I’ve been posting daily updates on US infection totals in increases every 24 hours, however, I’ve decided to move the posts to my blog, where i can format the images better, as we all know that an image is worth a thousand words.

Worldwide confirmed infection update from 03/16-03/17

US up 37% to 6362 (from 4661)

Iran up 8% to 16169 (from 14991)

Italy is up 13% to 31506 (from 27980)

South Korea is up 1% to 8413 (from 8320)

China is up <1% to 81074 (from 81049)

Worldwide infections up 9% to 198004 (from 182405)

Worldwide infections (not counting China / South Korea) are up 17% to 108517 (from 93036)

Current US saturation date is April 21st.



Overall explanation of what I do:

As most of you who have seen my Facebook posts know, to give you all a better idea of how all of this can play out, I like to extrapolate the current US numbers out into the future. I assume the infection increase rate between yesterday and today continue and extrapolate this out into the future, until the total number of infections projected is roughly the same as the US population (currently 330 million).

Today, I begin doing this in picture form. I’ll start by saying that if today’s 36-37% rate of infection continued unimpeded, the entire US would be infected by April 21st. I’ve called this date the “US Saturation date” so you can follow along day by day as this date changes. This date will change daily as new numbers and infection rates come in. It’ll give us both an understanding of what could happen worst case, as well as a benchmark. If that date gets further into the future, then that’s good.. if date is closer, that likely represents a situation that may be getting progressively (and exponentially) worse.

Now, on to the charts.

In these charts, I track the future number of infections based on today’s current infection increase rate. I also track projected deaths in 2 ways.

I start with today’s US death total (99 deaths ever), and increase by the same infection increase rate we used to project infections. In this projection, we assume that deaths will grow at the same rate of infections, regardless of the fatality rate of CONV.

Secondly, I project deaths using the “1%” method, which assumes that 1% of all people infected will die. Although many have said the fatality rate of CONV is 3% or higher, most sources are now saying closer to 1%, so we’ll project that out as well– but it’ll be 1% of the total projected infections. This number is currently trending much lower than actual deaths, hinting at a > 1% death rate in the US, but with such a small sample size, we’ll have to see how this trends over time.

First, here’s a chart in “Natural scale” (note the y-axis). In this scale, the infection growth is easy to understand, but the growth in deaths is very clear.

Next, we’ll look at these numbers using a logarithmic scale. In this chart, the Y-axis increases exponentially (1, 10, 100, 1000 instead of 1,2,3,4)

It’s much easier to see the death rates using this graph. Also, you’ll notice that the lines become perfectly straight, that’s because all the numbers are growing at a steady 36-37% rate.



With these charts, you should be able to see where we might be at any point in time between now and April 21 the current “Saturation date”.

Disclaimer:

Personally, I’m very calm and unafraid of this situation. I do, however, take it seriously and publish these numbers so that others may both track our progress in fighting this disease AND see why our governments are willing to turn the world upside down to fight it. Please do NOT be panicked, but please do take the government recommendations about social distancing and hygiene. I’m not here to tell you how to fight this disease, only to show you how low numbers today can become very high in the short future if nothing is done. As of today, there is no medical way to stop this disease and social disruption appears to be necessary in order to fight. One last note is that I know I’ve left out many other statistics I could track, however, I’m limited on time. I welcome comments. See me on facebook.com/primoweb or email me at joe at primoweb.com.

Keep calm and carry on.