8% mortality.
If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting we take the same approach. We should just ignore it, and tell people “it’s just the flu”, and then wait until we reach the point where hospitals are completely full, and people are dying from lack of care before taking any further action?
If you are following the situation, it is quite clear. This spreads very fast, and it has about a 20-80x higher hospitalization rate and death rate compared to the standard flu. The situation is not hopeless, however. China and S. Korea provide two paths by which we can hope to avoid a grim fate. The two paths are very different, and neither path is to simply sit back and say “it’s just the flu”. We have already squandered a month when we could have been preparing for this, but we still have time to choose, and three approaches we can take:
Once you understand the choices, you understand why every time Trump, or one of his staff, says “it’s only the flu”, the market tanks. As Gozer the Gozarian said, “the choice is made”.
Actually I wasn’t pushing one way or another, just pointing out that you shouldn’t be panicking for both extremes at once. I believe this virus has a very high R0 but a low mortality rate (otherwise it burns out). We’re primarily seeing the death side because high R0 viruses are mild for the most part, thus they spread undetected and we test people who are severe.
The medical reports I see (primarily compilations at promedmail.org) all have a similar trend: Get the R0 to less than 1, which means various types of containment depending upon severity. Outside vaccine manufacturers, nobody is aiming to stop it, just slow it down (as DeeDee3 points out). Honestly, that’s all anybody can do in such a connected world as our own. 3 people in Iowa just found out Egypt is a cesspool of the coronavirus. How does one avoid it if your taxi cab driver, neighbor at the grocery store, or church member coughs nearby?
I believe that if you catch all of the cases, which S. Korea seems to be doing, AND if you can slow the spread enough, the CFR will turn out to be under 1.0%. That’s lower than the reported CFR of 3.4%, but still at least 20x as high as the CFR for the flu of .03% or so, so I wouldn’t call the CFR low. The hospitalization rate is also far higher than the flu, and another stat that seems to be very, very high is the average recovery time. With most flu cases, I have been over them in a couple days, and the longest one was H1N1, which had me down for about 9 days. The average recovery time for COVID19 has been cited at 34 days. Consider that China has reported less than 10,000 cases in the last 21 days, yet they still have 17,697 open cases, of which 4,794 cases are in serious or critical condition, and it becomes apparent that a significant number of cases last a very, very long time.
The combination of a fairly high R0, a fairly high CFR, a high hospitalization rate, and a long recovery time, makes this particularly nasty. Countries that ignore it, as Italy and Iran did, and the US seems to be on it’s way to doing, face some harsh consequences. Would it burn itself out on it’s own? Undoubtedly it would, but at what cost? Once the hospitals are full, and people are dying needlessly, all countries so far have finally taken action in the form of harsh quarantines. I sure hope the US doesn’t wait until we get to that stage before taking the threat seriously.
“I am sure relieved this is No Worse Than the Flu”
There have been a lot more deaths from the Flu, than COVID-19, in the U.S. this season. Apparently, the rate of new cases of COVID-19 is now slowing in South Korea.
Martin Armstrong: “I can confirm from independent sources that a team of 25 international and Chinese experts traveled to several different provinces within China, which included a trip to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. I can confirm from independent sources that the team’s findings were that the epidemic had actually peaked between the 23rd of January and the 2nd of February. Since that date, it has been actually declining.”
In the U.S., it is on the rise, but no one knows when the peak will be or how many cases will develop. While the number of cases and deaths in China are probably lower than actual, if South Korea has already peaked, how far behind is a peak in U.S. cases?
No peak until herd immunity sets in if there are no containment measures. USA and Europe pretty similar. Only a small percentage of the infectuous are tested and quarantined.
That is good news about South Korea and China. Perhaps the quarantine is working or the virus is burning itself out or becoming more mild. However, it is a global virus now – could it potentially re-spike in South Korea and Wuhan if those same areas were to lift the quarantine? The virus is basically everywhere.
Caution warranted in South Korea. Nearly all cases to date have been traced to that church.
Now they are getting unrelated clusters. That’s where the growth in numbers will happen.
Sure, the deaths from the regular flu this year are higher than COVID19, but remember, the regular flu had a one year head start. A normal flu starts spreading late in the season, say March, and then dies out for the Summer, returning in the Fall, when it explodes into the population and does it’s damage. That lead times allow a vaccine to to made against it. If you are going to do a fair comparison, compare how many cases COVID19 has killed versus how many this year’s flu had killed as of March of 2019 (probably 0).
Given the typical exponential growth, if COVID19 is allowed to simply spread, and it doesn’t stop for the Summer, we should see about 37,000 cases in the US by the end of March, 1 million by the end of April, and perhaps 60m by the middle of May. Since the hospital system would be overwhelmed the middle of April, the death rate would rise to 5-6% as was seen in Wuhan, so Covid19 would kill perhaps 3 million Americans in the next two months.
Now, it is true that China and Korea have seen declining tests. You imply that the virus just peaked on it’s own. Hardly. China used draconian controls, requiring everyone to stay home, and one person per household could leave every 5 days. They were to stay at least 5 meters away from anyone else, and to wear a mask. Hmm, oddly, when faced with those controls, the virus did peak, and new cases slowed. Probably just random chance, but maybe the controls had something to do with it.
Then there is Korea. Korea used a different approach. Make tests free and fast. Give everyone a phone app that would tell them places where they might be exposed to Coronavirus. It’s not nearly as draconian, but it seems to have limited case growth.
In the US, no controls have yet been implemented. People are to go wherever they want. Large public gatherings such as sporting events and political rallies go on. Meetings go on. What is going to slow the spread, and prevent it from reaching 60m by the middle of May? As long as we take the approach, “it’s just the flu”, and do nothing substantive other than let it spread, why should we be surprised if it spreads?
Could it stop on it’s own, for the summer? Sure. Since, although there are many theories, no one knows for sure why some viruses stop spreading in the summer, it could stop. Yet, it seems to be spreading just fine in tropical locations, and in Southern Hemisphere places, so it’s starting to appear unlikely that it will stop. Even if it does stop though, we can almost certainly expect it to return with a vengeance in the Fall, in which case we may see the 1m cases in October, and the 60m in November. That would be timely, with 3m dying right before the election, wouldn’t it? I wonder if the survivors would vote for someone who kept saying “don’t worry, it’s just the flu”, and doing nothing about it (assuming he’s still alive)?
Also, to your point the “regular flu” is actually many different types of the flu. So we are already lumping in many different viruses into one.
All evidence points to the fact that almost all nations are lying about the number of infected people in their countries as well as the actual death rate and the more I see Trump’s response to this pandemic I have concluded that Trump is either a liar or an idiot. It pains me to say this about the president but I don’t have any choice.
probably both?
Most leaders lie WHEN the going gets SERIOUSLY tough…
Trump beats ’em all with PREEMPTIVE lies for ANY occasion.
Jesus how could it take any of you this long to figure it out? Imagine the disgust we felt in 2016 as we watched you elect this moron, and imagine how it compounded as we watched his sustained support from the left hand of the bell curve for the last 4 years!
To pull some trends out of the available, yet suspect, data.
Death rate in the closed cases has dropped from double digits to 6%.
Serious or critical active cases have dropped from over 20% to 13% as of today from the same worldometer data Mish is looking at.
That said, I would expect an explosion of infection rates in the US with over a million test kits hitting the field this week.
BTW, the chart changes coinside with data added from Italy, S Korea, and Iran in a similar manner to the altered reporting standards that occurred with China last month.
Simple solution to this problem. TEST PEOPLE. US Government is proving to be the Three Stooges when it comes to the basics of pandemic responsiveness. No surprise considering they left those offices empty in 2018 rather than hiring a pandemic preparedness team. You can trust the medical professional’s or Trump’s gut. I know with whom I’m rolling.
We are certainly coming off as incompetent. But isn’t the Indian government coming off as three stooges with all of the possible solutions officials have proposed from squirting sesame oil up one’s nostrils, drinking cow urine, smearing cow manure on one’s head and doing yoga?
Well, now we’ve got two of the Stooges identified…. Who’s the third one?
There is a factor that doesn’t seem to be considered: the number of people who are infected but aren’t detected. it is hard to square the numbers without this because it impacts the denominator in the fractions. The numbers may be better understood as:
Mortality rate = (dead) / (sick enough to be tested + those that weren’t sick enough to get tested) which can’t be caculated.
My reading is that the old and immune compromised are the most susceptible. Not that most shouldn’t worry but a more scientific categorization is needed.
“the number of people who are infected but aren’t detected.”
…
The most dangerous. They are carriers. I could end up a carrier and never know it … and hence not tested. My mother lives near me in a retirement home.
When you see crap loads of people sick and crap loads of dead people you won’t need math. Unless you need to start food rations in your home.