Coronavirus, by the numbers, as I see it. Mid October

 Coronavirus, by the numbers, as I see it.  Mid October

It has been only a week since my last update.  Normally I let things go for 2-3 weeks, but this addresses some significant reassessments of the numbers brought to light by current political events.

The Mortality Rate

The official mortality rate by the CDC is around 4%.  Prominently posted at: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

However there is also information put out by Dr Fauci on Web MD that the death rate us between .6 and 1%, derived in the article posted at: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200901/what-changing-death-rates-tell-us-about-covid

Both are true.  The CDC rate is the total mortality rate over time.  Averaging in the time when the mortality rate was 25% in March, and slowly dropping ever since for a variety of reasons. 

Dr.Fauci’s claim that the death rate is less than 1% is based on an estimate if you catch the virus today.  Which, is frankly, the more relevant number.

I should have glommed onto this fact a while ago.  About 8 weeks ago I started looking at, but not reporting on individual states mortality rates.  What could I say? That earlier infected states had a higher death rates than later ones?  Then I would have to bring up some of the reasons why.  Gross mishandling is one.  But overload and inexperience is another.  Lack of federal support a third.  I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole since it is so very much being vetted on so many platforms.  With one or two (ok, now three ) instances, I was trying to keep these updates as politically neutral as possible.

But my first reality check was when I started compiling death rates by state.  One state stood out, Utah.  Less than 1%, the only state to do so.  The next state is Wyoming, at an even 1%.  So the main difference is just the appearance of the decimal point, but that stands out to the human eye.  I have pondered at Utah’s “miracle”.  Utah has a total number of 85,000 Active cases, currently 21,700 active cases.  It has triple the cases than Rhode Island, but then it has triple the population.  In the beginning, Utah had more cases than RI, but by mid May, RI surged rapidly ahead, having 4 x the number of cases.  Currently both states have slow incremental increases in the number of active cases, with Utah’s percentage increase being a little bit higher than RI.

RI has lost track of its recovered patients, only listed as 2,400 out of 26,000 total cases.  My estimate based on numbers 6 weeks ago, there should be at least 20,000 recovered cases.  But it looks like Utah has done a good job on that regard.  My algorithm puts Utah’s active cases as 61,000 vice 58,000. 

I am sure the strong family structure of Utah is leading to better tracking, but I also suspect not all C-19 deaths are being tracked either.  These are just suspicions.

 

Either way, there are a number of states with demonstrably low mortality rates.  The states with mortality of under 1.5% are:

Utah

Wyoming

Alaska

Wisconsin

SouthDakota

NorthDakota

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Nebraska

Kansas

Hawaii

This rate is not the current rate, but the rate over time since the numbers started accruing.  So, if anything, the current rates for these states are actually lower than 1.5%.

With the exception of Tennessee, all of these states have natural resistance to the spread by virtue of their low population density, and or, natural barriers.  Tennessee seems to have done a good job of tracking recovered.  Total cases 203,000, recovered 185,000, current active cases 16,000.  Unfortunately, like the rest of the country, Tennessee is experiencing a new case surge, and is vectoring to triple their active case load in a couple of weeks.

Enough of that

The number of states with an official decline in active cases is 5, down from 20 last month.  The official total number of active cases is just over 2.5 million.  And has hardly budged, but as explained earlier, I believe that number is way too high. 

The number of NEW cases is increasing daily by 4%, per day.  By extrapolating numbers of new cases, counting them as ill for 23 or so days, I am seeing a rise from around 750,000 on Sept 27 to 1.25 million on 10/8.  Those numbers are just “Broad ass Guesses” on my part, but 4% compounded daily builds up fast, with a doubling rate of 18 days. 

So my figure may be lower, but it is increasing rapidly.