COVID-19 Compilation: Part 21 - August 2-8, 2020

On March 14th, I began posting daily updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a backbone for this, I have used data from worldometers. I had no particular plan at the time, but as things have evolved I have kept going at one post per day, eventually settling on a more or less standard format and one topic per day.

This blog post compiles the period of August 2nd through August 8th. I have corrected some typos, augmented with links to original sources, and used some basic html to improve formatting; otherwise these are presented as-is from the original posts.

see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8
AUGUST 2:

"Wrong! We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases." -- Donald J Trump on twitter, responding to testimony by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Never mind the bad grammar. Let's examine. This will be somewhat longer than the typical evening post; I hope you'll bear with it.

The USA had 49,038 new cases today. That's the first time this country has been under 50,000 since July 5th. The 7-day average for cases is at its lowest level since July 13th.

Let's look at the weekly numbers:
Worldwide, there were 1,814,502 new cases the week ending August 1st, and 39,657 deaths. That represents a 2.2% rise in cases week over week, and a 0.6% decline in deaths. This was the 13th consecutive week of rising cases worldwide, but the smallest gain since the week ending May 16th. It was the first decline in deaths in 4 weeks.

In the USA, there were 446,841 new cases and 7,930 deaths. That represents a 7.7% drop in new cases, but a 19.2% rise in deaths. It's the first decline in cases for the USA in 7 weeks; the death total is the highest since the week of May 23rd.

Several states that have been among the hardest hit with new cases over the past month, saw steep declines in new cases: Florida was down by 15% and Texas was down by 11% with respect to new cases, though both cases easily had record weekly highs for deaths: Florida with 1244 and Texas with 1577. It was the 2nd consecutive week of sharply declining new cases alongside soaring death rates, for each state.

So, what happened?

To put it in Trumpian teams, we did less testing so we had fewer cases. Fewer reported cases, anyway.

USA testing numbers have been stagnant the past two weeks. The testing numbers overall were up by 2.1% nationally this past week, but that's due to sharp rises in states such as New Jersey and Michigan that have very low positivity rates (the percentage of reported tests that are positive; both states are in the top 5 nationally for lowest positivity rate).

In most of the states with the highest positivity rate, the testing numbers are down, in some cases way down. Florida reported 61,462 fewer test results this past week than the week before. Florida's positivity rate, at 19.0%, was unchanged from last week, and up from 18.1% the week before.

Test less, you have fewer cases.

The accompanying chart is last week's numbers for US states, sorted from the highest positivity rate. Just the top 22.

USA Testing and Case numbers by state, July 26-August 1, 2020

Note that the 13 states with the highest positivity rate last week, and 21 of the top 22, all voted Republican in the 2016 presidential election. This isn't a one week fluke, either: Mississippi was #1 last week as well, and every state with an overall 10% positivity rate since the start of the pandemic is in this list.

16 of the 22 states showed fewer tests last week than the week before.

The one state that had a sharp rise, Tennessee, also had the biggest rise in the number of new cases.

Test more, you get more cases.

There are reasons for the drop in testing, most notably lack of reagents leading to massive backlogs in several states. But it leaves us with a situation in which we no longer have a solid idea of who has the virus, especially in states that went red in 2016.

There were 217,901 new cases worldwide today, including 49,038 in the USA.
There were 4,404 deaths worldwide today, including 467 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 18.23 million cases and 692,420 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 4.81 million cases and 158,365 deaths.

Standard caveats apply for Sunday numbers.

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8

AUGUST 3:

There were 199,312 new cases worldwide today, including 48,622 in the USA.
There were 4,366 deaths worldwide today, including 568 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 18.43 million cases and 696,817 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 4.86 million cases and 158,929 deaths.

Assuming these numbers hold, this will be the first day under 200,000 worldwide cases since July 13th.

UPDATE: Late revisions pushed the numbers for August 3rd to 200,333 cases worldwide.

USA numbers are typically a bit low on Mondays as they reflect data gathered on Sunday; nonetheless it's the 2nd consecutive day under 50,000 new cases.

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8

AUGUST 4:

There were 254,988 new cases worldwide today, including 54,504 in the USA.
There were 6,298 deaths worldwide today, including 1,362 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 18.69 million cases and 703381 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 4.92 million cases and 160,290 deaths.

Per worldometer numbers, the total number of cases in states with Republican governors surpassed the total number of cases in states with Democratic governors, for the first time.

Meanwhile, an interview performed by Jonathan Swan of Axios with President Trump has illustrated one of the most basic problems plaguing the USA's response to COVID-19: the insistence on attempting to use numbers to mislead.

Here is a key passage:

Swan: Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.

Trump: You can’t do that.

Swan: Why can’t I do that?

Per worldometer, here are the countries with the highest number of deaths per million populatiom from COVID-19:

Country	Number of Deaths per Million Population
San Marino	1,238
Belgium	850
UK	682
Andorra	673
Spain	609
Peru	606
Italy	582
Sweden	569
Chile	509
USA	484

And, per Swan's comments:
Germany is 47th at 110, and South Korea is 139th with 6.

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8
AUGUST 5:

There were 271,406 new cases worldwide today, including 55,148 in the USA.
There were 6,838 deaths worldwide today, including 1,311 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 18.97 million cases and 710,287 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 4.97 million cases and 161,601 deaths.

Per worldometer tabulations, the USA will surpass 5 million total cases some time tomorrow.

I noted yesterday that, per worldometer numbers, the total number of cases in states with Republican governors surpassed the total number of cases in states with Democratic governors, for the first time.

The disparity becomes more striking when considering that states with Democratic governors comprise 54% of the total USA population.

The table below shows some data for last week (July 26th through August 1st):

States	Number of Cases per Million Population	Positivity Rate
Total USA	1,327	7.5%
Republican Governors	1,825	11.3%
Democratic Governors	911	4.8%

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8
AUGUST 6:

There were 280,997 new cases worldwide today, including 58,611 in the USA.
There were 6,464 deaths worldwide today, including 1,203 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 19.25 million cases and 716,751 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 5.03 million cases and 162,804 deaths.

Indiana reported 1,051 new cases today, a new record, based on tests going back to July 29th. In addition, the state reported 202 "probable" deaths from COVID-19. Hospitalizations in Indiana topped 1000 today for the first time since the end of May.

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8
AUGUST 7:

There were 283,009 new cases worldwide today, including 63,246 in the USA.
There were 6,448 deaths worldwide today, including 1,290 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 19.53 million cases and 723,184 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 5.10 million cases and 164,094 deaths.

Virginia reported 2,015 new cases today, a new record. Per a Washington Post article, "the state reported a backlog of infections that should have been counted over two previous days." This is a recurring theme around the country. Yesterday, per the County of Los Angeles Public Health site, "Public Health has confirmed 48 new deaths and 3,290 new cases of COVID-19. The high number of new cases are, in part, due to a backlog of test results received from one lab." Louisiana reported a backlog of 1,741 cases on Tuesday.

Today, I'll take another look at excess deaths due to COVID-19, per the CDC site. As noted on the site, "Data are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction and cause of death."

Overall data has thus started to catch up toward the end of July. In today's chart, I'm showing the worldometer reported weekly death numbers, as well as the CDC low and high estimates for those same weeks.

As the chart shows, the reported death numbers at worldometer were significantly less than the CDC excess death numbers during the peak period of deaths in April, suggesting that COVID-19 deaths were underreported during that period. As deaths declined in May and June, the death numbers were comfortably in the range for CDC excess deaths (note that those estimates are still changing).

As deaths started rising in July, we one again saw an undercount in reported deaths. Per the CDC excess deaths count, the USA was somewhere between 156,354 and 212,979 as of July 25th. Those numbers will continue to go up as more data is tabulated.

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8
AUGUST 8:

There were 261,729 new cases worldwide today, including 54,199 in the USA.

There were 5,604 deaths worldwide today, including 976 in the USA.

Cumulatively, there have now been 19.79 million cases and 728788 deaths worldwide. In the USA, there have been 5.15 million cases and 165,070 deaths.

For the week concluding August 8th, there were 1.78 million new cases, a decline of 2%. It is the first worldwide weekly decline in new cases since the week ending May 2nd.

In the USA, there were 384,089 new cases, a decline of 14%. It is the 2nd consecutive week of declining cases in the USA. I'll come back to that in a moment.

For the week concluding August 8th, there were 40,499 COVID-19 deaths reported, a rise of 1.5%. The week's death toll is the highest worldwide total since the week ending April 25th.

In the USA, there were 7,176 COVID-19 deaths, a decline of 9%. It is the first decline in deaths in the USA since the week ending July 4th.

The USA case rate has the appearance of having had a steep drop this past week, as it is down 14%.

However, testing was also down again, by 8%. Overall, testing was down in 34 states as well as the District of Columbia.

The accompanying table shows the 10 states with the most cases since the start of the pandemic, and their testing rates this week as compared to last week. The decline in cases worldwide this past week is due to the United States, and in turn the decline in cases in the United States is largely due to the decline in testing in the states that have been having the most new cases recently.

Test less, get fewer cases.

Tomorrow, I'll go in to the per capita death rates in the USA and worldwide.

Testing rates in States with the Most Cases, August 8th, 2020

August 2 | August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8