Analysis by Keith Rankin.
At the end of this week, I have represented the latest summary charts with a log 10 scale, rather than the previous log 2 scale. This means that, as well as accurately showing the exponential growth pattern, the charts now emphasise ten-fold increases of Covid19 fatalities. At the top of the scale, 100,000 deaths per 100 million people means one in a thousand people in a country dying directly from Covid19. While no country (other than little San Marino) has reached this death rate yet, Belgium (second chart) has come close. (New York City exceeds two deaths per thousand residents, and Milan would have at least twice that.)
The world’s present death rate is 30 per million. Of the world’s large countries, Turkey is closest to the world average, and the world incidence is likely to end up about the same as Turkey’s, probably at about 50 per million.
The United Kingdom’s death toll is already 400 per million, and will almost certainly exceed 500 per million, ten times the eventual toll for the world as a whole. All the other large countries, well above the world average, still have clearly rising death tolls.
The second chart shows smaller countries, including New Zealand and Australia. While Spain and Belgium are the worst affected of these countries, we note that Sweden and Canada in particular are still showing uncontrolled growth of Covid19 deaths. Canada has well above the world average, and its fatalities will almost certainly reach 200 per million.
Switzerland and South Korea have stabilised. Australia may not have; there are distinct signs of a long tail there, much as South Korea had a month and a half ago. New Zealand’s present death toll is four in a million; let’s hope that it doesn’t overtake South Korea, at five in a million; that would be 25 New Zealand deaths, compared to the present 19.
