I have another COVID-19 update for you today, focusing on the U.S. generally, and specifically on my home state of Arizona. I’ve heard that there has been some media focus on Arizona in recent weeks.

My last post was on June 23 (here), with my standard analysis comparing reported COVID-19 deaths in the US and Western Europe. I did run that analysis again today but am not going to post new graphs, as the trends are unchanged.

I have a COVID-19 update for you, based on reported death data through yesterday (May 2, 2020). The daily rate of increase in total reported COVID-19 deaths is now under 3% for the US and all of the major nations of Western Europe, down to and including little Luxembourg. Daily reported deaths continue at a relatively low, but significant, level throughout the West, at an average of about 2,000 per day in both the US and Western Europe (the exact figures are 1,802/day in the US and 2,095 in Western Europe, for the past week).

I. Reported Death Data

I have a new report for you today, based on a new data source from the New York City health department, which is now reporting COVID-19 deaths by date of death. This is information that I’ve been hoping to see for some time. I’ll also show you the difference it makes, comparing the date of death data to the prior data set that I was using, which was based on the date of the report of the death.

There are limitations to any data set. One obvious limitation of the date of death data is that it is not necessarily complete, particularly for the most recent few days. In addition, as Mark Camp and others have pointed out, there is a possibility of overcounting because a person might be counted who died with the virus but not of the virus, and as Kozak has pointed out, there is a possibility of undercounting as well, as some COVID-19 deaths could be missed.

A new study has just been released by Eran Bendavid, Jay Bhattacharya, and colleagues titled “COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California” (here).  You may remember Dr. Bhattacharya from Peter Robinson’s interview about 2 weeks ago (here).  This is the study that Dr. Bhattacharya discussed in Peter’s interview, of antibody testing that would establish the number of people who had been infected with COVID-19, which would allow us to estimate how many infections have gone undetected.

The short answer is: a lot.  The study estimates that the true number of infections in Santa Clara County is 50-85 times greater than the number reported from antigen testing (also called PCR-based testing).  The PCR or antigen testing determines whether a person has an active infection at the time of testing.  The antibody testing determines whether a person has previously been infected.  Santa Clara County, by the way, is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area, centered on San Jose and including Stanford University and Silicon Valley.

Per Worldometer (here) and National Review (here), the ChiComs just updated their death figures for Hubei province (Wuhan’s province). They had previously reported 2,579 deaths in Hubei and increased this figure by 1,290.

This is exactly 50% of the previously reported death total: 2,579 / 2 = 1,289.5, rounded to 1,290.  What a coincidence.

I have a new COVID-19 update for you, based as usual on the Johns Hopkins data through April 15 (here). As you probably know, I’ve been tracking and graphing reported deaths, and sometimes cases, in the US and the Western European countries. Western Europe is defined as everything west of the old Iron Curtain (other than micro-states, and not including Greece or Iceland).

I call this post “The Other Guys” because I’m going to include some reporting on the smaller countries, which I’ve generally combined into my “Other Western Europe” category.

Happy Easter, everyone, and happy Passover for our Jewish friends.  Though I’m not quite sure if “happy” is right for Passover, any more than for Good Friday.  They are certainly momentous days, demonstrating the mighty power of El Shaddai to deliver His people from bondage, to Pharoah or to sin, and to save us from the Angel of Death.  I happen to believe them both, with all my heart.

It’s been almost a week since my last report on Death’s latest weapon.  I’ve been monitoring the reports daily, and there have been few changes in the trends, which are favorable in the sense that the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic seems to be over in many places, and close to over in our own country.

There is an interesting report out of Germany, from a study in a municipality called Gangelt in Germany, on the Dutch border.  Gangelt is a small place, part of the District of Heinsberg in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.  North Rhine-Westphalia is mostly the Ruhr, though Heinsberg is a bit east of the Ruhr area proper.  Heinsberg is a small place itself, about 240 square miles (smaller than NYC and about the same size as the incorporated City of Tucson, where I live, though the Tucson metro area is much larger).

I.  About 30 Times More People Had COVID-19 Than Reported

I haven’t confessed this before. I’ve been worried that Rob would get upset.

In the early ’90s, I used to hang out at this awesome sports bar in Boston to watch the Celtics games. They had a great big-screen TV, which was a pretty new thing at the time. There were these two guys who used to hang out with me, always looking a bit sheepish when they walked in, like they were supposed to be someplace else.

I have a couple of speculations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I. No Country for Old Men?