Hope and despair
Brazil: Daily case numbers went up again to 22 per 100K but this did not push the trendline up. It became even less steep, approaching a plateau. If this good trend continues for two more days, I'd be dancing the Samba with the Brazilian people. But I would not be too sad if Bolsonaro were to experience the same symptoms Johnson did. Daily deaths are up to 0.6 but still between 0.3 and 0.6 per 100 000 and continue their slight downward trend. Of cause, the extremely low testing rate hints at a much increased case number.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
US minus CA,NY,WA: Similar to Brazil, new case number see a steep increase to 16 per 100K but the cases are trending less steep for the fourth day in a row. The next days will show if this is a trend or yet another smoke screen. Daily deaths jumped up but the trendline remains pointing downward. This could be the beginning of a wave of new deaths, which would not be unexpected, or it could be an outlier. Daily positives are down from 8.9% to 8.6%.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
California: Daily cases are down to 15 per 100K and the trendline took a deep plunge downward toward becoming less steep. Let's wait a few days and see if a turning point has been reached. The new death number is the second highest in this pandemic and the trendline is still pointing down, which is caused by the very low value from the previous day. If however this value was indeed an outlier, and if the deaths are now catching up with the increased cases from the last weeks, then we could see a surge in new fatalities. Daily positives remain at 7.5%.
Outlook: Very Bad
Washington: If the highest recorded daily case number does not shake the mask deniers, I don't understand my fellow Washingtonians any more. The number jumped from 8.5 to 14.2 per 100K (approaching California numbers) and the daily case trend is pointing up even more steeply. While prior case surges were caused by clustered outbreaks, this new peak is caused by increases all over the state, possibly caused by an increasing number of young people becoming virus carriers, which is what I warned about in my musings from 2 July. There are many causes, other than not protecting others from yourself, but the most important is not to take this pandemic seriously.
While daily death numbers are still trending down, I expect the death numbers to rise again and cause health care issues similar to the ones during the first surge.
Technically, this new peak is not a second wave because numbers never really went down after the first peak. It is still the first wave that was allowed to linger and to amplify.
Daily positives remain above 5% (still at 5.3%) but I expect this number to rise, too.
Outlook: Very Bad
New York: The daily cases keep their flat trend and the numbers are at 3 per 100K, which may or may not be too high. What is very encouraging though is that daily death numbers remain low and continue to fall and that daily positives remain at 1.1%.
Outlook: Bad With Hope
France: I am having a hard time understanding these numbers. Numbers have always fluctuated more than in other places, and thus trends quickly reverse their courses. From where we are now, daily numbers could potentially go up, go flat or decrease. The current case count is very low: 0.7 per 100K but could triple again tomorrow. Just like with New York, because case numbers are head scratching, death numbers become more important. And these remain low, although in a window that is higher than the German one.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
Germany: The daily case trendline has now the same slope as the one from before reopening. This is great news and we shall see where this is going. Daily cases remain at 0.48 per 100K. Deaths remain very low (0.01 per 100K) and trending down.
Outlook: Good
Tunisia: Case numbers remain low, still at 0.1 per 100K. No deaths in 20 days and daily positives rose to 0.8%. Tunisia's testing rate is as low as Brazil's. So why are their numbers more believable then? Because of the death numbers, which are always the most reliable numbers in any country.
Outlook: Excellent
I live in a little microcosm, seemingly isolated from the big word, and yet I observed something that has now been confirmed on the big stage in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, where I used to publish some of my own papers. I noticed that the older population, particularly those of age 80 ±5, while knowing about their own risk of dying from the disease, are willingly ignoring the facts and have physical contact with others, including their (great) grand children. As if they wanted to say: I am close to the end of my life anyway and if I can't be touched by other humans, I might as well die.
The Corona crisis is taking the spotlight from other issues that will be affecting humanity much harder in the long run than this pandemic. Other than climate change, which has been at least partially addressed in the economic aid packages by the countries that are most responsible for the ecologic disaster (well, not surprisingly, minus the US), there is another often forgotten risk: Antibiotic use is up (because of the pandemic) and the WHO is concerned that this might accelerate the emergence of resistant bacteria. So when we have successfully contained the virus and when we have prepared our countries for future virus pandemics, we might be dying again from tuberculosis, gonorrhoea or a simple skin cut.