The world will have MORE THAN ONE MILLION CORONAVIRUS CASES and the death toll will cross 50,000 latest by 18:00 UTC (11:30 pm IST) today. I can say this with confidence as I have been tracking the numbers of the COVID-19 pandemic for 18 days now and have done multiple calculations and analysis, as many of you may have read in some of my posts.
USA became the first country to cross 200,000 cases. At the time of publishing this post, the world’s third-most populated country had 215,344 cases. The country will most likely cross 300,000 cases by Sunday and a million cases by 11th April.
Read my post on Coronavirus spread in USA.
France and Iran are now the 6th and 7th countries with over 50,000 cases; Turkey and Belgium are now amongst 11 countries with over 15,000 cases; South Korea is only 24 short of becoming the 14th country with over 10,000 cases; and Australia has become the 19th country with over 5,000+ cases.
Spain has become the second country (after Italy) to cross 10,000 deaths; USA the 3rd with over 5,00 deaths; France the 4th with over 4,000 deaths and UK the 7th with over 2,000 deaths.
Read my post on Mortality Rates.
Before I move further, I want to give you some background. My Data Analytics Study on the Coronavirus Pandemic is in its 18th day today and I have chosen 30 countries for this study. These countries have been chosen not just because these have reported the highest number of cases, but also because they comprise the most populated nations on earth – that is why Bangladesh, Nigeria and Vietnam are part of the study.
The Table with COVID-19 (also known as SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV) data from the chosen 30 countries comprises 855,722 Coronavirus cases (up 8.7% from 787,124 yesterday), which is 90% of the total 950,430 cases (up 8.9% from 872,756 yesterday) reported worldwide at 10:00 am UTC today, and is therefore more than a good reference sample.
Coronavirus cases worldwide have gone up 2.77 times in 10 days. Cases in the 30 countries in my Study have gone up by an average of 2.73 times if we include China, proving again that the 30 countries chosen for my Study (now in its 18th day) are a good sample. What continues to be alarming is that, if we exclude China, the cases in the remaining 29 countries have grown at a higher rate of 3.34 times in 10 days.
The number of cases in Turkey have gone up almost 11.69 times in 10 days. At the same growth rate, Turkey will have more than 200,000 cases in the next 11 days.
Cases in Russia have gone up 7.1 times in 10 days (projected to cross 100,000 in 16 more days at the same growth rate); Philippines up 5.65 times (projected 25,000 in 12 more days); USA up 5.14 times (projected 1 million plus in 9 more days); UK up 4.19 times (projected 100,000 in 8 more days); Belgium up 3.51 times (projected 50,000 in 8 more days); Brazil up 3.48 times (projected 50,000 in 8 more days); and Mexico up 3.36 times (projected 10,000 in 14 more days).
The number of cases in India have gone up 3.18 times in 10 days. At this growth rate, India will have 5000+ cases by 8th April and 10,000+ cases by 13th April. Let’s hope that the 21-day Lockdown ensures that this does not happen. In terms of the rank in the total number of cases in all countries (not just the 30 in this Study), India is now at No.35 (up from No.38 on 31st March).
All the projections in the preceding two paras is subject to the condition that enough tests are conducted to match the pace of the disease’s growth trajectory.
See my previous post on testing data.
In 10 days, cases have gone up 6.02 times in the Top 10 countries in the Table (the 10 with the highest growth rate in number of cases); 3.46 times in the Middle 10 countries; and 1.54 times in the Bottom 10 countries. However, if we were to remove China and South Korea from the last group, the growth rate of the “Bottom 8” goes up to 2.05 times.
Seven countries now have over 50,000 cases each and 13 countries have crossed 10,000 cases. The number of countries with 5000+ cases is now 19 (up from 16 on 31st March); those with 2000+ cases is now 35 (up from 30 on 31st March); while those with 1000+ cases is now 50 (up from 44 on 31st March).
Of the 542,802 new cases reported in these 30 countries in the last 10 days, 97.7% are from the 18 countries that have reported at least 3,500 cases. As I have already said in each of my posts on this subject over the past 10 days, this only further proves that much more testing has been done in these 18 countries, than the 12 others.
Information on number of tests conducted in each country has been very erratic. Some countries have not reported data for last 2 days, some for last 3-4 days, and some for even the last 12-15 days.
However, based on extrapolation of older data and the “Infection Rate”, an estimated 8.966 million people have been tested in these 18 countries (up from 8.653 million yesterday), at an average of 3.27 tests per 1,000. About 9.33% of these people have tested positive. If we remove Russia from the list (as the Infection Rate in Russia is unusually low at just 066%, even though it has gone up substantially from just 0.52% yesterday), the Infection Rate of the other 17 countries goes up to 9.88%.
Read my earlier post on the Infection Rate.
An estimated 270,238 people have been tested in the remaining 12 countries (up from 175,207 yesterday). This translates to 0.0939 tests per 1,000, which is just 2.87% of the testing velocity of the first 18 countries. About 7% of these people were tested positive. If we remove Vietnam from the 12 (as Vietnam has an unusually low Infection Rate of just 0.39%, even lower than Russia), the Infection Rate of the other 11 countries goes up to 9.63%, which is more in line with the first lot of 18 countries.