Category Archives: #covid_19

8/5/21: COVID19: Most impacted countries

Covering data through this week (week 17) of 2021 for world's most impacted countries.

First: most impacted countries by the rate of infections and by mortality:

There is only one large country (population > 100 million) that is listed in both tables: the U.S.

Now, a table of countries with more than 1 million cases:

The U.S. ranks 8th worst performer in the group of 28 countries with more than 1 million cases, when measured across all three metrics: infections per 1 million of population, deaths per 1 million of population and deaths per 1,000 of diagnosed cases.

Looking at major countries groups in the context of the above table:

Finally, looking at the most impacted countries from the point of their relative contributions to global totals for cases and deaths:

8/5/21: COVID19: Worldwide Data

Updating worldwide data for the Covid19 pandemic through week 17 of 2021 (current week):

We exited Wave 3 that started Week 34, 2020, peaked in Week 1, 2021, and bottomed out in Week 7 of 2021.

Since Week 8 of 2021, we are seeing growth of a new wave, Wave 4

The latest levels of new infections are now the highest in the history of the pandemic and in the last two weeks of the data, world case counts are in excess of the Wave 3 peak levels.

Starting with Week 8 of 2021 we are witnessing a new, Wave 4, of the pandemic emerging. The latest weekly death counts as of Weeks 14, 16 and 17, 2021, rank as 7th, 6th and 5th highest in the history of the pandemic.

Good news: Recent decreases in mortality rate are most likely attributable to three key drivers: (1) earlier detection of cases due to improved testing; (2) younger demographics of those with confirmed infections; and (3) improved treatments in the earlier stages of the disease.

The slight increase in mortality through week 12 of 2021 appears to have stabilized and reversed in the most recent 5 weeks.

Summary table above shows significant improvement in the pandemic dynamics in the U.S. and more modest, but still sizable improvements in the EU27. BRIICS and Asia are showing worsening pandemic dynamics, and worldwide data broadly reflects this development.

While U.S. and EU27 numbers are encouraging, overall picture of the pandemic remains extremely worrying: worldwide, contagion is still raging unabated and those countries showing strong improvements in vaccinations and reducing contagion spread remain vulnerable to spillovers of new variants and new infections from the rest of the world.

19/4/21: COVID19: BRIICS

BRIICS are now in a fully-developed Wave 4 of the pandemic, like much of the rest of the world. This is confirmed across both new case numbers and weekly deaths counts:

I highlighted in the table below two BRIICS countries with seriously questionable data quality: China and India. China has been routinely reporting numbers that simply are out of line with anything reported by other countries around the world. India's death statistics appear to be similarly out line with experience in most countries. In the past, Russia received a lot of criticism for its reporting of Covid19 deaths, but their numbers do not appear to be out of line with other countries reported statistics.

These are six largest emerging and middle income economies in the world, and their pandemic dynamics, in the end, hold the key to the global efforts on combating the spread of the disease. Not surprisingly, these countries account for three of the four main variants of the disease to-date. If anyone thinks that Europe and North America can effectively insulate themselves from what is happening in these countries, by any means other than attaining a sufficient and robust immunity through vaccinations, they really need to reflect hard on their rational thought capacity.

19/4/21: COVID19: Most impacted countries

Updated tables for world's most impacted countries and regions below. Starting with the countries with the highest recognized levels of infections:

Followed by the countries with the highest rates of mortality:

Andorra, Montenegro and Czechia are top three countries in the world in terms of infections rates
Gibraltar, Czechia and San Marino are top three countries in the world in terms of mortality rates
Of larger countries, with population > 100 million, the U.S. is the only country featured on both lists, while Mexico is on the list of countries with highest mortality.

A set of table for countries with more than 250,000 recorded cases:

There are 57 countries on the list as of Thursday last week.
Across three metrics used (infections rate, deaths per capita and mortality rate per case), Hungary is rated the worst, followed by Belgium and Bulgaria. Czechia and Slovakia share the 4th and 5th places.
The U.S. is ranked 3rd highest in the number of infections, in the 8th place in terms of highest deaths per 1 million of population and in the 32nd place in terms of deaths per 1,000 infections. Overall, the U.S. is ranked 8th worst country in terms of pandemic performance across the three metrics.

Table next shows comparatives by the same metrics across regions, treating regions as if they were countries (ranks):

Finally, looking at the major countries and groupings in terms of their cases and deaths counts within the context of their shares of global population:

Notably, majority of the most impacted countries are, currently, in the process of developing, or already experiencing, a new wave of the pandemic.

17/4/21: COVID19: Europe and EU27

Looking at Europe and EU27 data for Covid19 pandemic through Week 14 of 2021 (week ending Thursday, April 15):

Since Week 7, the EU27 are in Wave 3, although it appears that this wave might have peaked around Week 12. Latest weekly case counts are below week 12 reading and are lowest in three consecutive weeks. Nonetheless, latest weekly counts rank 10th highest in the history of the pandemic.

EU27 weekly death counts are currently (week 14, 2021) rank 16th highest in the entire 67 weeks-long history of the pandemic.

As summarized in the table below, EU27 new cases are this week down 9% on 4 weeks average, while death counts are up 6%