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15 thoughts on “Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: July 5 Update”

  1. DButch

    One issue that is likely to create problems in the coming school year is that the Seattle Times reports that required regular vaccinations for school age children are WAY behind where they should be (and I suspect some adults have missed shots as well). Turns out you can't get vaccinated via telemedicine - who knew? I think that most states and territories may be in the same boat.

    So in addition to likely breakouts of COVID-19 (Delta) in areas with low vaccination rates for that, states and the US Government may need to prepare for an emergency pre-school push on traditional contagious diseases as well as dealing with likely hot spots - and hope that none of the old scourges (measles, chicken pox, diphtheria) break out again. I'm old enough to remember those days...

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Seattle, & Pacfic Northwest, generally?

      Those kids weren't getting MMR series vaxxx long before the Rona.

      2. DButch

        WA tightened up the requirements starting last year (which mostly didn't happen in person). This year they are going to try to hold tight - could get noisy.

    2. Clyde Schechter

      Measles is much more contagious than covid-19, even more than the delta variant. If there is a substantial number of children who go back to school unvaccinated against measles, a measles outbreak is almost guaranteed. Measles can be a very serious, devastating disease. If there is a large group of measles-susceptible kids out there, getting them vaccinated for measles needs to be a high priority.

  2. rick_jones

    In doings elsewhere, India went past 400K cumulative deaths reported at the beginning of the month. Their incredibly large population means their cumulative rate remains below 300/million.

    For the 7-day trailing daily averages:
    Rank Population (Millions) Country Deaths/Day/Million 7-dav Avg
    1 7.04 Paraguay 16.34
    2 2.49 Namibia 12.43
    3 50.34 Colombia 11.75
    4 44.78 Argentina 10.78
    5 11.69 Tunisia 9.10
    6 4.97 Oman 8.70
    7 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 7.89
    8 3.46 Uruguay 7.72
    9 211.05 Brazil 7.46
    10 32.51 Peru 6.55
    11 18.95 Chile 5.99
    12 58.56 South Africa 5.20
    13 19.36 Romania 4.88
    14 145.87 Russia 4.51
    15 11.51 Bolivia 4.39
    16 3.23 Mongolia 4.25
    17 2.30 Botswana 3.91
    18 4.00 Georgia 3.50
    19 17.58 Guatemala 3.32
    20 44.27 Uganda 3.26
    21 17.86 Zambia 3.21
    22 9.75 Honduras 3.03
    23 4.21 Kuwait 2.92
    24 31.95 Malaysia 2.56
    25 5.05 Costa Rica 2.21
    26 38.04 Afghanistan 2.08

  3. rick_jones

    In doings domestic, NYC crossed the 4000 cumulative deaths/million threshold circa June 17th. They are presently at 4009 (4008.7...). Los Angeles County is at 2441 with Santa Clara County at 1084. San Francisco County is at 633.

    In terms of Red/Blue (defined based on Party of State Governor), the current cumulative totals are "Red" 1855 to "Blue "1894" per million. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ymc191k5T37xgUlOuK3SBI9PQtZxm_aVwDnncICh85c/edit?usp=sharing

    1. rational thought

      I would think that using governor as a proxy for blue and red states gives a slight bias to have blue states showing a lower # than reality but only by a small factor. If you try to divide by effective control of covid restrictions, I might put ma as blue as dem legislature in effective control more than Baker. But overall, making such an adjustment likely leaves the gap in favor of red states a bit bigger but not much

      But blue states are also more urban which should tend to increase death rates even if every state had same policy. So fair to adjust for that.

      And some other adjustments can be made for other factors to try to then get an idea of how much different policies end up affecting death rates.

      When I have tried to do that with and hoc adjustments, just seems like red state blue state numbers come out hist weirdly almost exactly equal on average. Even more so than should be by random chance. Just strange how close.

      And same applied across nations to same extent except for the outliers at low end. Seems many nations are going to end up converging around same level.

      Which would imply that covid policies made no differences in the end. Which I find hard to believe.

      Although I do tend to question whether some restrictions were effective enough to be worth the cost, that does not mean I think they were completely useless. I would have expected that they reduced deaths to some extent. Maybe some like masks might actually be useless or even counterproductive ( not saying that, only possible) but no way things like social distancing cannot have helped some.

      So what is the explanation? Perhaps some of the bigger red states like Florida as compared to New York had looser overall restrictions causing significantly more deaths. But that was just offset by getting some important details better nursing home policy ( which ny, nj, and ca screwed up and fla did decent).

      1. Clyde Schechter

        There's another issue that messes up these analyses. At least a few studies have shown only weak correlations between policies or mandate and actual behavior. It's one thing to impose a lockdown or mandate social distancing or masks. It's quite another whether people actually go along. Meanwhile many people in jurisdictions that took a laissez-faire approach still substantially reduced their mobility, or wore masks voluntarily.

        I suspect it will take a decade or more before anyone is able to demonstrate with sound analysis of reasonable quality data what did and did not work in combatting this pandemic. In fact, it may never be possible to know.

  4. golack

    There have been a number of reports about the high number of shooting deaths over the holiday weekend. And that is tragic. However, we've lost more people to Covid than to shootings--it's just that the reporting has been delayed.

    A number of places seem to be doing a bit better now--but that's probably due to delayed reporting over the holiday.
    CDC now reporting 67.1% of adults vaccinated (first dose), 55% of total population. Hopefully that will shoot up a little more are reporting comes in.

    1. rational thought

      Shootings and murders always attract disproportionate attention as dramatic and a tragedy as something that should not have happened. And they kill young people.

      Any sort of disease especially if it hits older people, just seems more ordinary and normal. So have to have a much higher # of deaths before it becomes " news".

      I expect if covid was only killing the same # of people in 2020 who die each year by gunshot, it would barely have been something most would pay attention to, especially if you exclude suicides.

    2. rational thought

      For someone who is trying to figure out what is going on and checking worldometers each day, holidays are frustrating as now will not be able to tell what is going on for a few weeks until the distortion goes away.

      Same thing with fla now only reporting once a week. Drives me crazy as now do not know what is happening there each day.

      But maybe that is good if it can stop me obsessing over covid for a while.

      1. Clyde Schechter

        The daily numbers are very noisy. It's hard to see anything meaningful in them; you can get a much better view of what's happening by looking at weekly figure or 7-day moving averages anyhow.

        1. rational thought

          Yes. I tend to look at the daily numbers and compare them to the same day of the prior week. That gets you a good comparison, until a holiday disrupts that.

          And after over a year of following them, I kind of know the expected pattern per day so can mentally adjust when comparing a Tuesday to prior Monday. The fact I can instinctually do that shows I am too obsessed with it.

          Have you looked at worldometers new weekly trends section for nations which shows the last 7 days as compared to prior 7 days expressed in # per capita ? Useful.

          I also tend to focus on Los Angeles county where I live as well as Alameda county and florida where I have family . For la county and Florida the daily numbers were pretty good and stayed fairly consistent with a small variance by day of week. Alameda county numbers are garbage. They go way up and down day by day. And fla not reporting daily anymore.

          La county is not looking all that hot lately after a few really good months. I seemed to see maybe a slight slowing of rate of increase just before July 4th but iffy. Now with the 4th, just will only know for 2 weeks or so.

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