COVID deaths have peaked and begun to decline. CDC report
(data from http://OurWorldInData.org/coronavirus )
New cases of disease are the leading trend indicator, but infection counts are hard to come by, because the great majority of people with mild cases are not being counted, and testing is limited in both accuracy and availability. So we make a mental note that deaths (plotted above) are 2 to 3 weeks behind the infection rate. New infections probably peaked 3 weeks ago.
Contributions to the decline:
- Warmer weather is arriving
- Doctors are learning how to treat COVID from others' experience
- Saturation / herd immunity -- most people have already been exposed and have built up immunity
- The lockdown and social distancing strategies are working
States and communities have begun to double down on their lockdown rules, crediting the decline to success of isolation strategies. Others have noted that these strategies are costly, not just in dollars but in emotional and physical health, in human suffering, and ultimately in lives lost. So, it's important to establish which of these factors have contributed to success. We can do this by comparing different regions of the world, different climates, different strategies.
In Sweden, where there is no lockdown and cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 89.8
In Denmark, where there is lockdown and cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 50.9
In Finland, where there is lockdown and cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 10.7
In Russia, where there is no lockdown and cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 1.0
In USA, where there is lockdown and medium cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 67.5
In Japan, where there has been until recently no lockdown and medium cold weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 0.81
In Brazil, where there is no lockdown and medium warm weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 5.9 (but winter is just beginning)
In Peru, where there is lockdown and warm weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 6.0
In Mexico, where there is no lockdown and warm weather, the cumulative death rate per million population is 2.35
(source of country statistics: Wikipedia via Google)
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