Explanation, feel free to skip:
The chart shows the total number of deaths on each day after the country crossed 80 deaths.
For instance, Canada had 80 deaths on March 30th. That’s day-0 for Canada. Day-1 is March 31st, day-2 is April 1st, and so on.
Each country has a different day-0, but since COVID-19 has the same R0 no matter which country (presumably), the curves can be explained and do demonstrate the country’s success in managing the spread.
Ideally, we’d compare active rates, but since there isn’t mass testing everywhere, I am using the deaths.
7,284 people lost their lives today. Over a quarter of them, almost 2,000, were in the United States. No matter what other good news there might be, these lives are never going to come back.
Canada lost 58 additional people today to COVID-19. That, too, is heartbreaking.
However, if there’s a silver lining then it’s that at this moment, Canada is doing even better than Germany (when I started doing these close to 20 days ago, Germany was my best-case scenario for Canada). Good job, Canada!
Canada has had 5 days in a row of 15–20% daily increases in deaths. It would be a terrible number in any other situation, but with COVID-19 it’s actually really good at this stage. As the chart above shows, all comparison countries had higher death at this stage, including Germany.
What’s even more valuable for Germany is that it seems to have gone through the surge. There might be more surges, but at the moment it does seem that the worst is over for them.
I still refuse to put Canadian active rates because we still haven’t started wide testing yet.
Keep in mind that Canada has not had its surge yet. Based on the data, our surge is probably coming in 2–4 weeks.
United States
Now, the trend for the US is still not good (same with the UK).
Here’s how each country was doing on day-17 (where Germany is today):
Spain was in bad shape (14,045 deaths as of today), Italy was getting worse (17,127 deaths as of today). France wasn’t doing too poorly but it has hit 10,328 deaths. Even the UK which had a good start is at 6,159 deaths today.
Considering these countries, Germany is clearly doing better.
Reminder: Canada has not seen the full surge yet, it’s probably 2–4 weeks away. However, the goal of flattening the curve is to delay that surge so it is not as high. Canada seems to be succeeding in doing that even better than Germany did.
Canada serves as an example for the United States, showing what happens when all levels of the government are aligned. The United States shows the opposite: what happens when they aren’t aligned.
My heart goes out for my American neighbours, the death toll in the United States stands at 12,790 and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
At this rate, the USA can see nearly 35,000 deaths by this time next week (Canada will likely cross 1,000 deaths).
The probability of Americans seeing fewer than 50,000 deaths seem really unlikely now.
