Covid-19: New Fear Grips Europe As Cases Top 30M Worldwide

[appalachiablue]

Source: BBC News

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the globe has surpassed 30 million, according to figures by America's Johns Hopkins University. More than 940,000 have died with Covid-19 since the outbreak began in China late last year.

The US, India and Brazil have the most confirmed cases, but there is a renewed spike in infections across Europe. Many northern hemisphere countries are now bracing for a second wave of the pandemic as winter approaches.

In the UK, the government is considering taking further England-wide measures including a short period of restrictions to try to slow a second surge of infections. Outside Europe, Israel brings in a second nationwide lockdown later on Friday - the first nation to do so.

Africa has recorded more than a million confirmed cases, although the true extent of the pandemic in the continent is not known. Testing rates are reported to be low, which could distort official figures...

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54199825

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- The virus appears to be spreading much faster in India than any other country.

[progree]

1. The trend in daily new cases, by continent January - September

Asia! Just going straight up, far far far far above any earlier peak (presumably most of that is India, where the article says there are shortages of ICU beds and oxygen.

And Europe - considerably above the earlier peak that occurred in April. So at least by this metric (daily new cases), it's worse than it ever was.

[Hugin]

2. Do I see an emerging upward trend on the extreme right of the NA chart?

I guess in a rational world this would be the optimum time to act.

But, here in "It's not a crisis until it's a crisis" land it's just another day of cray-cray.

[progree]

3. I'm afraid you're right -- here is a clearer picture of it (well, the U.S. portion of N.A.)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
(no paywall issues or quota issues on NYT coronavirus coverage)

U.S. daily new cases, 7 day moving average
9/12: 34,588 lowest point since late June
9/18: 40,283 latest
+16%

Also the little mini-charts of all the states at the top of the page are scary -- lots and lots of them have a definite upturn in the last few days (of 7 day moving averages so its been going on for several days). Lets see, Labor Day weekend was 9/5-9/7.

[Hugin]

4. Yeah, timing is everything, it seems.

It would appear a pandemic works like fire.

A spike in infections is only a limited spike if the conditions aren't favorable for a continuing spread of the disease.

However, a spike leading into a period of virus friendly conditions can cause an explosion. It only makes sense.