Here’s the coronavirus growth rate through April 8. Italy continues to decline. The United States trendline hasn’t changed since yesterday. Germany is showing some acceleration and no longer looks like it’s close to peaking:
For what it’s worth, the quickest rule of thumb for estimating coronavirus deaths has always been, “We’re all Italy now.” Italy peaked on April 1 at about 13,000 deaths, which suggests something like 25,000 deaths by the time the pandemic subsides. If we’re on the same track but with 5.5x the population, we’ll suffer 137,000 deaths. However, we appear to be consistently a bit below the Italian trendline, so it’s probably more like 100-120,000 deaths. This is consistent with my read of the daily growth rate, but well above the IHME projection. I hope the experts are right this time.
How to read the charts: Let’s use France as an example. For them, Day 0 was March 5, when they surpassed one death per 10 million by recording their sixth death. They are currently at Day 34; total deaths are at 1,815x their initial level; and they have recorded a total of 162.5 deaths per million so far. As the chart shows, this is above where Italy was on their Day 34.
The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.
