Milder coronavirus winter this year

Except for poor China

I haven’t talked about this in a while, largely because the data coming in is kind of suspect. I think everybody is tired of this topic and it doesn’t seem as scary anymore. Should we still be scared? Are we being too complacent? I don’t know. I do know that lately a lot of people have been getting sick and being absent. But deathly ill? I can’t say the illness has been terrifying with people I know being either dead or incapacitated. I just don’t know. We still have 300 – 400 deaths daily from Covid.

I just don’t know.

In addition, the cases being reported is not as severe as last January and I don’t see news articles about hospitals being overwhelmed with sick people – maybe in the fall there was the new RSV virus and the flu going around.

Again, the data are highly suspect.

Here’s the image for the overall continents.

Image 1: Cases by continents as of 1/10/2023

You can see that the fall, holiday surge is just not there like it was in December 2021/January 2022. We’re not having that same winter surge which is nice. It is going to give the medical professionals so relief.

Asia and possibly US is having a mini uptick in cases but again, they seem to be leveling off.

Here’s the top 10 countries in the world:

Image 2: Top 10 countries in the world by cases, as of 1/10/2023

Most of the top 10 countries seem to be on the downside of things. Japan (purple) and the US (green) seem to be the only countries that have recently seen increases in case counts.

Again, we have to keep in mind that I don’t think people are tracking the cases as diligently as previously. I know that my state, and most US states, are reporting their numbers only weekly. It is just not as urgent.

Here’s Asia:

Image 3: Asia’s case counts as of 1/10/2023

Japan is the darker purple and looks like to be on the downside and the Philippines are the lighter purple. South Korea is the red line and looks like it is also on the downside. Notice how the case levels are nothing like January 2022.

Very good news indeed.

Let’s look at China. Now I know that the news has been reporting that hospitals are being overrun with sick people and that funeral homes are just packed with dead bodies. There was an article where satellite images were showing parking lots full of cars at locations of hospitals and funeral homes. Yet, the reporting from China has been zero.

We know that can’t be because of eyes on the ground.

Image 4: China cases as of 1/10/2023

That flatlining is just not true. As a matter of fact, updated numbers came through Thursday night or last night and the numbers jumped to over 100K.

Now I’m just going to put in other Power BI charts one after another and not make many comments, since they are all pretty similar. Do take a note of how January 2023 case levels do not reach those of January 2022. This season is so much better. Even though the case data is suspect, the fact that we are not hearing dire stories about hospitalizations is a good indicator that this winter is milder than last winter.

Let’s cross our fingers that it stays that way and does not throw us a surprise.

By the way, the source for this data is coming out of Wikipedia. At the end of this post will be a Source of Data box highlighting where one can find coronavirus data.

Image 5: Africa cases as of 1/10/2023

Image 6: Europe as of 1/10/2023

Image 7: South America as of 1/10/2023

Image 8: Canada as of 1/10/2023