The Wrong Side of History
When Can We Hit Reboot? Pt. 10
by Patrick H. Ruane and Ravi Pamnani, Jul 20, 2020
This is an ongoing series to try to make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic trajectory and try to project its course through various data visualizations. Find the previous post here (Part 9).
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Wise words from the Spanish philosopher George Santayana.
While many countries have dealt well with Covid-19, many others have not. They have forgotten the lessons of the 1918 Spanish Flu. This is particularly evident in the USA and Brazil. Indeed, there is a certain fanaticism on the Right hellbent on denying Covid-19 is a legitimate threat.
Santayana poignantly noted that “fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.” Trump, Bolsanaro, Putin, Johnson are all on the wrong side of history, and history will not treat them kindly. For those on the Right that say Covid-19 is different than the Spanish Flu, we like what Mark Twain stated, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”.
History teaches us one major thing about that Spanish Flu and we pointed this out in an earlier blog (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), it was called the Spanish Flu because Spain was the only country to take that Pandemic seriously and report accurate numbers. Sticking your head in the sand won’t work, but we do like the updated 2020 logo (Figure 1).
Let’s take a look at where we are headed globally (Figure 2). Our current best-case model indicates that we will top out at 54 million reported cases by July 2021, note that is our best-case scenario and SARS-CoV-2 will be with us for at least another year.
One note of caution with respect to Herd Immunity, this typically kicks in at around 70% of population, globally this would be 5.4 Billion and not 54 million; regardless and Zeus forbid that we end up there, there is still no guarantee that the population would be immune. SARS-CoV-2 might well be a seasonal virus requiring new immunity each year.
Looking at the different geographical regions around the globe, the trends speak for themselves (we have left Europe out this time as most countries in Europe are on the right side of history).
The whole continent of South America is going in the wrong direction (with the exception of Uruguay) (Figure 3). Chile reports that greater than 1% of its population is infected and the rest are headed that way.
Side Note: We recently received criticism that our data analysis can’t be trusted because we don’t report our data relative to population. It was interesting that we received this critique on the blog that included reference to the Dunning-Krueger effect. To be clear, “Covid-19 Prevalence (per million people)” is relative to population. When the value on the Y-axis = 10,000 that means 1% of the population has Covid-19.
The only South American country that appears to have Covid-19 under control is Uruguay (less than 1,000 cases, less than 0.025% of their population), we also note that Uruguay is the country with the most progressive open governance.
The following comparison across multiple continents (Figure 4) illustrates not only the variability in the total number of cases but also the percent of each population infected; obviously the lower the prevalence for a particular country the better. One extreme is Qatar wherein 4% of its population reported as infected within 5 months and on the other is Vietnam who kept their percent infection rates below 0.0004%, at least a 10,000x factor difference — Health Policy matters!
Still limited data from Africa (Figure 5), South Africa is by far having the toughest time and will soon have 1% of its population infected. But relative to other continents we think Africa has dealt with this crisis really well.
More people died on the Indian Subcontinent during the 1918/9 Spanish flu than anywhere else. On a per capita basis Covid-19 is still relatively under control there at the 0.1% level (Figure 6), but we remain extremely concerned that this will get out of hand, keep in mind even a 1% infection rate would equate to 20 million cases and if the death rate is close to 5% that would leave 1 million dead, the worst human catastrophe of the 21st century.
East and South-East Asia have led the way (Figure 7), most staying below 0.1% infection with Singapore being a notable exception, however, Singapore is the most densely populated country in the world and still have managed to do better than Iowa on a per capita basis (Figure 8).
A real mixed bag in the Middle East (Figure 9). Qatar has the highest prevalence of any country, we don’t fully understand the reasons behind this but we suspect it has something to do with rapid, accurate testing. Their prevalence is currently reported at 39,928 per million (or 4%), but it is nice to see that they are crushing their curve.
Israel is a very interesting case study, they had everything under control 3–4 months ago, relaxed their restrictions and have been hit hard again, in fact they are nearly back to where they would have presumably been if they had never crushed the curve in the first place (Figure 10). This must be a cautionary example to everyone, we cannot get complacent or this virus will come back and undo all the good work done.
Australia and New Zealand are in the middle of their winter yet have addressed the Covid-19 outbreak better than most (Figure 11). Their isolation certainly helped but both countries took the pandemic seriously and implemented the correct measures. Australia has had a recent uptick but with continued vigilance and contact tracing we are confident they can crush this too.
North America with the exception of our friends up north are not doing so well (Figure 11). There is no excuse for the USA, absolutely none, it is nothing short of a disgrace what is happening and all those that are fighting the measures to curtail COVID19 will be harshly judged by History. This has happened because there has been a war on science in the USA for many decades, we are now unfortunately going to pay a heavy price. The USA will no longer lead the world in the 21st century and we have ourselves to blame. We elected a reality show host and ended up on an episode of Survivor.
Let’s take a closer look at the US as broken down by:
- Sustained Downturn
- Upticks
- Flat
- Out of Control
The Northeast leads the way (Figure 12), all 4 states reported 1% infection rates and then crfffushed the curve, mainly by implementing and enforcing good health policy.
The following 5 states (Figure 13) have seen significant upticks and their governments need to act quickly, these curves are remarkably similar to what we are seeing in Israel — the choice is yours.
We fear the “flat states” below (Figure 14) will soon have upticks if preventative policies aren’t put in place, and given that school starts in about 4 weeks a disaster may be just around the corner, again the choice is yours.
Ten states at or above 1% infection and growing exponentially (Figure 15), we are bewildered that governments are not taking appropriate action, herd immunity is not a viable strategy and unless immediate action is taken (as CA did this week, albeit weak in our opinions) many people will die or suffer for long periods of time with the after effects of COVID19. If things don’t change soon, we fear 1 million + Americans will die within the next year.
Somewhere between 1000–2000 people currently read this blog, and we appreciate that, but we don’t force anyone to read it, sometimes people take particular offense to some things we write, we think Ricky Gervais description of Twitter is apt here (Figure 16).
This is part of an ongoing series of data visualizations of the Covid-19 pandemic. Part 11 was published on Sep 10, 2020.
