Numbers in the U.S. are driven by rural areas, in Europe more by big cities.
People are resigning to the fact that the pandemic will not be over in 2021. Some small businesses are adapting. One smart restaurant in Seattle had a hospital-grade ventilation system built in, the owner believing that it will have paid off in a year.
Brazil's (and my) dream of falling numbers is coming to an end. Daily infections increased from 15.3 to 15.9 per 100K and while daily deaths fell from 0.411 to 0.337, the nice downward trend seems to be broken.
Outlook: Very Bad With Concern
U.S. minus CA,NY,WA: Trump tweeted something positive for the first time. And with some senators also having Covid-19, election of the RGB replacement could be delayed until next year. Jesusland states continue to turn red on the risk map, pushing the US numbers up (especially when you take out the better-performing states, like I do).
Daily infections increased from 12.3 to 16.3 per 100K, resulting in a sideways trend. While daily deaths fell a little from 0.262 to 0.224, they are still trending up and have been in dangerous waters for weeks now. The daily positive rate inched up from 5.2 to 5.3% and the R-value from 1.02 to 1.05.
Outlook: Very Bad Getting Worse
France's infections increase seemed to have slowed down, but daily deaths keep increasing into dangerous territory. Daily infections went up from 12 to 18.1 per 100K while daily deaths jumped from 0.127 to 0.203. Other indicators paint a bad picture: The daily positive rate increased to 7.6% and the risk map showed 10 Départements going worse, keeping only 8% of the Départements at the lowest risk level.
Outlook: Very Bad Getting Worse
California could still be going downward but this uphill battle will take long and the path to the bottom might not always be a straight line. Fortunately, the state will not be affected by winter as much as other states in the Union. Increases of the daily infections from 5.5 to 9.1 per 100K and of daily deaths from 0.081 to 0.248 did not break the downward trend, which is good, as is the risk map with 4 positive and 1 negative county.
Outlook: Bad With Concern
Washington's numbers keep rising and this ondulation at a high level could potentially continue until herd immunity is reached via a vaccine. Or if the deluded will all wear masks and refrain from gathering without distancing (of course, hell will freeze over before this will ever happen). Daily infections rose from 4.8 to 7.4 per 100K while daily deaths remained roughly the same at 0.096. Not unlike New York State, the most populous counties (King, Pierce and Snohomish) have had a yellow risk level for months now while the rural counties performed worse.
Outlook: Bad Getting Worse
Britain looks bad. Daily infections have been stable for the last three days, going from 10.5 to 10.3 per 100K. Likewise, daily deaths have not been increasing for three days, going down from 0.105 to 0.070. Both numbers trended up steeply. The R-value went up again, this time to 1.45, and the daily positive test ratio increased from 2.5 to 2.7%. The orange areas on the map in Northern England are being put on some form of local lockdown. Strangely though, London, which was initially one of the worst affected regions of England, has not seen a significant increase in neither infections nor deaths. Or maybe the bad events in April have had a sobering effect on people's hunger for individual liberties.
Outlook: Bad Getting Worse
Tunisia is having another number reporting issue amongst concerns that ICU beds are already 80% filled. The government has signed up private labs for a much needed increase of the testing capacity with a too-high daily positive rate (24%). While the country is about to slip into a medical, fiscal and economical nightmare, thousands of people are celebrating some football-related event (a shocking photo in a French article).
Data from 4 days ago show daily infections increasing from 11 to a record high of 11.2 per 100K while daily deaths fell from 0.273 to 0.118, with a steep upward trend nevertheless.
Outlook: Bad Getting Worse
New York State: The days of a stagnating daily infection rate are long gone and New York numbers are definitely on the rise. Daily infections increased from 6.1 to 8.2 per 100K and daily death numbers from 0.010 to 0.037. Both curves were trending up and have been doing so for two weeks. The percentage of positive tests (1.2%) and the R-value (1.12) were slowly rising too. The risk map features a red county for the first time in months, 5 counties went for the worse and none for the better. Upstate NY is losing it while NYC remains yellow.
Outlook: Satisfactory Getting Worse
Sweden: Daily infections rose from 2.9 to 6.6 per 100K and daily death numbers from 0.001 to 0.021, both with upward trends. The R-value remained below 1 and the percentage of daily positive tests increased to 2.2%.
Outlook: Satisfactory Getting Worse
Germany: The bad trend continues. Daily infections rose from 2.2 to 3.1 per 100K and daily death numbers from 0.020 to 0.023. While the latter numbers have been low for months, the upward trend is of concern. The R-value remained a little above 1 and the risk map had still a lot more districts going for the worse than for the better, and more districts are red and dark orange. Numbers are largely driven by urban centres (Berlin, Frankfurt, Duisburg, Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Köln, Leverkusen) and rural outbreaks are caused by large gatherings of families or religious groups, some of which putting entire districts in quasi-lockdown.
Outlook: Satisfactory Getting Worse
Facebook (and social networks in general, but this one is the biggest) are artificial intelligence-driven entities that lure a user into their cozy realms to siphon off as many data as possible and sell them for profit. The "lure" part can be taken quite literally because the more time a user spends on the site and the more data trails she leaves, the more profit will be achieved for Facebook. In that regard, Facebook is the new Marlboro.
Facebook never suggests things to the user that will make them upset to the point that they would leave. It is therefore less likely for a vegan to be exposed to pictures and articles that meat eaters would enjoy. A meat eater might be shown vegan things only to make fun of them and to reinforce their own views.
Smart people who know about Facebook's algorithms could place adverts targeting vegans that show mistreated animals and a link for taking action. Meat eaters will never see these micro adverts and neither do other users.
Now, if a subgroup of said vegans were to be identifiable as amenable to anti-government rhetoric (akin to: the government does nothing against slaughter factories after all) and if they were targeted by said adverts, they could link to Facebook groups (or sites outside of Facebook) where their feelings could be further nursed and their views slowly changed in a direction that moves them further away from the mainstream.
Before Corona, people had only so many hours they could spend on Facebook. When going to work, to shop, to the cinema or to a bar, they were forced to engage with the real world, which worked as an automatic adjustment of their internal normality gauge towards a more majority-centric normality.
But even then, people had already started reading and acting upon articles that only they and a small select group of people could see.
Corona and physical distancing led to more hours spent alone and on the internet, a world that presents to the user more of their own thinking (an echo chamber) and which does not necessarily reset the normality gauge to mainstream thinking.
Facebook and its brethren could well be the sole reason for the surge in non-mainstream ideas and for the fragmentation of our society that has become a yellow-haired and small-handed reality in the U.S. but is already making inroads in the rest of the world.
For that alone, I wish this pandemic came to an end soon.