Notes:

1. Using the WorldMeter website to update daily numbers and make projections for all countries
   

 

Interesting Facts

• Argentina has had a large number of cases reported daily for the last few days, and overnight a large number of deaths too. The country implemented very tough lock-down laws since 20th March, and they have recently extended that to 24th May. The issue they face is that shanty towns did not observe the lock-down and community spread is out of control in 2 large ones near the capital Buenos Aires (a metropolitan area with more than 15 million people). Another focus of spread is in the Aged Care facilities around the city. Up to this point, Argentina had managed to keep the case numbers very low (7134 as of today), mostly due to lack of enough testing performed there. Death numbers are high for the caseload (353 as of today); if applying the standard COVID-19 death rate to the deaths numbers in Argentina, their caseload should be around 10,300 cases and the current testing efforts might just be finding the cases have been there all this long. Even if Argentina’s caseload ends around 11,000 with around 400 deaths, the country’s impact of COVID-19 is significantly better than its neighbors Brazil, Peru and Chile.

Comparative Analysis from Day “1” (>100 cases) by Cases/Deaths relative to 1M Populations

Compare countries COVID-19 journey from their day “1” (when they exceeded the 100 case mark) using their case and death numbers relative to the countries 1 million population (1M).

Highest Caseloads per 1M Population (+China as reference)

• Ireland, Spain and Belgium curves are flattening — Good signs there!
• Singapore continues in an upwards trajectory, no signs of flattening and very dangerous. Death rate for Singapore is very low which might be a sign they are identifying cases via test, but treating them early enough to avoid deaths
• Sweden caseload is increasing in almost an arithmetic trend (straight line growth); at the current trend Sweden could pass by end of May

• Belgium still has the highest deaths per 1M, and its curve is finally flattening — Good signs there!
• All other curves seem to be flattening with the exception of Sweden that has had a small increase last couple of days; at present trend Sweden could catch up with Italy by June (this could mean a death toll of around around 5000 people for Sweden by June)

Hotspots Around the World (+China as reference)

• Peru, Chile, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil lead this group, and show upwards dangerous upwards trends — Mexico not far behind but at a flatter curve

• Again, Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Chile head this group – Peru, Brazil and Chile have dangerous upwards curves, with Mexico showing a more flatter curve — Saudi Arabia follows Mexico with an even flatter curve

Brightspots Around the World (+China as reference)

These are the places that have been able to “best” handle the COVID-19 crisis. To qualify as “best” is very subjective, so I must define what I have used to select these as “best”:

1) low number of cases per 1M population (less than 500);
2) low number of active cases (or high number of recoveries);
3) low number of deaths per case volume (3% or less);
4) enough testing performed (more than 2,500 per 1M pop);
5) more than 7 wk from day “1” (day passed 100 cases in total)

• Slovakia has flattened the case curve and it is on par with Australia
• Jordan has flattened the case curve too, and it is on par with China

• Slovakia has flattened the death curve and it is on par with South Korea
• New Zealand and Jordan have not reported any new deaths in more than a week

COVID-19 Cases

Legend: Decrease  ; Increase  ; No Change 

 

• World – at current trend the world could pass 6,000,000 cases by 31st May

• Australia – at current trend, could be around 7,000 cases by 31st May 

• Argentina – at current trend could reach 14,000 cases by 31st May 

• UK – at current trend UK could be around 300,000 cases by 31st May 

• USA – at current trend could be under 1,800,000 cases by 31st May 

 

COVID-19 Deaths

Legend: Decrease ; Increase ; No Change

 

• World – at present trend, total number of deaths from COVID-19 could be under 375,000 by 31st May

• Australia – at current trend, could still be around 105 by 31st May 

• Argentina – at current trend, deaths could pass 500 by 31st May

• UK – at current trend could be around 42,500 by 31st May

• USA – at the current trend, deaths could be below 110,000 by 31st May 

 

Best and Worst Performers as of Today

The symbol indicates a change in the ranking table from yesterday.

Lowest Cases per 1 million (1M) Population

• Indonesia and India reported new cases and dropped slightly in this ranking to 3rd and 4th positions (leaving China in the 2nd spot)

Highest Cases per 1 million (1M) Population

• Belarus reported new cases and climbed  up to the 9th spot displacing Sweden to the 10th spot (Portugal is now in the 11th spot)

Highest Recoveries per Case volume

• Denmark and Ireland swapped places

Lowest Recoveries per Case volume

• Norway must be not reporting the recoveries to WHO, it is not possible they only have 32 cases recovered by now
• Ghana reported recoveries and dropped to the 4th spot; leaving Ecuador and Portugal to climb up to the 2nd and 3rd spots
• Singapore reported a large number of recoveries and dropped off from this ranking; Philippines, Russia and USA climbed up one position to 8th, 9th and 10th

Number of New Recoveries per Cases volume

• Large number of recoveries reported by South Africa, and Romania (more than 6.5% both)
• Romania, Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia and Morocco are new to this report, meaning they are increasing their recoveries (all other countries were there yesterday)

Highest Tests volume per 1 million (1M) Population

• Belgium reported a large number of new tests and climbed up to the 5th position in the world; displacing Spain and Ireland to the 6th and 7th positions

Lowest Test volume per 1 million (1M) Population

• Algeria and Nigeria swapped places

Number of New Tests overnight per 1 million (1M) Population

• UAE reported a large investment on tests, more than 60,000 tests overnight for a country of less than 10 million is significant
• Besides UAE; Belgium, Italy and USA are new to this list (all other countries have been there for a few days)
• USA has passed the 10 million tests, first country to have reported that in the world — China conducted mass tests of the whole population of Wuhan to identify the source of the current outbreak there, that is 11 million tests — however China is not reporting their test numbers to WHO (don’t know why?)

Lowest Deaths per Case volume

• UAE and Chile swapped places

Highest Deaths per Case volume

• No changes

Lowest Number of New Cases overnight per Case volume

• Denmark reported very low new cases overnight and made this report; all other countries have been in this report for a while

Highest Number of New Cases overnight per Case volume

• Colombia, Brazil and Argentina increased their caseload by more than 8% which is very concerning; and Afghanistan, Nigeria and Chile more than 7%
• Colombia, Argentina and Nigeria made this report first time today; all other countries have been in the report for a few days
• Daily increases of 14-15% mean case volume could double in around 4-5 days; daily increases of 9-10% mean case volumes could double in around 5-6 days – It is encouraging to see we don’t have any country with daily case increases of 25% of case volumes of higher, as that would mean that caseloads would double in 2-3 days

Highest Number of Days from Day “1” (>100 cases) – Yellow if >5% increase

• Singapore reported a significant increase of recoveries — Singapore currently has more than 26,000 cases with little more than 20,000 recovered and only 21 deaths

Hotspots (highest overnight case increase per 1M last 3 days)

• Brazil and Peru reported large new case volumes 3 days in a row and made this report again (they dropped off for a few days) – all other countries were in this report yesterday

Brightspots (countries best handling the COVID-19 crisis as per criteria described above)

 

• Costa Rica dropped off from this report; leaving Slovakia and Malaysia to climb up to the 9th and 10th spots (Slovakia was not in the report yesterday, it was in the 11th spot) –  Costa Rica is now on the 11th spot

 

Data Source Links

 

• WHO Source: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
• Current Numbers: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
• Geographic distribution of COVID-19 cases worldwide: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide