The weekend drop is not happening everywhere
Brazil: Daily infections dropped to 24.3 per 100K while daily deaths rose a little to 0.58, and both trendlines went up a little steeper. I am still standing by my presumed plateau for the daily fatalities but only next week will tell. I have calculated a daily positive test rate of 90 %, which, if correct, would mean that they predominantly test people with obvious symptoms and have no capacity for testing asymptomatic people like they do in the other regions of my blog.
Outlook: Very Bad
US minus CA,NY,WA: Daily infections fell from 23.8 to 20 per 100K and daily deaths to 0.32 and both trendlines, while still pointing up, gave a little. The daily positive rate decreased to 9.1%. The risk map has not changed much and if so, mostly to the worse.
Outlook: Very Bad
California: Contrary to what one would expect from weekend numbers (and CA used to follow this trend in the past), numbers went up. Daily infections rose from 24.6 to 25.5 per 100K, but trending slightly less up than the days before. Daily deaths gave a little to 0.38 but trending up more steeply than before. The daily positive rate was at 8%. The risk map showed counties in the north with worse risk while the south remained as bad as before.
Outlook: Very Bad
Washington: Daily infections rose from 10 to 10.7 per 100K with an unchanged upward trend. Daily deaths decreased a little from the one-month high to 0.17 but pushing the trendline even more up. On the better side: The daily positive rate remained below 5%, now at 4.9%. and the risk map showed two Cascade counties with better risk levels.
Outlook: Bad
New York: Daily infections remained at 3.9 per 100K but trending up a little more steeply than the days before. Daily death numbers went from 0.05 to 0.07, still low but not low enough, and pushing the trendline to almost going flat. This is not good, the more so as this trend seems to be hardening. The daily positive rate remained at a good 1.1%. The risk map had a mix of "+" and "-" with no county being in the orange, which is good.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
France is in weekend slumber: My analysis from the 24th: New cases rose from 1.58 to 1.68 per 100K, with an even steeper trendline than the day before. Daily deaths remained at their very low 0.015. The daily positive rate remained at 1.2% and the R value remained above 1. The French should seriously think about stronger measures.
Outlook: Good With Concern
Germany: Daily case numbers fell sharply from 0.96 to 0.37 per 100K and trending up a little less steeply. There were 0 daily deaths. The daily positive rate was 0.7% six days prior, and the R value is still below 1. This reflects the weekend drop we have seen for weeks and I expect case numbers to rise again in the coming week.
Outlook: Good With Concern
Tunisia added 18 new cases, of which 2 were local, which is a first in a week. Daily case numbers fell from 0.16 to 0.15 per 100K with 0 deaths reported in 38 days and the daily positive rate gave a little to 1.5%.
Outlook: Excellent
There have been reports that people are moving from Seattle and New York (and probably other technology hubs) to areas with cheaper housing and more room for their children. Many tech companies have announced that home office will be a mainstay and made this trend, if there is one, possible. Also, some of the amenities of the city are no longer accessible and the city is probably less safe in a pandemic than the countryside. In addition, Seattle has seen some unprecedented violence. While there is still a number of people moving into Seattle, the virus is going to change our societies for a long time to come. In particular, and based on the assumption that the virus will stay for years, I predict that:
- Big cities will become less attractive due to increased home office.
- Smaller cities will be changed by an increased influx of more affluent and worldly people.
- Teaching will include less presence and more remote learning.
- Business travel will be partially replaced by video conferencing and remote operating, particularly for meetings with lesser importance.
- The airline passenger numbers will be reduced to levels of the 1970s.
- Leisure travel will become more local.
- Bicycling will become more prevalent.
- Social distancing risks to boil over to emotional distancing.
- Businesses built on physical presence will morph into something requiring less presence or they will go away.
And now I am curious to see how much of this will really happen.