Europe want to maintain the good, the Americas want to get there
Europe is trying to contain the second peak while its people, having been told that the worst is over, want nothing more than return to the normal they knew. Nobody tells them that they won't get there for many years to come. Possibly never. Instead we are nurturing the illusion of a vaccine that, poof, miraculously transports us back to the end of 2019. People should face the new reality, because we can then prepare for it.
Brazil: The weekend is over and new infections increased dramatically to previous levels. But at 24.8 per 100K, they are not as high as the peak values from two weeks ago, which is encouraging. Daily death numbers doubled to 0.606 per 100K but are not as high as the peak from a week ago. Both trendlines are still pointing down but I expect them to go up again by the end of this week. Maybe but by too much.
Outlook: Very Bad With Maybe Some Hope
US minus CA,NY,WA: The weekend drop is over and daily infections rose to 15.5 per 100K, which is not as much as feared, and it is keeping the trendline on the nice downward trajectory. Daily deaths grew to 0.442, which is just below the recent peak numbers and maybe we will see a turn for the good here too. Strangely, the daily positive tests went up to 8.8% but the R-value fell below 1. The risk map shows SC and TX move to lower risk and no state went up. Let's hope these trends will continue.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
California: After the weekend drop, daily infections went up with a vengeance and doubled to 31.6 per 100K, the highest value in three weeks. Due to the good values from the last week, the trendline is still pointing downwards. But several counties in the middle section of the state showed worse risk, which makes the outlook less positive. Daily deaths rose to 0.267 with a flat trendline, as did the daily positive rate, which went up to 6.2%. The R-value, however, fell to 0.93. This is a day full of mixed results and this week will tell if CA wants to follow the US trend of declining infection numbers. Or if it will go its own way.
Outlook: Very Bad With Some Hope
Washington: The weekend drop is clearly over but daily infection numbers remained at their low 7.6 per 100K, and trending down even steeper. This is great news! Daily deaths, however, increased again, to 0.118, but trending up less steeply so. The R-value gave a little to at 1.08 and one county east of the Cascades went from red to orange (yay!). Still, the lack of number of tests is of concern because I am not sure if I can trust these good numbers.
Outlook: Bad With Some Hope
New York: The weekend drop is over and, the picture looks the same as it has for weeks. As expected, daily infections rose again to pre-weekend levels of 3.4 per 100K, trending down still but, on long term, tightroping on a horizontal line. Daily death numbers equally rose to pre-weekend levels of 0.036 per 100K. The daily positive rate remained at 0.9% and the R-value fell to 0.94 (good).
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
United Kingdom: Daily cases rose from 1.2 to 1.7 per 100K, trending up much steeper. Daily deaths jumped to 0.049, trending down still. Daily positive rate and R-value are unchanged.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
France: Daily cases fell from 2.4 to 2.08 per 100K, but still trending up. Daily deaths more than doubled to 0.021. The daily positive rate remained at 2.1%, which is better than going up, but the R-value decreased to 1.32, which is the right trend. Other indicators (20% of Départements at risk, 227 clusters) don't look good at all.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
Germany: Daily cases rose to a 3-month high of 1.48 per 100K, trending up a little steeper. Daily deaths went up a notch to a still very low of 0.007. The R-value further dropped below 1, which is a good sign. The map shows two "counties" (Kreise) with more than 50 weekly cases per 100K (clusters). In one of these counties, cases include people returning to Germany. This is one concern, since of the 1200 new cases, only 71% were local, the remaining were imports , including 9% from Kosovo (probably returning workers), 4% from Turkey (probably holidaymakers) and 2% from Croatia (also holidaymakers). The other concern remains the small increases in case numbers almost everywhere, which is attributed to non-distancing, e.g. at family parties or people meeting at bars (several Berlin bars did not enforce the rules, the same can be said of some places in my village here). This is a problem almost everywhere. Officials hope to contain the virus at this level, which is manageable by the health care system. If not, stricter measures will need to be re-introduced with dire consequences for the economy.
Outlook: Good With Concern
Tunisia added 21 new cases, 18 of which local. This is a bad trend because the last time we saw that many cases was 4 months ago. How could this happen? Either some of the imported cases go undetected and / or the virus remains dormant in the population for weeks. There is proof for the latter, when looking at New Zealand, which reported a handful of new cases after 100 days without any. Daily cases remained at 0.18 per 100K and 1 new death was reported. The daily positive rate remained 1.7%
Outlook: Excellent With Concern
Knowing that the virus is to remain here throughout the winter, even in the best of circumstances, it is now time to ready our indoor places for the cold times. We do know that being inside a room increases the chance of catching the virus. We do not know the extend of a risk and will not know for quite some time. But we do know that, should people get sick indoors, some places will be closed and many restaurants, bars and cafés will then not survive. Also, if schools will repeatedly get quarantined, we will lose an entire generation.
Now is a good time to think about remedies.
For restaurants and bars, one could built greenhouse-style semi-outdoor seating areas. Or one could upgrade the ventilation system or enlarge existing spaces. Subsidising this right now would increase the chance of not having to subsidise laid-off workers later on. It would be money well spent.
We could use the school holidays to re-think schooling (not in Germany though, because some states have already started school). Students can lose maybe one year before they will become a lost generation. There should probably be a mix of concepts to minimise contagion: bigger classrooms, better ventilation, part online and big part on-site schooling, on-site virus testing, old-school classes that can be isolated from other classes, a massive upgrade of the internet capabilities of the schools and allowing all students online access, in particular the ones from poor backgrounds. This takes time to implement but we should not wait until it is too late.
White collar work has already made a big shift towards home office (with dire consequences for the travel and hotel industry). Where on-site work is necessary, precautions have been taken to protect employees. Blue collar work, however, is not as amenable to distancing and we need concepts to avoid renewed lockdown of facilities. This is possible but it comes at a cost.
We should probably also think about how to halt the incessant separation of our society into people who can safely distance and those who cannot. Failure to do so will further widen the social divide.