A Quiet Surge?

[Note: I thought I had posted this over the weekend but it turns out that I didn’t. The data is a couple of days old.]

Latest signs look like the coronavirus cases (such as it is with the decline in efforts to report) are rising. It looks like a slow rise compared to the other top 10 countries (by moving average) in the world.

Image 1: Top 10 countries by daily moving average

At the tail end of Image 1, you will see some lines going up. The purple is Japan, the red is South Korea and the green is the US. Image 2, shown down below, has the green US line boldfaced and you can see the line edging upward.

Image 2: Top 10 countries, the US bolded in green showing rise in cases

Here’s an image showing all of the major continents. Asia is definitely undergoing a slight surge, mainly driven by Japan and South Korea.

Image 3: Continents’ coronavirus cases by moving average

Image 4 provides some details for Asia and you can see Japan and South Korea topping the charts.

Image 4: Asia’s coronavirus status

And finally, China has been undergoing a surprising surge, although in relation to its population it is a very tiny surge. But to go from almost zero to 1000 or 2000 a day, that is kind of a jump.

Image 5: China’s current surge

By the way, China has a rather draconian Covid policy called zero-covid policy. Trying to get down to zero may be a lost cause though when the rest of the world is moving on. Japan and South Korea, some of its neighbors, have their own surges going on and I would not be surprised if there are traffic between all of these neighboring countries.

Having a severe lockdown – while seemingly logical from a disease disbursal standpoint – seems to be difficult to apply due to the fact that people have to work in order to feed, shelter, and clothe their families. Also, a lot of people need social contact to maintain their mental health. Lockdowns are probably not practical, and yet, China keeps deploying that tactic.

I do wonder how their economy will fare in the coming years.

So, does the slow upward rise of cases in the US mean the fall/winter surge is here? Only time will tell. I think it’s too early for the dramatic levels we saw in January/February 2022. We need to go through a couple of holiday gatherings for things to pick up into a steamroll – if that does happen.