Morning statistics – Exponential increases – Mexico guarding its borders – Evening statistics
As of 9:00 AM the statistics are — # of cases worldwide: 615,519; # of deaths worldwide: 28,717; # of cases U.S.: 104,860; # of deaths U.S.: 1,711. In the course of a day and a half the number of cases and the number of deaths has gone up by a third. In the U.S. the increase for the number of cases is over a half and the increase of deaths is nearly two-thirds.
On March 3rd the number of cases in France was 204. I remember that figure because that was the day that MC’s plans for travel to France were first discussed and indeed the first time I learned that the virus might prove to be a serious threat. I looked at a website that had been set up to track the number of cases for each country. Since France has a population of nearly 67 million, I was inclined to think lightly of the matter and to believe that the gloomy predictions of some of the experts were a bit overblown.
That was a bare 3½ weeks ago. Since that time, the number of cases in France has increased to 33,437 and has caused nearly 2,000 deaths. The percentage of the affected population is 0.05% — not a huge fraction at present, but certainly significant. Even now, with the incidence spike in our country, the percentage is 0.03%. Switzerland, of all places, has the highest incidence, standing at 0.15%. (The mortality rate, to be sure, is significantly lower.)
One of the many ironies that has come about as a result of the pandemic: Mexico is now guarding its border to prevent Americans crossing over. It has only 717 cases so far and doesn’t want to see the number increase as a result of infected persons coming in. Warmer countries have generally been doing somewhat better than colder ones; but still, this particular instance is a bit puzzling. Texas, whose climate is not greatly different, has more than 2000 cases and Louisiana threatens to be one of the areas of greatest risk.
As of 9:30 PM the statistics are — # of cases worldwide: 662,073; # of deaths worldwide: 30,780; # of cases U.S.: 122,666; # of deaths U.S.: 2,147. Very high increases – however, the number of active cases in China is 3600 and is continually decreasing, so it looks like the virus has finished raging there. There is some leveling off in South Korea as well. The death rates in Italy, Spain, Iran, and to a lesser extent in France are very high; over 10% in Italy. Even in the U.K. it is over 5%. The rate is 1.7% in the U.S. – is this because our health care is better or just that we’re in the early stages and that the number of fatalities will increase proportionately when several who still have the disease ultimately succumb? Time will tell.