Analysis – 28 November 2020

We are looking into a better 2021
With the prospect of a vaccine and decreasing incidence in some countries from my list, notably France, Britain and Tunisia, an end of the pandemic can now be seriously hoped for.

Assuming a worldwide and successful vaccination campaign and a population willing to co-operate by not letting their guards down, the pandemic could be tamed by the end of 2021 (that is right, over a year from now). This will only be true for countries in which a large enough population had been vaccinated to ultimately reach herd immunity. These countries will see a gradual ease of restrictions during 2021 and lockdowns will no longer be necessary. The speed of the easing will also depend on the number of parasitic individuals, meaning those who refuse the vaccine (and masks) for ideological reasons but benefit from others taking it.

This said, January and February, could find Germany and Sweden as the worst affected countries in the world by daily death numbers if no new measures are taken, but in April, things should have eased. For Germany, this would mean 400-1600 additional daily deaths to the current 400. It could also mean three more months of "lockdown light." A brief and complete lockdown in December could thus avoid 8000 to 32 000 fatalities.

The Swedish model has failed miserably. Note for future pandemics: only a swift, brief and complete lockdown followed by extreme vigilance are the solution. This would be the New Zealand model. 

France's daily fatalities are currently double those of Germany but they are falling steeply while Germany's are rising equally steeply. The two curves are expected to meet by the end of the year.

Britain's fatality numbers are expected to peak in early January at ~50% above current level. Tighter restrictions could avoid these 2000-4000 deaths but they will not happen because Brexit-without-treaty will already damage the economy and the government would not want to inflict additional damage.

The U.S. will face a challenging winter, particularly in the rural areas of the Midwest and the South. While daily death numbers will remain far below those of Germany, there will be a greater percentage of people suffering the consequences because of the poor state of the health and welfare system and months of too-high death numbers that had already burdened the hospitals. Here, a vaccine will be the only way to bring death numbers down.

Cases are rising in the Pacific East region of the world but compared to the West it's a drop in the ocean, as CNN put it so bluntly.

Brazil is currently seeing a re-surge in incidence and death numbers but they are expected to get back on the original downward trajectory. This is a test for IHME's projection accuracy.