My first entry (10 March 2020)

March is the month when Germans started to get worried about Corona. Three months after the first reported case in Wuhan, two months after the Chinese had reported it to the WHO (too late!), and one month after I had started stocking food and medications. During which time Germany and other European nations had been looking down on those spaghetti eaters who were apparently not able to handle a little outbreak (caution: sarcasm), all the while letting people return home from holiday in Italy. Untested. One of them was teaching children in my hometown Ladenburg. Which led to the closure of a school. Which should have been closed a month earlier already.

Taiwan, a country of 23 million with close ties to mainland China, is one of several Asian nations with a good response (also Singapore, Vietnam and to a certain degree South Korea). As of 9 March, 14 635 cases have been reported and tested in Taiwan. Of these, 14 149 (96.6%) were negative and 47 positive (0.3%), of which 1 died and 17 were released, cured after quarantine. Here is one link to the story, and here is the scientific paper. This should be putting Europe and the US to shame. There is also a very helpful graphic by the Washington Post.
When this outbreak is over, I sincerely hope that our governments will copy Taiwan's response procedure to prevent future disasters.

An exponential growth of disease spread is not easy to understand. Even some friends of mine who are scientists don't grasp the severity of it. The example of the water lily pond below is my way to explain what is happening. I am using a 2-day doubling whereas the number of Covid-19 cases seem to double every 3-6 days, and the "ponds", meaning the countries, are much bigger. The scenario on Day 16 would happen if we were to treat Covid-19 like the seasonal flu and do nothing.

In my example, Taiwan acted on Day 0. Germany acted late, on Day 6, by plucking some lilies (trying to prevent person-to-person contact), thus slowing lily growth. Because water lilies die at some point (the analogy to humans developing immunity), the lake should in reality never be fully overgrown.
The US is acting only on Day 8 and has thus a much grimmer outcome than Germany. I fear that the disease will have taken over most of the country by the end of April.

After the world economy will have been wrecked and with tens of thousands, if not millions of deaths, there are a few good things coming out of it: ;
- The air is getting easier to breathe,
- Solidarity within towns and cities is blossoming,
- Trump and his cronies are all old (and the rest of my wish does not need to be spelt out).

Italy, by the way, acted on Day 4, too late but still earlier than other European nations. And still, their health care system is being taxed to the point that they will soon have to triage people showing up at hospitals. It should serve as an example or other nations.

China acted on Day 2. Because of their large population, we saw it as a big problem but per capita, Taiwan had more infected people than China. This, and because they acted relatively early and by imposing drastic measures (the "advantage" of a dictatorship), disease growth may have slowed significantly by now.

Today, 19 March 2020, scientist in Cambridge, UK, estimated that by doing nothing, the US would have 4 million deaths. This report is what shook awake both Trump and this crony Johnson, and they are finally doing something, however late on the exponential curve. This will have dire consequences for their populations and hopefully for their re-election.

China seems to have reached the peak and they are certainly bragging about it. But as scientists have pointed out, Covid-19 will come in waves and it is therefore likely that there will be new Chinese cases after a short period of calm. And I don't think that new infections can go all the way to zero.

Today, 23 March 2020, the shocking pictures from Italy's deaths has probably had a big impact on my fellow countrymen and women: With very few exceptions, they are following the no-contact rules.

I am also posting the paper by scientists from the Imperial College in the UK that made the two idiots Trump and Johnson change their minds (Bolsonaro remains immune to reason). There is nothing in it we did not already suspect but the authors use real data to build a model that comes to very dire conclusions. I hope that Trump will be sued by the families of the deceased for not having acted as early as January, the time when the US "intelligence" agencies first rang the alert.

Of note is Figure 4, the triggered response. I postulate that China is currently seeing the first (orange) decrease, which is followed by a relaxation of the curfew rules. This will be followed by another surge in cases, albeit with a lower peak. Other countries should then see a similar oscillation of their numbers. Figure 4 also shows that the epidemic will be here to stay until the end of the year, if not later.

I have highlighted a few important points in the discussion, starting on page 15. (1) Interventions such as social distancing (which is really a physical distancing because we can still socialise by electronic means) will need to be maintained for several months, 2/3 of the time it takes to have an effective vaccine. (2) A relatively "short" intervention of 3 months (meaning social distancing or more) could reduce our death toll by half. (3) For the UK only, which has half of Italy's number of ICU beds (and a quarter of those in Germany), even the strictest curfew measures would overwhelm the National Health System capacity by a factor 8. (4) Measures that are currently in place in most countries are the only way to go.


Today, 3 April 2020, the case numbers in Europe are showing signs of slowing down. I have been doing my own statistics for Germany. The blue curve (cumulative cases) is starting to flatten, as exemplified by the three trend lines applied to different time periods. The number of cumulative deaths (red) is expected to climb for a couple of weeks longer than incidence, and it is hence still following its initial trend. The physical distancing measures have worked !

But case numbers are relatively low, amounting to not even 0.1% of the German population. Even considering that 50% of the infected persons can be without symptoms (as suggested by data that recently came out of Iceland, but there is no scientific paper yet), suggesting that we have only captured a fraction of the infected population in Germany, the toll would still be below 1%. For herd immunity, roughly 60-70% would need to have been infected.

Trump, Macron, Johnson and others (but notably not Merkel and later the Queen of London) have used the word "war" to describe our measures to combat Covid-19. This is wrong and unfortunately misleading insofar as a war has a defined end, whereas this pandemic will certainly not end abruptly.

Exit strategies are currently being discussed and they seem to have one thing in common: they will take months. This was predicted by the British scientists cited above. 

I shall probably need to re-assess my plans to visit Seattle this summer. 

Today, 4 April 2020, masks have become the big topic. Based on scientific data, which are scarce and don't hold much scientific power, I lean towards thinking that wearing them will do more harm than good, particularly knowing that a lot of people, physicians included, take them off the wrong way: from the front, thereby contaminating their hands with viruses that adere to it. There is a nice summary on Ars Technica referencing several studies.

I updated my statistics for Germany where the trend of cumulative deaths seems to follow the good trend of the cumulative cases. As more and more of the infected are cured, the curve of the active cases (green) is now starting to break away from the red one.

I am also following the Tunisian numbers. These are 100 x lower than the German ones. And even taking into account that they have 16% of the German population, this is impressive. The early lockdown measures had a pronounced effect on the case numbers (blue) around 24 March, shortly after they became law. The trend line for the cumulative cases is similar to that in Germany, indicating that here too, the disease seems to be under relative control.

The economy in both countries has slowed down significantly. But, while Germany provides trillions of Euros of support, Tunisia, a country whose economy ranks between that of Serbia and Bulgaria, offers just a couple of hundreds of millions. Covid-19 will may thus have a devastating effect on Tunisian economy. I therefore predict that, after the pandemic has tapered off, migration from the then-even-poorer countries to the then-still-rich ones is likely to increase.

Today, 10 April 2020, and the numbers for this first wave of Covid-19 cases look good. Cumulative cases in Germany are coming to a plateau, recovered cases are now at 50% and mortality is at roughly 2%. But here lies the rub:

There is now very small study (100 participants, Link in German) with very little (if at all) statistical power from the worst-hit Heinsberg district, where many symptomless people have been tested. They suggest that mortality could be as low as 0.37% rather than the current 5% CFR (case fatality ratio).  While the exact mortality of SARS-CoV-2 infections will only be known in a year or so, it is conceivable that Covid-19 kills fewer people than initially assumed. I am bringing up this number because it has a profound effect on the measures that will need to be taken in the months to come.

But Covid-19 still results in significantly more deaths than the seasonal flu with about 0.1% CFR. Take this, Fox News and other deniers.

Germany is actively discussing the "exit" strategy. But there will be no exit because the virus is to remain with us until sufficient immunity in the population is reached, either by vaccine or by a 70% immunity (herd immunity) through "natural" infection, which will, in all likelihood, not happen before the vaccine (about 35 000 Germans would need to be infected every day to reach herd immunity in 18 months).
So we are now looking at keeping (milder) physical distancing measures in place until summer of 2021.

I predict that events drawing crowds will not be allowed until then, with profound effects on social life. Professional sports will be a victim (and with it the doping labs) but maybe amateur sports with its fewer spectators will see a surge in popularity. Churches are mostly half empty in Germany anyway, so they will be OK, and praying in mosques can be made compatible with physical distance (your closeness to your god is what counts anyway). Places that are made for physical coziness will not be allowed to open. This includes bars, dance places but not restaurants if they can provide distance (but who would want to eat there then?). Dating and sex could potentially work like with HIV, but unlike HIV, you need to test positive for the antibody, plus known to be no longer infectious, plus known to be protected from a second infection. I have no idea how this can be done.




Today, 12 April 2020, the stats are getting better but the peak has not been reached yet, neither in Germany nor in Tunisia. Bill Gates, a man for whom my respect has grown ever since he left Microsoft, predicts that after the US, Africa will be the new focus of the disease. I am also mighty afraid for my friends in India.

Today is 16 April 2020 and the curves for cumulative cases are only slowly edging towards the desired plateau. People are increasingly realising that we need to learn to live with the virus and that measures of personal protection will become the new norm. Scientists are doing their utmost best to analyse the, still scarce, data. The latest publication predicts that "prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022."



Today, 18 April 2020, I see a small trend in German numbers toward an increase in case numbers. The trend line seems to want to go up again. The same is true for the Tunisian numbers.

Today, 19 April 2020, German daily case numbers are going down overall, as exemplified by the light green trendline. For Tunisia, shortcomings in their health care infrastructure become visible as reporting is only spotty. Predictions are therefore hard to make.

Last night, Sven pointed me to a Washington Post article from 14 April, which reports on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wikipedia), China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4), which requires highly skilled personnel that knows how to adhere to the strictest protocols available in research. At a site visit in 2015, a US team found two things: the lab had serious safety issues while the lab conducted proof-of-concept research to demonstrate that viruses from bats could have the potential to directly infect humans. This research was criticised in a Nature paper in the same year.
Both these findings point at a potential accidental release of the virus from a lab. In addition, the theory that the virus originated at the wild animal market, where allegedly no bats were sold, is on shaky ground.

The crazies of this world, who believe in a dark power orchestrating our lives for personal gain rather than blaming our own daily human mistakes, will see this as proof that the virus was engineered and released by the Chinese government to gain possession of the world. If it were so, why did the Chinese not release it in the US rather than killing their own people and wrecking their economy first? 

Most importantly though, looking at the sequence of SARS-CoV-2 makes the lab-based theory very unlikely (Nature, Twitter).

We don't need a lab accident or a rogue government to have a pandemic. Overpopulation paired with high individual mobility can do it alone.

In the wake of H1N1, Bill Gates warned about future pandemics as early as 2010, as he did so over and over again in the years to follow. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI, the German equivalent of the US Centers of Disease Control, CDC) has recently been demanding a national and international plan to address pandemics (in German), as have many international institutions since the 1990s. But nobody must have read the reports.

As I said above, few countries heeded the warning. Taiwan has one of the lowest case numbers and they did not have a new Covid-19 case in days. A Taiwanese pilot I met online the other day stated that every time he and his crew return to Taibei, they will go into a mandatory 14-day quarantine. So they are targeting those who move around a lot and are thus are the most likely vectors.

Therefore, if anybody is to blame, it is our own leaders, and, since we voted them into office, by extension, ourselves. At the very least, there is no reason to praise any of our leaders for their brave actions during the pandemic because if they (and by extension, we) had acted years ago, there would not have been a pandemic but an epidemic at most. 



Today, 21 April 2020, numbers are on the right track in Germany and Tunisia. Let's hope the numbers don't go down too fast because otherwise we risk complacency and the numbers will explode again.

Today, 24 April 2020, is the third day of re-opening in Germany. Good weather brought many people out, particularly to the ice cream parlours. Many people do not keep the required distance when queuing. Some actually blocked the entrance to my café when I tried to exit with my coffee to-go. I hope that this trend will not continue because otherwise, 2-3 weeks from now, measures will be tightened again. Numbers are still on the right track in Germany and they look even better in Tunisia (albeit with the grain of salt called incomplete or delayed data reporting).

Today, 26 April 2020, I have added some explanations to my Covid-19 stats for Germany and Tunisia and I added data from the United States. The German trend lines for daily cases and daily deaths clearly demonstrate that we are very far from an end to this pandemic. All three charts are on the same logarithmic scale and demonstrate that, compared to Germany, the US still have a long way to go. Some federal states might fare better, in particular Washington.

And here is to the selfish people of the world, the MAGAs and AfD supporters, the Le Pen'ists, VOX'ists and other backward'ists, who are demanding a swift end to confinement by gathering in the streets, and by putting others' lives at risk. Michael, a former roommate, pointed me to this video, which, ironically, was put together by former Republicans. Maybe there is hope.

On the topic of masks, my predictions seem to have come true. Walking through Ladenburg, I see people wearing them the wrong way (on the chin?), too long (they become soggy and don't protect and might infect the wearer), take them off by touching the front, and constantly re-arranging them and thus touching their faces. The good thing for me is that my mask, which I wear to protect me from the pollen, is no longer seen as curiosity.

Today, 29 April 2020, the statistics for the three countries could not be more different. 

The best looking is Tunisia with few cases and a clear trend towards no more cases in a couple of days. The country could relax lockdown measures but doesn't because it knows it does not have the capacity to deal with another surge should something go wrong. My prediction: They are waiting for numbers from countries that are currently reopening before allowing their population more freedom.

Next is Germany, where case numbers are declining too, albeit slowly. Death numbers are holding steady because they always lag by a few weeks. A careful end of lockdown measures has started and there have been signs that it might not be going too well (both, my own observations and in the news). A trend will become apparent two weeks after easing the lockdown at the earliest. My prediction: masks are no answer (only distance is), the numbers could trend upwards again, and measures would then become tightened.

The United States are clearly still at the stage of ramping up, albeit with case numbers holding steady. They are technically declining but there are still tremendous testing issues. Leadership is mostly headless (the CDC has not been in command as it has been during the last pandemics, even the ones in Africa) and those who remain are sending conflicting signals. If some federal states were to ease measures now, they will see surges in cases that will ultimately spread to states still in lockdown. My prediction: Impossible in this mess but it will take a lot longer than in other countries.

Today, 2 May 2020, I added my former home state Washington to the statistics. Unfortunately there seem to be several sources with different ways of data accrual. Plus, I have yet to find numbers on the recovered cases. Until then, I am using the US recovery rate. The cumulative cases have a flatter appearance than those of the entire US, which was expected given that Washington was the first state with an outbreak, lockdown rules were put in place relatively early, and reopening of the economy is only starting slowly (first in, good measures, first out). 

I also added the percent Covid-19 deaths compared to the usual number of daily deaths in 2019. It's peak was highest in the US (35 %), followed by WA (20 %), DE (12 %) and TN (2 %). This means that Washington is doing a better job of protecting its population than the US in general but it lags behind Germany (but this could be a reporting issue; see two paragraphs below).

All data are standing on shaking ground anyway. Which is not surprising given the short time for reports that usually take months, if not years to conclude. For the US, there are at least three entities who report data: the CDC, which relies on data from the individual states, such as WA Department of Health (which I use), Covidtracking, a group formed by The Atlantic magazine, which I use for the US data, and Johns Hopkins University, which is always a day ahead of the others because they sample directly from the sources but it amplifies their errors.

In addition to sourcing, there are also issues regarding the time from disease onset to reporting and the thoroughness with which cases are identified (only the ones with symptoms vs. all diseased). Belgium, for instance has a higher death rate because it counts all deaths if they are in any way related to Covid-19 whereas in Germany, the decision on the cause of death is left to the individual doctor. In the US it is likely that every state, and potentially every county has its own rule of reporting and comparison of data between countries is therefore difficult. For this reason, I only compare big picture things, such as shapes of curves and trendlines.

Germany's RKI has published on some of these issues, reporting a lag of the actual disease onset by 5-10 days before reporting (in German only). In this bulletin they also say that the introduction of the no-contact rule on 23 March in Germany did not alter the course of the disease. In fact they conclude that prior measures of social distancing and the interdiction of mass gatherings (as in football games etc.) had mostly to do with the flattening of the curve.

This in turn gives us hope for the time after confinement because the 2-m rule with all its consequences seems to be sufficient for keeping the virus from spreading too fast. Data from Sweden, where no lockdown was ever pronounced, seem to corroborate this. This also confirms my stance on wearing masks: Sweden doesn't use them in everyday situations and I feel strongly that we don't need to either, unless a person is not feeling well, coughing or sneezing (like the Chinese have done for 100 years).

Today, 4 May 2020, I updated the statistics and noticed that the number of daily deaths is falling in both the US and in WA while the new infections are keeping almost steady. In Germany, the daily deaths have been lagging behind daily cases from the beginning, which would be the expected behaviour in an optimal health care setting. One possible explanation is that in the beginning of the pandemic, US hospital care was suboptimal and patients died who would have survived under better circumstances. And now that the health system has caught up, fewer people are dying. If this were indeed true, in a couple of weeks from now, the number of daily cases should be falling faster than the daily deaths. 

Today, 6 May 2020, I noticed that the numbers reported by the Washington Department of Health change every day for all numbers going back over three weeks. I have no idea why but it is annoying. 

We have reached a phase where two antagonists, economy on one side and scientists on the other, are deciding on the anti-lockdown measures. And people are caught in between. And it looks as if this phase were to be a lot more driven by local factors, not only in Germany, where every small entity will set their own schedule and their own rules, but also in France, where some municipalities refuse to open schools and others do. The US can hardly top this chaos.

Speaking of chaos. Everybody seems to talk about the Corona app. This app will work in conjunction with and greatly enhance conventional contact tracing. If we want international travel to resume any time soon, it is imperative that the app be the same in, let's say Germany and Spain, because otherwise, a German who gets infected in his home country and travels to Mallorca will not be sounding an alarm on a Spanish app. In addition, the app must be trustworthy because otherwise it will not be installed at all (putting aside the irony that people install contact trackers voluntarily all the time, such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and what not).

The only way to go is with Google and Apple, the makers of 99% of all smartphone operating systems. This is explained very nicely in an article by Ars Technica. Germany has lost an entire month because they have insisted on fighting windmills. France, Austria, the UK and many other countries are shamefully still working on their own apps, and they don't even work on iPhones.

Today, 8 May 2020,, I came across a very interesting CNN video in which Laurie Garrett, a journalist who has extensive experience with epidemics, explains in a very calm way what to expect in the coming 36 months. Not sensationalist but sobering. And probably accurate, as far as I can tell.
The statistical outlook for Germany could be looking bad but we need to wait a few more days if the new infections are really increasing.



Today, 9 May 2020, German daily case numbers show a tendency to not fall any more. Some counties (Landkreise) are therefore prolonging lockdown measures. Turkey is doing the same. Western Washington sees a rise in cases too. Spain exempts Madrid and Barcelona from anti-lockdown measures. What this tells me is that we must remain vigilant. 

Today, 12 May 2020, the numbers have not changed much. Tunisia has had no new cases for two days and no deaths for three. Germany's cases are still falling, albeit a little slower than before, probably owed to carelessness after the end of lockdown. US daily numbers are falling, but they remain doubtful because, courtesy of lack of centralised leadership, numbers from the individual states are not as good as they could be. Such as in Washington, where the authorities keep changing case and death numbers going several weeks back and daily cases are still up, although they are down in the entire US.

Given the very likely 36-month timeframe for the entire pandemic, the lockdown period was short and thus relatively easy to manage. People, shocked by daily death numbers in other countries, were good at keeping distances, although the young ones in the streets of Ladenburg clearly did not.

In the months to come, pictures like the one here, taken in Seattle on Friday, will become more common. But the virus is still among us, almost invisible to most because of social distancing. It will re-emerge with a vengeance, particularly in the context of alcohol, the drug of choice in most countries. The best remedy would sadly be another burst in cases and deaths, which seems to be the only factor driving responsible behaviour. 

This makes the triggered response scenario in Figure 4 of the Imperial College paper I mentioned on 23 March more likely for the months to come.

Montlake Cut Swimmers

Today, 15 May 2020, the stats continue with the same trend as in days prior. Tunisia has had no new cases in 5 days and no new deaths in 6. The government has released a re-opening plan, of which Phase 1 is now in place. Their biggest challenge will be how to restart tourism, including how to make sure that tourists will not carry the virus back into the country and to provide for them while they are sick. Germany is seeing a slight uptick in new cases and it still uncertain if the easing of measures will have a broader effect.
The United States still have issues with their reported numbers and the way they are generated but numbers are clearly falling, albeit slowly. Washington State's numbers, driven mostly by the area around Seattle, are falling, but even more slowly than the entire country, hinting at a potential issue with Phase 1 of their re-opening measures. And this is known in the population because hair dressers in Seattle have asked to delay the opening of their businesses, probably out of fear for their own lives.

Today, 16 May 2020, the statistics show a continued slower fall of the numbers in Germany and a higher trend in the daily dead in the US. There were three more cases in Tunisia but no deaths for a week, reminding us that the virus will remain in our population. Washington reverts back to a fall in daily death numbers while daily case numbers remain almost unchanged, again hinting at issues with their opening measures. Given the huge number of working poor who cannot afford to not go to work and combining that with crippled leadership, the US is looking for a slow decrease in active cases compared to other nations.

Today, 18 May 2020, it seems as if numbers were going the right way in Germany. The re-opening has caused daily case numbers to fall at a slower pace but they still fall. Fatalities are at a new low and we may not see any more deaths by the end of June. Tunisia is already there, with no new fatalities in 9 days. This puts them is a good position for allowing tourism again. To be really safe though, they would need the means to test every tourist that enters the country.

The United States show a very different picture. Case numbers remain almost flat, but we see fewer deaths, probably owed to better hospital care. 
Washington State displays the same trend but, per capita, numbers are less than half of those of the entire US. This trend started early April, meaning that Washington State's response has been considerably better than that of the entire US. Since the US numbers include Washington and other States that are doing considerably better, it follows that there must be some States that do considerably worse. 

I muse that these other States are the ones with pressure to prematurely re-open the economy. They might have a large number of people protesting the lockdown measures, maybe because they are unable to comprehend exponential growth. If Trump were willing to build a wall around these places, there would be fewer Trump voters in a few months.

Wrong but simple answers

Today, 20 May 2020, I made the all trendlines for my statistics based on the prior three weeks, since this seems to be a solid timeframe within which measures manifest in the numbers. Washington's numbers still drive me crazy because on each new day, numbers change as far back as March. The prior trend continues though. Numbers fluctuate because they are low and the y-axis is logarithmic. Tunisia has new cases and deaths but if they remain single digit, there is no reason for concern. Germany is still trending downwards and this first wave could be over by the end of June. What happens after that is hard to predict. Based on Wuhan numbers, we could see another small outbreak, maybe a month later, which would be August. And then there is the potential of a second wave in September or later. It all depends on our ability to contain new outbreaks. Numbers for the United States are still too high to re-open the economy.

Today, 22 May 2020, the new trend lines are out. Nothing new to report.

Elizabeth Dorn pointed me to Erin Bromage's blog, which explains how the virus spreads, particularly indoors, and that it is much much safer to be outside. If inside, good ventilation paired with minimisation of time being inside is key to protection.

As Erin pointed out, the US numbers only look good because they include those of New York City, which had the lion share of the US cases. If you take NYC out, the US have not reached the peak at all. To show this, I compared the data of the US (minus NY, CA and WA) and of New York State. Until early April, US data were driven largely by NY numbers. Since then, NY numbers are declining and US numbers remain mostly unchanged.

US minus NY

Today, 23 May 2020, I included New York State in the statistics because it is one of the hardest hit regions with ¼ of Germany's population but more cumulative cases and far more daily deaths at its peak. The numbers are largely driven by New York City. The data also show the huge number of deceased. At its peak it was almost double the usual dead seen on an average day. But it also shows its heroic effort to curb the disease. 

Until today I have neglected the fourth country that is part of my being, France. But it is now remedied. You can see from the wild jumping around of daily cases and deaths that data reporting is not as smooth as chez les Allemands ou bien à New York. In fact, I found various sources that differ greatly. I use a site which aggregates data from the Ministry of Health. Compared to Germany, there is roughly the same number of cases but 3x more deaths. At the peak, French Covid-19-related deaths were as high as the average deaths seen on a typical day.

The other countries and states show nothing new. Germany's numbers are still decreasing slower than before, continuing a trend since re-opening. The dotted trend line shows the downward slope in new cases before re-opening: the trend goes up about two weeks after re-opening. This is not dramatic but serves as a reminder to remain vigilant.

Today, 24 May 2020, I have extended the timeline of the graphs until mid August because it will take at least that long before numbers are low enough to not worry too much about them any more. And then we expect a second wave, and I will extend the timeline again.

The trends have not changed for the countries and states. The only thing that worries me is that in Washington State new case numbers are essentially staying the same while death numbers are going to zero. Of the regions in my graphs, WA is the only one with this behaviour, which can also be seen on this graph here. It shows the Case Fatality Ratio, meaning the percentage of positively tested people who have died. WA is the only one that goes down since about one week ago.

One interpretation is that there is a new surge of fatalities coming when the 5% of the now new cases will die. The other interpretation is that WA State is doing such a good job caring for the diseased in the hospitals that almost nobody dies any more. I hope it is the latter.

CFR

Today, 25 May 2020, I changed the data source for Washington State statistics. It came to light that US testing results are a mix of different tests (antibody and RNA) and each state and county is counting differently, not necessarily recording, which test was used. This further underlines the chaos in the US. I have suspected this before (and wrote about it above) and I will be leaving it to the data aggregator to sort out this mess and use their data for all US states. I also excluded New York State numbers from the US numbers because they are so big.

As a result, WA new cases are declining much faster. But given the high volatility of the data, the trend line is likely to change its slope dramatically from day to day.

One thing caught my eye: French numbers are falling much faster than those of Germany. Since France re-opened later than Germany and it is therefore likely that their downward trend will slow down, just as it has for Germany. Nevertheless, I predict stricter measures for Germany in a few days if only out of fear that other countries might close their borders to the hordes of German holidaymakers. 

In the light of the chaotic re-opening in the United States, the Imperial College Scientists came out with a new paper in which they make a prediction for US case numbers until 6 July, testing for various degrees of people moving around, but assuming no new measures, such as tracing by phone, mass testing or changes in workplace (which is not likely to happen in that time period). The results are predictably sobering, in particular for those states in which the Rt value (which Germany calls R0) is above 1 and are thus encouraged NOT to re-open. Interestingly, the latter states are aggregated in the southwest and the middle of the US, which are the classical Redneck regions.
The scientists used Washington, New York, Florida, California and Massachusetts as model states to predict a surge of cases to prior peak levels or even higher if people move around not even half as much as before the pandemic. These results can probably be applied to all countries that reopen too fast.
A prior prediction by Imperial College has been pretty accurate and I hope the Ignorants of the world are able to read. Because as much I would not mind to see them wiped off the surface of this planet, they will ultimately carry the virus to other places and prolong the agony for us all.

Today, 26 May 2020, statistical trends are largely unchanged from the day before. The US minus NY is still at the risk of seeing a re-surge in cases and Trump went playing golf. He also has kept a relatively low profile during the chaos he has caused.

In February, this photo was taken at the carnival in Mainz, Germany. Nobody would have thought that the Capitol depicted in the back would soon become the entire country.






Today, 27 May 2020, case numbers in the US (minus NY) show a greater tendency to fall but given the shaky ground the numbers stand on, one cannot be sure. They remain very high anyway.

Nero Trump

Today, 29 May 2020, as daily numbers are becoming smaller in WA, TN, and FR, the trendline jumps around from day to day. In Tunisia, the trendline even reversed its course. If new cases stay in the double digits for a few days (the reporting is 3 days behind anyway), this could announce a second wave. In Washington, new case numbers remain stubbornly high. Without the two very low outliers, the trendline would be flat. In both regions, restrictions would need to be reintroduced if the trend continues.
Germany sees a continued trend to a less pronounced drop in number as before re-opening and given that some states now consider a further ease of restrictions, I expect the trend to continue.
The US numbers (minus NY where numbers continue their downward trend) remain dangerously high and fall too slowly. I hear that in states that were not much affected until now, the daily case numbers are even starting to grow. It looks as if the virus were to remain in the US for a very very long time at levels far higher than in Europe.

The stock market is completely unfazed by this new reality brewing but I fear that it will go down again once this has sunken in. Just like in February, now is the time to steer assets into less volatile waters, such as government bonds or shares of companies that are crucial in these times.

Today, 30 May 2020, the numbers seem to indicate that reopening puts a damper on the nice and steady decline of the daily case number observed in the last weeks. Washington: going up, Germany: going flat, Tunisia: going up, New York: becoming flatter, France: becoming flatter, USA: don't get me there. 

This is not good. Because the more cases remain in the population, the higher the chance for a focal outbreak.

When ranked by population, as depicted here (source), the vast majority of the affected nations are European and their former colonies in the Americas. With the exception of Singapore, which is a city and hence ranks higher by default, there is not a single Asian nation among the top 30. Note: deaths are counted very differently in each country, some, like Russia, do not report them correctly for political reasons and I talked about Belgium before (see above). It is still interesting to see that the 30 nations with the most cases per capita are not the ones usually talked about. Chile and Ireland rank pretty high.

Vietnam has 328 cases and zero deaths. Life there is as lively as ever. Streets are packed, people keep some distance and wear masks. The secret? Testing-tracing-quarantining as soon as the first cases were reported in China and before they knew for certain that the virus was spreading from human-to-human. Also: the tests were free. Cost to the country: far less than shutting down the economy.

The Western nations have paid a high price for their arrogance. It is not too late though to employ a thorough strategy of testing-tracing-quarantining.

Per Capita

Today, 31 May 2020, the statistics continue the trend of the last week. An upward trend in daily cases is not necessarily a bad thing. It is acceptable if three criteria are met: (a) numbers remain overall small compared to the size of the population, (b) there are measures in place to follow the test-trace-quarantine procedures and (c) there is sufficient ICU capacity, a condition which is now met by all countries in my statistic.

Criterion (a) is met by Tunisia, Washington, Germany and maybe France (but only if the latter numbers fall back to below 1000).

Criterion (b) has three components, of which the testing should now be feasible in large numbers, although I hear the US fiscal people screaming that it will be too expensive and there seems to be confusion about which test to use (antibody or RNA).

Tracing, the second component requires a lot of personnel and I am not sure if the US are willing to shell out that money either. Of course, it is a lot cheaper than turning off the economy. If not enough personnel is available for tracing the infected people, one should wait with re-opening until the smartphone app has been deployed in sufficient numbers. But, of course, nobody does that and governments had failed bombastically by trying to each write their own without consulting with the smartphone OS makers and by secretly introducing location tracking linked to phone numbers, which means that few people will install it. They all failed for several reasons but the easiest one was that their apps will not work on iPhones at all. Something everybody but the governments had known, like, forever. One of the Baltic countries is the first one to deploy an app that is based on Apple/Google specifications and will hence be as non-intrusive as possible while working on the largest possible number of smartphones without draining their batteries. But it is still a national app for a country the size of King County. Not so smart.

Quarantining sounds simple. Just keep yourself away from others for two weeks. I believe, in Germany, while mostly voluntary, there can be mandatory quarantine and Vietnam is even paying for locking people into hotels. Again, I am not sure the freedom-loving US libertines will comply, particularly the young ones who may not understand much of science but they have understood that people in their age group are less affected. So if one goes at great length identifying people who had contact with an infected person but these people simply don't quarantine, the effectiveness of the procedure goes down. And numbers remain up.

Today, 2 June 2020, it becomes apparent that in the countries with daily cases in the range of 0.001% of the population (Germany, France, Tunisia), there will always remain a small number of cases. This is probably owed to the clusters of outbreaks that we have experienced in Germany in the last two weeks (Baptists singing inside a church without masks, a restaurant re-inaugurated by county officials "forgetting" about precautions, a big family holding a reunion without distancing). I hear of similar things happening in France and Tunisia. These focal outbreaks can potentially become dangerous if not all people can be traced or, as in the case of the large family reunion, some members refuse to be tested or quarantined. In fact, one of the family members in Germany was forced into quarantine by law and they have not yet been able to identify Patient Zero who brought the virus to the reunion.

This kind of vigilance will be part of our daily life until we have sufficient immunity.
In the end, millions of smart people, who act responsibly, will help protect a few thousands who don't.

In Washington State, daily numbers would need to be below 80 (provided sufficient testing-tracing capacity) to be really sure that a second outbreak can be avoided and it looks as if they were to remain stubbornly 3x above. But maybe that's low enough. New York State is going to be in this range at the end of July, but only if they continue to be careful with their re-opening (Note on 2020-07-08: which they clearly were not). The US minus NY shows declining daily numbers, but they remain very very high and oscillate between falling, staying the same or even increasing. I am sure that states with smart leadership will get their own numbers down but in the end, I fear that individualism paired with pressure from the uneducated and the poor will not get daily numbers low enough to move us out of the danger zone.

Today, 4 June 2020, there is nothing really new in the statistics. There is talk about the virus losing its potency, but that is not sure at all. It would explain why the daily death numbers seem to decrease faster than the daily case numbers, but we need real studies to confirm, which can take months.

Another reason could be increased testing. Up to recently, authorities have used their precious testing capacity mostly on symptomatic cases. With more tests becoming available, they are now extending testing to asymptomatic people, such as those with indirect contact to an infected person or to groups of people who are required to be in close contact to one another, such as students, health care workers, or elderly care workers.

This will pick up people who have viral RNA but who would either not fall ill or would have mild symptoms and it would in turn increase the daily case count while not adding to the death count. This is also reflected in a decreasing Case Fatality Rate (CFR), as shown here. The CFR could thus be used as a surrogate for widespread testing. But other factors, such as the quality of the health care system, play a roll too.

Tunisia is currently conducting mass testing of their university students before they are admitted back to school. The purple line is thus going down. Germany's CFR (red) is keeping steady. The richest and stingiest country in the EU finds it too expensive.

By looking at the CFR, Washington must also have done more testing (green), as did the US (blue). New York (yellow) seems to be only in the beginning of its extended testing.

Over the next couple of months of extended testing, I expect CFR numbers to ultimately come down to 1 % or below, which science presumes to be the actual Covid-10 mortality rate.

CFR

Today, 5 June 2020, I am asking myself, what is going on in Washington? New infections are looking to go up again. Is it that fish trawler with lots of cases or the protest against the death of Mr Floyd, where people are standing shoulder to shoulder? Or is it the resilience of the freedom-loving people? The numbers are well above the safe zone of about 100 new cases per day and I am concerned.
France, too, shows a trend that has continued for long enough time to be disturbing. I included the trendline from before reopening for comparison. Germany's new infections trendline tries to approach that of before reopening but like the same poles of two magnets, it bounces off a couple of days later. Tunisia's numbers are also up and away from the trendline from before reopening. Maybe it is OK to have some residual cases left, as long as they don't overwhelm the system. But I always thought we were aiming for zero new cases.
New York, too, is deviating from the trendline from before reopening. Based on these data, their daily case numbers should get to the safe zone of ~200 cases per day about one month later than without reopening. But some people said that for the economy, a very strict and short lockdown that brings down cases fast is preferable to dragging things out.
The US numbers (minus NY) have not changed, still going down too slowly. The Floyd protests will probably increase the numbers in a couple of weeks.

I also include the Case Fatality Ratios because I am really curious to see if and when they will begin to trend towards 1%. 

Today, 6 June 2020, I added California to my statistics after having talked to Jean Stéphane who lives in Palm Springs, California. He had asked me about when it would be safe again to go out and mingle with people, and maybe stay at their homes. The California numbers looked quite shocking to me because case numbers were increasing and fatalities were staying constant. But then I looked at the CFR, which is the lowest of the regions I analyse, which means that they test a lot. 

Going back to what I wrote on 4 June about increased testing, this should probably also be reflected in how I think of the "cases". Cases are primarily people who test positive for the RNA and up to now, a large number of them had developed symptoms of Covid-19. But we are now starting to mix in people who test positive but are not sick and will probably only develop mild symptoms, if at all. Hence, an increasing "case" number does not necessarily mean that there are more people getting sick. Until we start recording the number of people with symptoms, the fatalities are the only number really related to Covid-19.

Over the last two moths, the fatalities in California have decreased by roughly 20%. During which time daily death numbers decreased by more than 80% in France, New York, Washington and Germany. In Tunisia they have been almost zero. Even in the US (minus NY and CA) they have gone down by 50%.
So, California might have increased its cases through increased testing and not by having more sick people, but the fatalities show that there is something not quite right.

And to answer Jean Stéphane, I'd still be careful and wait what numbers look like at the end of July, the more so since you live with 90-year old Jacqueline.

Today, 7 June 2020, I am concerned about what is unfolding right before my eyes in Washington and particularly in California. I was told that 50% of the CA cases are in Los Angeles alone. The Seattle mayor has now offered the protesters free testing, which is the best one can do now. Provided, of course, that those testing positive stay home. New York seems to be the lone star in the US (Texas has joined the ranks of the rest of the US).
Over in Europe, France is giving me a little headache, not only because of the chaotic case numbers with their tendency to increase for days now, but mostly because their fatalities refusing to go down. Germany looks better than before but I expect numbers to go up again after the weekend. Tunisia has not had any new cases for three days.

Today, 8 June 2020, the statistics show their usual weekend drop. France's trendlines are looking better but it is mostly owed to me dropping the two outliers from mid May.

The Case Fatality Ratio is falling in states with increasing case numbers, notably California and Washington, but also the US (minus CA and NY). Is this really because they have ramped up their testing of asymptomatic people?

I therefore investigated the numbers of all tests performed: There is a small testing uptick in Washington in the last two days (but a large drop in CFR), a steep increase in testing in New York in the last 3 weeks (and a weak drop in CFR), and a milder increase in testing in California during the same time period (and a very sharp drop in CFR). The latter is also true for the US. France and Germany have not increased the pace of their testing but Tunisia did in the last few days (this could be the university students).

In conclusion, as we have tested the bulk of people with symptoms, we are now testing a more asymptomatic population (even at the same testing rate), and this could partially explain the drop in CFR in these states. But at this stage, it is also owed to fewer people dying. Increased testing alone is not responsible for the drop in CFR.

The testing data show more though: Trump was right, the US is performing a lot of tests. But he was also wrong, as is the case when you don't look closely: the bulk of the tests were performed in New York State. Subtracting those, the percentage of the tests per capita is just average. France shows its weakness with only a fifth of the tests performed compared to the average. But that has been repeatedly discussed in the local press. The big surprise is Tunisia, whose press has been boasting about the country's tests, yet they only did a meagre tenth of the average performers.

Today, 9 June 2020, continues the trend. The US has reached a weekend dip (reporting seems to be delayed by two days), which makes the trendlines look momentarily better. France's trendlines will be a little off until three weeks after they have changed their counting method. The new case numbers are in the same ballpark as Germany's, and French authorities believe that they are well prepared to respond to clustered outbreaks. That might be true, but their Tracing App sucks and is thus worthless. 
Germany is kind of prepared for clustered outbreaks and their Tracing App, which is built to Apple/Google standards and thus useful, will be released in mid June. Still no word on whether these apps will be able to collaborate across borders.

The Imperial College has published another paper in which the scientists looked at 11 European countries (France, Italy, Spain, UK, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Norway) concluding that current interventions have been sufficient to drive the reproduction number Rt below 1.
They also estimate that over 3 million deaths had been avoided in these 11 countries due to lockdown measures. At a population of 375 million and an average death rate of 1%, this number means that almost twice as many people would have died than in an average year.

Thus, future focus in Europe will be on clustered virus outbreaks and their containment. These outbreaks will probably be caused by people returning to work and by people travelling bigger distances, particularly the holidaymakers. And not to forget that we seem to forget to be prudent. For me, who is itching to start travelling again, I shall wait and see how much damage the first tourists will inflict on our numbers, if at all. 

The US is far behind Europe, which is mostly owed to a late and inconsistent initial response followed by wrong and inconsistent measures that are still ongoing. It is therefore hard to predict at what point in time the US as a whole will be where Europe is now. While some states have taken Europe-style measures and they could get there in one month (NY), I am not certain if they have the means to identify and contain clustered outbreaks that could happen when people move across state lines. The recent protests are not yet factored in and I am curious to see if there will be a noticeable uptick in daily cases, particularly in NY.

Today, 10 June 2020, the statistics continue their past trend. France’s daily case numbers are definitely seeing an uptick, both long and short term (4 vs 3-week trendline). I hope that this is caused by increased testing of asymptomatic people. 
I had left out France’s CFR up to now because, well, you can see yourself here in faint pink. This and the recent change in reporting, does not instil confidence in their numbers.

Washington and California are definitely seeing a continued increase in daily cases, but taken with the sharply declining CFR and the testing numbers I mentioned before, I am less concerned than before. It needs to be said though that even if these new cases were largely asymptomatic, they might still be able to pass on the virus. Some members of the National Guard who had been called to the protests (but not in Seattle) had tested positive and it is just a matter of time that the protesters do too.

Tunisia has not had a new case in 6 days and, like New Zealand, the country will soon lift any restrictions, but they will monitor people coming into the country. The government is discussing requiring tourists to have a fast RNA test done 72 hours before their flight. 

Tunisia’s success compared to the failure of their former colonial power is commendable.

Germany continues its downward trend. Because the numbers are relatively low, any clustered outbreak pushes the trendline up. This happened in the last two weeks and I expect it to happen again.

The numbers of the US (minus CA and NY) look better than Brazil’s.

Today, 11 June 2020, my interpretation of the statistics is as follows.
Germany: I included a trendline for the daily deaths from two weeks before and after reopening to demonstrate that, similarly to the daily cases, the fatalities have increased a little since relaxing confinement. Both pre-opening trendlines show that by mid August, we would not have had any cases nor deaths in Germany had we kept measures in place. But we would also have become nutcases.
This exemplifies, however, that a short, complete shutdown of the society, and by extension the economy, would have been preferable to the rather soft one we had. Numbers would have come down faster and the economy would have been hit far less severely.

Of course, if Germany had closed the border and started testing/tracing/confining one month earlier when we had 20 cases and no deaths but no politicians with balls, we would not be in this mess in the first place. And 10 000 people would still be alive. Or would have died a little later in their own beds because it was their time.

France: I added a trendline for the daily deaths here too. The 4-week vs 3-week trend for the cases is going up, which is not good. At the end of June, we will have enough days with the new counting method to have more reliable trendlines. The fatality numbers are low and thus the trendline will be unstable from day to day.

Washington State: I included the trendline from two weeks before and after Phase 1 of reopening. The trendline is pointing up but comparing the trends from looking back 4 vs 3 weeks, the numbers are coming down from their high. It seems that the protests are not causing an increase in new infections, which would be consistent with an article on Al Jazeera.

This could mean: (1) protesters who did get tested did not test positive and/or (2) protesters did not get tested, potentially out of fear for legal repercussions and because they were without symptoms. The latter could still infect other, potentially older people, which would show up in 1-2 weeks.

New York State has officially reopened on 9 June, although I see signs that people must have had more contact prior to that date because the trendline went up a month before, which is potentially owed to the high number of working poor. By mid August, NY daily numbers could be in the range they are now in Germany and France!

I am scratching my head about the California numbers. The increase in cases may well be related to increased testing but yesterday saw a spike in deaths, and it needs to be seen if this is a trend or an outlier.

The US (minus CA NY WA) case trendline will hit zero in about three years. 

Today, 12 June 2020, numbers can be interpreted as follows:

Washington's case numbers are still not going down. I would like to see them in the ballpark of 80 per day (0.001% of the population or 10 per 100K) but they remain stubbornly above. The Seattle Times explains that this is caused mainly by increases in rural counties, including outbreaks in food producing or processing plants. What gives me hope is that the trendlines indicate a downward shift. Daily fatalities are up a second day in a row but they remain overall low, which is therefore no reason for concern.

France continues its upward trend in daily cases but the numbers are overall in the right range and we have 10 days to go for the new counting method to lead to sounder statistics.

Germany’s daily case numbers are coming down slowly and they are below the 0.001% of the population threshold. Fatalities are in their single digits for the second time and trending to remain that low.

Tunisia is without a new case in 8 days and no new fatalities in 7.

New York State looks as if it could reach Germany’s current numbers earlier than predicted, maybe in mid-to-end July. But with re-opening just starting, numbers will possibly trend upwards again as they have in Germany after their reopening.

California is not looking good. Daily case numbers have risen for a month now and, more importantly, daily deaths are also on the rise. This is mostly owed to Los Angeles as seen in this picture from the CA Dept of Public Health. This is now a chance for film industries in other places to gain market share.

The US (minus NY,CA,WA) shows no sign of betterment. It is even worse than the day before. Yesterday’s stock market drop could mean that reality has finally sunken in. The Dollar losing against the Euro is another potential sign. The US economy will be far worse hit than that in Europe. And the Asian markets will recover even faster. I predict that the crisis could accelerate the weakening of US dominance over the world.

But my fellow US friends, there is no reason to despair, not only those living in "smart" states but even the US as a whole. Because we do not see mass graves nor bodies piling up in the streets. The New York Times just reported that countries with far fewer resources than us have given up on trying to contain the virus. This includes India, Mexico, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, among others.

I shall end this day with a piece of somewhat sobering news from Ars Technica. Antibody testing suggests immune response post-COVID is very variable and herd immunity or even a good vaccine might never manifest. Hence, in a life with the virus, personal protection and testing, testing, testing could become part of our daily life.

CDPH

Today, 13 June 2020, I want to end the interpretation of the new numbers on a higher note. I shall therefore start with the heavy stuff:
US (minus NY,CA,WA): daily cases are increasing a little and fatalities are essentially remaining the same. Covid-19 is slated to become an uninvited guest who refuses to leave and for whom we add a guest room to the house.
California: no change for the better.
Washington State: Daily case trend is inching closer to the trendline before reopening. This is good. But said trendline was never going down in the first place and a lot of effort needs to be made to get to where Germany is.
New York State: Both trendlines are moving upwards from the nice decline we saw over the last two months. While inevitable because people breathe freedom, the next weeks will show how strong this upward trend will be.
France: Case trendline is becoming flatter but new case numbers are still trending upwards, a far cry from the pre-opening trendline. There is a possibility that the new "cases" are caused by increased testing of asymptomatic people because fatalities are still low and decreasing.
Germany: I should make a film out of the daily case trendline and the original one from before reopening because they look like a pair of scissors opening and closing and opening again. But everything looks good.
Tunisia had six new cases, which, as bad as it may seem, is a reminder to the people that the virus remains in the population. And that one can live with it because we have already taken on habits that would have been unthinkable three months ago.

Today, 14 June 2020, there is not much change in the trends.
US (minus NY,CA,WA) does not look good because the daily death trendline is essentially flat and case numbers are rising. 
CA does not look good because death numbers show a tendency to rise when looking back the usual 3 weeks compared to 4 weeks (when the trend was flat). Case numbers have been rising for over a month now.
WA looks as if it were stuck on a non-alarming level. Death numbers are relatively low and case numbers are trending down from their increase. 
NY looks good because death numbers are coming down nicely. The small increase in daily cases is not problematic.
FR sending mixed signals because numbers are overall in the safe zone but it has questionable data (the CFR is all over the place) and cases are still trending up. As seen in this screenshot, France is the only large Western European country with no regional numbers, which, knowing that everything is traditionally decided in Paris, hints at suboptimal regional disease management. 
DE looks good.
TN looks good but it reminds us that cases will never go to zero for long, that is, until a miracle happens and the virus decides to just disappear. Or we find a vaccine that protects more people than any vaccine against the common flu has ever been able to.

Today, 15 June 2020, we have an interesting development in the numbers. According to the RKI, Germany’s numbers look much better than according to Hopkins, which has a shocking 1000 additional daily cases.

Explanation: The new daily cases are reported to the RKI on a certain day but the date of infection mostly lies several days back. The RKI then adds these cases to prior days according to the date of infection, thus changing the shape of the curve a little and accordingly reducing the count for the last day in the curve. Hopkins uses data from the Berliner Morgenpost, which use RKI data supplemented by data from the individual states, which pass on their data to the RKI anyway, but a litte later. I don’t want to spend too much time with this but in the end, newspapers want to sell sensationalism and RKI scientists want to report reality. The latter takes a little longer, sometimes weeks and months. I have chosen a compromise by simply adding the newly reported cases to the end of the curve rather than placing them on the curve on prior dates. In the grand scheme of things it makes not difference at all.

I expect the RKI data to go up more gradually in the next days. In order to demonstrate the difference between Hopkins and RKI on this day, I included the Hopkins numbers as an additional day (the 15th) in pink. This pushes the trendline for the new cases higher but we have seen similar flat trendlines for German cases in the past days. The Hopkins data do not change the trend for the fatalities even though they report more deaths.

This uptick is nothing dramatic but it would reflect the increasing carelessness that I observe all around me. Since politicians react to numbers reported by the sensationalist press rather than to the more subdued scientific analyses, the positive outcome of this "steep increase" is the reminder to remain vigilant.

France’s daily case trend is going down finally. We are probably far enough into the new counting method that this could now reflect the real trend. Fatalities are in the single digit.

Tunisia has a few cases for the second day in a row but no new deaths in 10 days. This is also a reminder that the logarithmic scale, which allows for comparison of countries with different magnitudes in numbers, makes low numbers look much bigger than they are.

Washington State’s case number are trending a little higher than on the day before but the three-week trend is still lower than the four-week one, and hence the trend moves in the right direction. Death numbers remain low. Numbers remain stubbornly constant over all.

New York State’s numbers are going down nicely. It is foreseeable that a month from now, death numbers will start hitting the single digits and case numbers will have reached what I call the safe zone of 0.001% of the population.

US (minus NY,CA,WA) daily deaths continue their slow trend down whereas case numbers are trending up, the latter being probably caused by a combination of increased testing and premature reopening.

California needs to be compared to New York to understand the severity of their issue. NY daily cases went from 10 000 to under 1000 whereas CA is now trending up towards 4000. NY daily death numbers came down from 800 to 40, whereas CA has remained between 50 and 100 deaths for two months. It is impossible to predict when this unfortunate increase will come to an end.

What DE, FR, TN and WA have in common is very low death numbers combined with case numbers that are not declining as nicely as one would wish because they are flaring up sporadically. This kind of scenario could be the new reality for many years to come.

Today, 16 June 2020, there are some good news for the US and France and some not so good ones for Germany and Tunisia. The latter two see a three-day increase of daily cases, which is not alarming given the low number range they are in, but there could be a trend. After Beijing’s new cases, there is fear that a second wave could be real.

In France, daily case numbers are finally trending downwards. The Case Fatality Ratio also seems to settle, but at below 2%, which is considerably lower than the other countries. I am working on acquiring the daily testing numbers and I will figure out a way to graph them, which might shed some light on this. For this, the problem is Germany, which releases data on the number of tests performed only once a week and that two weeks late (link is to the RKI Bulletin, in German, the data are on page 10).

In the US, daily death numbers are falling, also in my three states. This is the good news. Another good news for Washington is the continued trend of daily case numbers coming down. Without the cases in an Eastern Washington prison, the numbers would actually be going down for real, Which also means that Seattle is not contributing much. New York, too continues to have fewer cases every day.

The US minus NY,CA,WA continues the trend of increasing case numbers, and so is California, but much steeper so. This is not good.

In closing, I want to present an interview with David Quammen, a pretty knowledgeable journalist and writer, who predicted this epidemic as early as 2012 and wrote a book about it. I just want to shame our leaders again for failing to protect us in the hunt for the shareholder value.

Today, 17 June 2020, my interpretation of the numbers is as follows:

FR: Partially good news: Highest daily death number in a month, pushing trend line up. This was hopefully an outlier. Daily case numbers are coming down nicely, finally and they are in a low range.
CA: Double good news: Daily death numbers seem to be going down for good and are relatively low. The rise of daily case numbers is slowing down but numbers remain too high, particularly in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, which bears the brunt of the cases in California.
TN: Partially good news: Double digit cases two days in a row sparks fear of the start of a second wave. On the other hand, there have been no new deaths for 12 days. 
DE: Good and not so good news: It is now apparent that daily case numbers have reached a trend that has moved away from the nice decline from before reopening. Numbers remain low though and are still declining. Death numbers are falling steadily although the current number is the highest in one week.
WA: Triple good news: New cases still increase but continue their downward trend. The protests have apparently not had an in impact on the numbers, which means that most of the protesters have acted responsibly. Daily fatalities remain very low and continue their weak downward trend.
NY: Good and slightly less good news: Daily case numbers continue their trend away from the nice decline from one month before reopening but they remain on a good downward trajectory. Daily death numbers continue falling steadily.
US (minus 3): So-so news and bad news: Cases are still increasing, albeit at a slightly slower pace. Reuters reports that Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas all reported record increases in new cases on Tuesday after recording all-time highs last week. They attribute this increase to businesses reopening too soon and to Memorial Day weekend gatherings from three weeks ago. Death numbers are on a clear downward trajectory but could trend up again in a few weeks when some of these new cases will pass away. 

In my quest for testing data from Germany and France I came across Our World in Data, which aggregates data from many countries. Interestingly, just like me, they also had difficulties finding testing values for these two countries. Germany publishes only weekly and alters the numbers each time, going back several weeks, so this site smoothes them over the entire week. France was chaotic before they changed their counting method and they are also reporting only weekly. Thus, I still have reservations about the French data.

From now on I will include daily testing data in my updates. If we can trust the data, the French are actually doing a lot more testing than the 1.2 % of the population I mentioned a few days ago. It looks as if they have always done more than Germany (which would go against most of what their press, the French Press, was saying about their testing). While FR and DE have increased their testing only linearly,  NY shows an exponential increase. CA and the US (minus 3) have also increased their testing beyond linear, WA, however, only in the last week. For a poor country, TN has done a lot of testing, but their numbers pale compared to the rich countries.

Looking at daily positive tests, shown here, we see huge spikes in WA on 22 May and 6 June (Monroe Prison in Eastern Washington), which pushed the numbers up. In addition, CA, the US (minus 3) and WA still test around 5% daily where NY, DE, FR and TN show around 1%. Of course, this matches my usual curves and one could summarise it as such:

Daily positive tests:
≥ 5% = 👎
≤ 1% = 👍🏼

Today, 18 June 2020, the numbers look as follows:
DE: This is not good. Daily cases are moving up, potentially to a relatively high plateau. Daily deaths also moving up a little.
FR: Looks good. Cases are coming down several days in a row and daily deaths as well.
TN: Looks better: Fewer new cases mean no fear for a second wave, one new death, which is expected because some of the cases will eventually die.
WA: Looks good: Daily cases are going down several days in a row but daily deaths could be better.
NY: Looks great, nothing to add.
CA: Hmm: Daily cases still going up and daily deaths not falling as nicely as before.
US minus: Same as CA.

Today, 19 June 2020, I have installed the Corona tracing app. But let me first talk about the numbers, and they mostly look no good.
DE: Worrisome. Daily cases have increased five days in a row and trendline is pointing up. Daily deaths still low but trendline is going flatter.
FR: Not so good. Like in Germany, the daily cases seem to trend towards a new trajectory, which is far above the original one from before reopening.
TN: Do not fear. The new case numbers remain low and are probably caused by clustered outbreaks.
WA: Good. Daily cases coming down nicely in the last days, will soon match trendline from before reopening. Will hopefully move down further. But given the relatively high case numbers in DE and FR, I am not too confident.
NY: Good.
CA: Very bad. Californians must now wear face masks in public, which should have been the law a month ago.
US minus: A little worse than the bad we had before. Cases are increasing and deaths are decreasing a little slower.

Now that Corona Contact Tracing App has seen the light in Germany, I would like to urge everybody with a smartphone to use it. It is as safe as it can possibly be. It can help fight clustered outbreaks and thus get us back faster to a life close to the one we knew before.
Vox has a nice diagram explaining how an app works. But here are my own 2 cents.

Proximity sensing by smartphone is done by appropriating Bluetooth (BT), the radio technology used connection of headsets or computer mice. Smartphone apps are normally only allowed the use of BT when actively used and the screen is not locked. In all other cases, an app will be barred from using LE-Bluetooth, that includes a locked screen or when the app is in the background.

A background BT feature can only be programmed system-wide and as a consequence all apps and services would be able to use it. This would open your smartphone to be traced to the metre, e.g. when you are inside a supermarket. Having more apps use this BT feature would potentially also drain the battery, which the users would blame on the smartphone maker.

France, which stands for many other countries, e.g. the UK, has blamed Apple for not making their operating system unsafe in order to accommodate the French app that will otherwise not work on the roughly 20% of Apple smartphones in France. It might also not work on Android phone using the latest operating system. Result: 1% of the French use the app.

Therefore Apple and Google have provided an API (application programming interface) that allows one specific app and only one app to use BT in the background. But they put some conditions on the use of this API, and this is what miffed the French government: 1) no centralised storage of the data that are obtained with this API, data matching will be done uniquely on the smartphone and the user decides whether to share the data with the health authority; 2) no GPS to pinpoint the actual location of the person, which is to prevent widespread sniffing on smartphone users.

From a point of view of an epidemiologist, who wants to gather as many data as possible about the potentially infected people, these conditions are a big disadvantage, and understandably so. Scientists will be at the mercy of the users to obtain any data and they will not be able to tell where the infection happened. But real epidemiologists should also remember the hoops they had to jump through before they could enrol subjects in one of their studies. Hence, using the severity of Covid-19 as an excuse for not following basic human protection rules is disingenuous. 

But said epidemiologist would also like this app to be used on as many smartphones as possible, because having detailed data on a very small percentage of the population is not useful either.
And now Apple and Google gave them an easy choice: you can use our model, which is safe enough that many people might be willing to install it, and it actually works on all of our latest phones; or you make your own app that yields you more data but works only on a fraction of the smartphones and will not be installed by privacy-conscious people. 

Another, often overlooked, feature of an app using this API is that it potentially works with similar apps in other countries. The source code of the German app, for instance, is available on GitHub (an open-source repository) and can be used by any other country and altered to the needs of their health authorities.

The UK have seen the light and will be making an app based on Apple's and Google's Exposure Notification API. Canada will join a growing list of countries that have committed to using the API, including Italy, Latvia, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and others. 
Sadly, the health authority in the US, the CDC, has no plans to release such an app and it looks as if at least three US states are doing it on their own and also adopting the Apple/Google solution.


Today, 20 June 2020, in countries and regions that have combatted the bulk of the disease (Germany, France, Tunisia, Washington State and maybe soon New York State), the after-lockdown reality will be clustered outbreaks, which will keep the number of daily cases relatively high and oscillating. For each country, it will probably not exceed a certain upper limit, which can be expressed as numbers per a million people. This limit could reflect each country’s ability to contain these outbreaks. Germany, for instance, is having a hard time containing a recent outbreak at a meat factory (Tönnies), which, due to risk underestimation, could now spread to several villages in a larger perimeter around the factory. The governor is pondering a lockdown of the involved areas. This is reflected in the increase of German daily numbers and a trendline pointing up, which will continue for several more days. 

DE: It is possible that daily case numbers will eventually settle at at some number that might not exceed 1100, or 1.3 per 100K people. There is still no visible effort to increase the number of tests.

FR: Cases seem to settle on around 500 per day and not to exceed 1,5 per 100K people. The number of all tests done has lowered its incline since I switched to a new data source that seems to be more comprehensive than the one provided by the French authorities.

TN: Given their much lower daily count compared to FR or DE, daily case numbers are scattered. I expect them to not exceed 0.5 per 100K people.

WA: Daily numbers seem to settle on some relatively high number, probably not exceeding 400 per day, or 5.0 per 100K people. Death numbers are relatively low and they therefore look scattered. The total test numbers have gone down due to issues with my data source, and for which I have found no explanation.

NY: Daily numbers still decreasing but trend has slowed down. They could be settling at 4-5 per 100K people, which would bring them closer to WA than to DE or FR.

CA: Daily case trend accelerating upwards, daily deaths increasing again, which is largely due to Los Angeles country. This is very sad.

US minus NY,CA,WA: Daily case increase became steeper and daily death decrease slowed down. Since there are several states with a good Corona response, several other states must do very poorly (it is all in the press). The virus will remain endemic in their population for years to come, which will have repercussions for the country as a whole if people continue to move around as much as they did before the pandemic.

The cartoon says: "Which side of the rope are you on?" And for those who don't know him yet, the second person from the right is Brazil's president and slaughtermaster Jair Bolsonaro. 

Today, 21 June 2020, is the beginning of summer and in the past-lockdown countries and regions, the trend continues with a relatively high number of new cases paired with a relatively low number of daily deaths.

German daily numbers are up still, which is owed to several clustered outbreaks. Daily deaths are actually negative, which indicates data problems. The trendline went down accordingly but will go up again once this issue is fixed. Germany has apparently issues with testing-tracing-containing. The graph by Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker also places Germany among countries that are not prepared for full contact tracing. 

French new case numbers are also trending up now, which is owed to the fact that the (high) outliers from the end of last month are no longer within the 3-week trendline window. The upwards trend is probably more believable now that it uses fewer of the data from before the counting change. The increase is less pronounced than that of Germany and new cases will settle at a relatively high number. The French CFR is now corrected, it lies around 18%, which is incredibly high and won’t fit on my diagram.

Tunisian daily case numbers are trending up as well but look as if they want to settle at below 12 per day (0.1 per 100K). No new deaths in three days.

Washington’s daily cases are trending a little higher but they seem to settle at the predicted 5 per 100K, which is 3-4x higher than Germany or France. As daily positives are a tad over 1%(which is The WHO criterion for reopening) and thus comparable to DE: 0.5% and FR 0.7-2%, this could mean an increased chance of clustered outbreaks compared to these two countries.

New York’s daily case trendline is moving up and it remains to be seen if they settle at 5 per 100K. Daily positives are hovering around 1% and daily deaths are still decreasing nicely. Per capita, they are actually lower than death numbers in France or Germany. Well done, New York.

California has seen fewer daily numbers and I hope that this is a new trend. Otherwise, both 3-week trendlines are pointing up even more than yesterday. Daily positives hover around 5% (meaning not ready for reopening).

The US numbers (minus NY,CA,WA) have gone a little worse since yesterday. The president is pulling a Bolsonaro and should be sued out of office immediately for his remarks (but they were probably meant as a joke, as always). His believers, of course, do not see any Covid-19 either, but their smaller-than-predicted turnout in Tulsa gives me hope that there are still some brain cells left in the traditionally uneducated parts of the US.

Today, 22 June 2020 the weekend drop is now visible in the non-US numbers, and therefore trends should be taken with care.
My concern is what happened in Stuttgart, where young people were partying in a park when the police did a routine control for drugs, which escalated to a rampage where businesses had their windows smashed in. Such youth rage could become more frequent if we keep the lid on our young. But if we don't, their disregard for social distancing would become a threat to the older generation, with dire consequences for our efforts to get kids back to school (or into apprenticeships and university). Teachers in Germany have already voiced their opposition to re-starting school in September without any distancing rules. Since schools are indoors and most classrooms have poor airflow and with the heating period coming, the risk of infection is probably high by simply being in the same room with an infected person.

DE: The case number rise has slowed down but the R-value has creeped up to 2.75%. And daily cases are at 0.7 per 100K. All that at a very low death rate. This is not dangerous for the country as a whole because it is still the repercussions of the massive outbreak in the meat factory (1500+ positives) plus some smaller clustered outbreaks in larger buildings with low-income housing (council homes, projects, HLM) where too many people share a flat and may not speak German.
FR: Case trendline is going down and cases seem to settle at 300-400 per day, which would be no more than 0.7 per 100K. Deaths are in the single digits.
TN: Only one new case and no deaths. Daily cases are below 0.05 per 100K.
WA: Case numbers are still trending up, and that at a dangerously high level of 5 per 100K, seven times higher than France or Germany. Daily positives are 3%. This is owed to the Eastern counties. King County should be fine and rightfully moved to Phase 2 of reopening.
NY: All numbers falling steadily. Fatalities are now in the European range and daily cases might settle at 1.5 per 100K. Daily positives are 1%, which is even greater knowing that this came with increasing testing. In a few months, some of the bonehead states will use NY as an example for getting their numbers down.
CA: The daily cases are now at 10 per 100K and rising. Fatalities remain high. Daily positives are 4.8%. My heart goes out to Los Angeles.
US minus 3: The trend continues with daily positives at 6% and thus too high for reopening. Daily cases are 7.6-9.8 per 100K. Trump’s campaign tour will leave a trail of new infections which will push daily cases above 10 per 100K.

Today, 23 June 2020, shows nothing really new in the numbers. Germany’s daily case increase might come to a stop at the 500 line (0.6 new cases per 100K). The French daily case trend is pointing downward, currently in the 0.6 per 100K range. Tunisia saw only two new cases and has had no deaths in over a week. Washington’s cases are moving up for the third day, still at 5 new cases per 100K, and daily positives went up to 4.8%. New York’s daily case numbers seem to resume their falling course after yesterday’s trend to flatten. California increased their testing in the last 2 weeks by 30% and yet the daily positive rate remained at 4.6%. Daily cases remain high at 12 per 100K. The small US (minus NY, CA and WA) sees a continued trend upwards for the cases and downwards for the deaths, with a little under 10 new cases per 100K. The daily positive rate increased to 7.3%.

Today, 24 June 2020, is filled with concern that I won’t be able to visit my beloved Settle this year at all. The US might even be put on a EU blacklist of countries to enter from until years’s end. The numbers there look bad. Here are the regions from bad to better:
CA: Cases have steadily been increasing for over a month and yesterday, new cases saw an all-time high at 12.5 per 100K. Daily positives rose to 5.3%. Deaths are still going down but will go up again in a few weeks.
US (minus NY,CA,WA): Cases continue to rise for two weeks now to yesterday's 10.5 per 100K and daily positives rose to 6.4%. Daily deaths are still going down but scientists expect more deaths in a few weeks. Quo vadis America?
WA: Daily cases are still far too high at 5 per 100K and trending down (good), while daily deaths remain low. Daily positives are at 3.5%. Even if WA were to tackle their outbreak control efforts and if they were to contain their measures, with no border control to states with dramatic numbers, it is just a matter of time when some of them show up in WA.
NY: The same can be said of New York state, of course. They entered in phase 2 of reopening and the daily case numbers are not going down as steeply as they did just a week ago, settling maybe at 2-3 per 100K, which is worse than my prediction from two days ago.
DE: The Tönnies outbreak continues to keep daily cases up but the peak of 0.7 per 100K might have been reached. Deaths remain low but are expected to increase a little in some weeks. The counties around the cluster have been put into lockdown, a first in Germany which, like Washington, has poor outbreak control. There have been no daily testing numbers reported in 10 days.
FR: Daily cases at 0.6 per 100K and trending flat while daily deaths remain relatively low with room to shrink.
TN: All numbers have always been low and thus no real reason for concern. In addition, clustered outbreaks have been countered with bravado.

Today, 25 June 2020, I was curious about Brazil's development. Their numbers come from their own Ministry of Health. They are probably incorrect and too low. There are no reliable testing data either. The shape of the blue cumulative case curve indicates that they are far from reaching a plateau. Brazil makes the US numbers look good.

In the other places, not much has changed. I am writing more assessment onto the graphs, and therefore I will write less here.







Today, 26 June 2020, the assessments are on the graphs. I am worried that Wall Street cannot deny reality at one point any more. In NY, WA, DE, FR and TN a trend might be developing where daily numbers settle at a certain value that is different in each region.  Some regions settle very high (WA: 5 per 100K), some high (NY: 3), some low (DE, FR: 0.7) and some very low (TN: 0.05). 

Today, 28 June 2020, the numbers have changed a little but the trends remain unchanged.

Germany’s number are coming down again because fewer cases from the clustered outbreaks are added to the daily toll. It is expected that some of the newly infected people will die and hence deaths will go up a little in a fortnight or so. I still expect daily cases to settle at around 0.7 per 100K. Daily positives remain low at 1.1% but we should be prepared for renewed clustered outbreaks over the summer, as holidaymakers return.

France’s daily cases go flat at the 0.7 per 100K line and, like Germany, deaths are really low. Daily positives are at 1.3% and I expect them to do down when new weekly testing numbers will be released.

Tunisia has seen daily case numbers in the 0.05 per 100K range for a long time, which is too low for a trendline to make sense. The two deaths in over a month are a mere 0.1% of the death number seen on any average day. If it were not for the extreme heat, this country would be a safe travel destination.

Brazil’s daily cases are going up more steeply than the day before but the death numbers show a tendency to flatten, which is a good sign. Testing numbers, and hence daily positive numbers, are not available. These are the worst numbers of all regions discussed here but we know that they are probably a lot higher due to under-reporting.

United States (minus 3 states) had seen this nice decline until three weeks ago. Today, numbers grow almost as vigorously as during the ramp-up in March. Even though daily deaths are going flat, an increase is expected within the next weeks. With over 7% daily positives, the country as a whole should not have reopened. A country full of egotistical imbeciles can only be helped by God (and you know what I think of fictive figures). Or by a vaccine, which, conceivably, will not be available to those with little money.

Washington State’s trends are unchanged from the day before, which means that cases still go up while deaths remain very low. If the last four days are any indication, daily cases could settle at a, very high, 5 per 100K. Combined with daily positives that have grown past the 5% threshold, this is not too good for the state as a whole. However, King County and Seattle fare considerably better, but that at levels that would not be considered worthy for reopening in Europe. The fact alone that mask wearing was introduced only now (and it is not being followed by those bozos who think their personal freedom trumps the well-being of others), when Europe has had it for close to two months, speaks for itself. There is no way that schools can reopen under these circumstances in autumn.

New York State’s daily cases show a clear trend to flatten at the 3 per 100K line. This is considerably higher than Germany and France but lower than Washington. Compared to the rest of the US, this may look good but it means that, just like everywhere in the US, people must continue their personal protection measures because the risk of flaring up is higher than in Europe.

California’s numbers are growing, currently at 14 per 100K, and forecast to continuously grow during the next four weeks. With 5.9% daily positives, the state as a whole should not reopen, but with Los Angeles bearing 45% of the cases, it is conceivable that counties with much lower numbers could do so, provided that they are able to bar people from more-affected counties to travel to theirs. Unfortunately, some of the lesser-affected counties have a higher R-value than Los Angeles, so the whole situation is unclear.


Personally, I shall wait a few weeks before deciding on my personal risk for travelling locally (≤ 500 km), especially by public transportation. This also depends on whether there is life to enjoy in the places I would visit. As for air travel, I am curious to see how those 10 000 German guinea pigs who have flown to Mallorca will do once they return.

The blog will heretofore change its shape as there will be a new web page for every day I publish a report.

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