Americas hopeful, Europe fearful
This is the first update after the weekend. Trends look good in the Americas but are predicted to be a mere interlude (except for Brazil and New York). In Europe, the race to the second peak was halted but predictions forecast a resurge in December.
Brazil's daily infections rose from 14.5 to 22.4 per 100K, but trending down. Daily deaths went from 0.500 to 0.600, also trending down. Both trends are still influenced by the low numbers of the weekend and I added a one-month trendline to show that infections are indeed going down long-term but deaths are remaining almost flat. The map of new infections since before the weekend was mixed but has an astonishing number of pluses, meaning it is getting better. The numbers are predicted to fall for the next two months.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
U.S. minus CA,NY,WA has both trends pointing downward. Daily infections dropped from 14.8 to 11.6 per 100K, and daily deaths remained almost the same at 0.385. The risk map showed five states going for the better and none for the worse. Projections however show that after the current decline, infections will rise again by 1 December, even if everybody were to wear masks.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
California seems to have chosen the good path finally because many parameters are pointing in the right direction. Daily infections dropped from 14.1 to 11.3 per 100K, trending down. Daily deaths dropped from 0.342 to 0.266. Furthermore, the R-value is below 1 and the risk map had many counties going for the better, with more green showing, but there was still a huge red stain in the middle. The projection shows another increase in infections starting in October and it is up to California to beat those statisticians from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Outlook: Very Bad With Hope
Washington showed a surprise development over the weekend. Not only did they solve their issue with the number of tests performed (they will be resuming in my next update) but daily infections dropped by half from 9.2 to 4.72 per 100K. If this daily number remains that low, I will have to classify the outlook as "satisfactory." Equally, daily deaths dropped from 0.171 to 0.053. Given the history of death values in this state, I am cautious with calling this a trend downward. The R-value remained a little above 1 and the risk map looked very promising. The projection here, too, predicts another increase starting in late September, even if everybody were to be masked.
Outlook: Bad With Hope
New York is on the right track. Daily infections were falling but very slowly so, going from 3.6 to 3.2 per 100K. Daily death numbers fell from 0.015 to 0.010, which is barely visible on the chart. The risk map was a mixed bag but the prediction is for very few new infections until December.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Hope
United Kingdom: Daily infections increased a little from 1.6 to 1.7 per 100K, trending up less steeply. Daily deaths increased by a lot from a very low of 0.003 to 0.024, which is not so good. The number of new infections is predicted to remain low and to rise again in October.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
France's daily infections dropped from 6.8 to 4.9 per 100K, trending less steeply and leaving a second peak behind. Daily deaths dropped from 0.075 to 0.024 and trending up less steeply too. The daily positive rate had been increasing for two weeks to now 3.7%, which is not a good sign. The R-value remained at 1.34 though. The risk map is darker than the day before with 14x more Départements going for the worse than going for the better. The daily infections are predicted to remain at the current level and to increase again in November.
Outlook: Bad With Concern
Germany's daily infections fell from 2.5 to 2.2 per 100K and trending up less steeply, which took the wind out of the climb to the second peak. The already-low daily death number fell even more, from 0.009 to 0.004, which, taken the relatively high number of infections, is testimony to the mostly benign nature of these new "cases." The R-value sat comfortably below 1. The risk map showed fewer changes to the worse than in the weeks before and more changes to the better, indicating that the acute surge in new positives is ebbing off, coinciding with the end of the holiday season. Daily infection numbers are predicted to rise in October to reach levels in December as high as the first peak. This is the worst prognosis for a European country in this blog.
Outlook: Satisfactory With Concern
Tunisia: Daily infections increased from 0.95 to 1.50 per 100K and trending up steeply. Two more regions are heavily affected, one being Le Kéf, a mountain region with traditionally high unemployment. The government is discussing delaying the start of the school year. With no daily deaths in two days, fatalities are at 0.000. Also good: the daily positive rate fell to 5.6%.
Outlook: Satisfactory Getting Worse
There have been reports out of China a couple of months ago about patients who had a second Coronavirus infection but these reports had not been confirmed and remained thus anecdotal evidence.
The reason is that one needs to distinguish a second, independent infection from a renewed but late outbreak of the disease the patient already had. This is done by sequencing the genome of the virus. In the case of a second showing of symptoms, the virus should have the same RNA sequence as during the showing of the first symptoms. If, however, a patient is infected a second time by a virus that had had time to go around in the population, chances are that every time it infected a host (a human), and is shed off the host again, the RNA sequence accumulate minute changes.
This requires that virus material from the first infection be available to be sequenced, which is mostly not the case.
There are now two reports, one from Hong-Kong and one from Belgium and the Netherlands, where it has been scientifically proven what we had suspected for a while, that there are some Covid-19 patients who will not develop resistance to the virus or lose it after a few weeks. But, of course, we still don't know how many.
So, unlike the measles or mumps, if you had had Covid-19 there is no guarantee you can't get it a second time.