Tweet
Since I do a lot of statistical analysis at my job I thought I would share some basic information about the current COVID-19 situation that is usually not shown. There is only doom and gloom in the media right now so hopefully this information may shed a little light of hope and provide some positive news. I am by no means minimizing the affect of the virus or the issues and deaths it has caused, but rather just presenting some facts to put this in perspective. This should all be considered positive news.
Per Johns Hopkins website for overall U.S. situation:
- Percent of U.S. population confirmed with COVID-19 = 0.2%
- Percent of U.S. population deaths caused by this = 0.01%
- If you take away the state of New York, the death percent drops to 0.005% of the population for the rest of the country
- Just for perspective, you have a 1.1% chance of death from an automotive accident.....so 100 times more likely to die in a car crash. You are also 3 times more likely to be struck by lightening as compared to death by COVID-19.
Granted, the numbers of cases will continue to increase for a period of time but trends are indicating we have "flattened the curve" and are on the downward side so new cases should continue to become lower and lower each day.
How does the U.S. compare to other countries for COVID-19:
New reports always seem to say that the U.S. is the deadliest or worst country for the virus. Sure, the overall numbers are much higher than any other country but you need to take into account the population of the country. The U.S. has the third highest population of any country in the world. The United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany are ranked as #2-#6 as having the most cases behind the U.S. Now consider that the U.S. has around 5-6 times the population of any of those countries. If you look at confirmed cases based on the population the U.S. actually has a lower percentage of cases than any of those countries besides Germany (U.S. is 0.2% vs. Germany 0.16%). Same thing for death rate as compared to the overall population. Every country mentioned above has 2-4 times the death %, besides Germany, when compared to the U.S.
Per the official Ohio website for the situation of our state:
- Percent of Ohio population confirmed with COVID-19 = 0.07%
- Percent of Ohio population deaths caused by this = 0.003%
The original projections stated that if no precautions were taken in Ohio there would be a peak of 60,000 cases per day with a total of 500,000+ cases just in this state by the end of it. The first projections if we did all the quarantines and social distancing was still 10,000 cases per DAY at the peak. They then changed the projection to only 1,600 cases per DAY with the peak being this Sunday 4/19. As of the 2 p.m. update on 4/16 the highest single day numbers of cases was 360, which is a long way from the projected 1,500-1,600 the site said we should be having. Now before somebody replies that yesterday's (Thursday 4/16) update showed there were 600+ new cases as compared to the previous day.....that 600+ is not from a single day confirmed case increase. Rather they are adding in confirmed cases from previous dates going all the way to March 1. For example, of the 600+ increase they reported yesterday over 60 of these "new" cases were added between March 1 - March 31. This means that instead of 600+ new cases in the last day, it is actually 600+ new cases in the last 47 days. You can verify that number by going to the Ohio website and looking at the COVID-19 dashboard. The upper right graph shows the confirmed cases with the daily count. Hover the mouse over the different bars and it will pop-up what the numbers are. I also download the raw data from the site each day and compare it to the same data from the previous day and see that they are constantly changing the case counts for each day.
Per Johns Hopkins website for overall U.S. situation:
- Percent of U.S. population confirmed with COVID-19 = 0.2%
- Percent of U.S. population deaths caused by this = 0.01%
- If you take away the state of New York, the death percent drops to 0.005% of the population for the rest of the country
- Just for perspective, you have a 1.1% chance of death from an automotive accident.....so 100 times more likely to die in a car crash. You are also 3 times more likely to be struck by lightening as compared to death by COVID-19.
Granted, the numbers of cases will continue to increase for a period of time but trends are indicating we have "flattened the curve" and are on the downward side so new cases should continue to become lower and lower each day.
How does the U.S. compare to other countries for COVID-19:
New reports always seem to say that the U.S. is the deadliest or worst country for the virus. Sure, the overall numbers are much higher than any other country but you need to take into account the population of the country. The U.S. has the third highest population of any country in the world. The United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany are ranked as #2-#6 as having the most cases behind the U.S. Now consider that the U.S. has around 5-6 times the population of any of those countries. If you look at confirmed cases based on the population the U.S. actually has a lower percentage of cases than any of those countries besides Germany (U.S. is 0.2% vs. Germany 0.16%). Same thing for death rate as compared to the overall population. Every country mentioned above has 2-4 times the death %, besides Germany, when compared to the U.S.
Per the official Ohio website for the situation of our state:
- Percent of Ohio population confirmed with COVID-19 = 0.07%
- Percent of Ohio population deaths caused by this = 0.003%
The original projections stated that if no precautions were taken in Ohio there would be a peak of 60,000 cases per day with a total of 500,000+ cases just in this state by the end of it. The first projections if we did all the quarantines and social distancing was still 10,000 cases per DAY at the peak. They then changed the projection to only 1,600 cases per DAY with the peak being this Sunday 4/19. As of the 2 p.m. update on 4/16 the highest single day numbers of cases was 360, which is a long way from the projected 1,500-1,600 the site said we should be having. Now before somebody replies that yesterday's (Thursday 4/16) update showed there were 600+ new cases as compared to the previous day.....that 600+ is not from a single day confirmed case increase. Rather they are adding in confirmed cases from previous dates going all the way to March 1. For example, of the 600+ increase they reported yesterday over 60 of these "new" cases were added between March 1 - March 31. This means that instead of 600+ new cases in the last day, it is actually 600+ new cases in the last 47 days. You can verify that number by going to the Ohio website and looking at the COVID-19 dashboard. The upper right graph shows the confirmed cases with the daily count. Hover the mouse over the different bars and it will pop-up what the numbers are. I also download the raw data from the site each day and compare it to the same data from the previous day and see that they are constantly changing the case counts for each day.
Comment