The world is seeing an upsurge
It looks like all around the world cases are rising.
Image 1: Continent Cases as of 7/7/2022
All continents are going up, even Africa although you can’t see the rise.
Europe is especially surging, with Italy, France and Germany (sort of) driving the surge. In Asia, it’s India and Israel at first but I think Singapore and South Korea are kicking in. Brazil is of course leading South America with Peru coming next.
China has successfully tamped down their infection rate from earlier in the year but lately there has been a very tiny increase in infection rate. But it’s very tiny relative to the other countries.
With the US, I’m a bit confused about what I’m seeing.
[Note: Source of data can be found in the “Source of Data” box at the end of the post. World data comes from Wikipedia and US data from the CDC.]
[Note 2: I enlarged some of the graphs for better legibility of details. It’s either too small or too large.]
Details of Individual Continents
Europe
Image 2: Europe Cases, as of 7/7/2022
This European surge is greater than prior years’ surges; only the January-February 2022 surge has been greater. So, this Omicron variant B4 or B5 is more infectious.
BUT, I’m not reading about the dire situation in hospitals. I don’t have hospitalization data for other parts of the world, so I depend on the news to tell me if hospitals are reaching capacity. So far, I haven’t read anything of that nature.
South America
Image 3: South America Cases, as of 7/7/2022
The summer surge hasn’t reached the levels attained in 2021, so that is what I’m going to be watching out for.
Asia
Image 4: Asia Cases, as of 7/7/2022
Right now the surge levels are relatively low compared to prior years, so I will be watching to see if the levels approach that of last summer. Quite a few countries though are showing signs that the infection rates are percolating in the communities.
Africa
Image 5: Africa Cases, as of 7/7/2022
It looks like Africa is flattening out although Tunisia just did a surprising jump in cases, but overall, most countries in Africa has either flattened or on the downward slope.
US Cases
Image 6: US Cases, as of 7/6/2022, from CDC
I’ve circled the relevant part of the graph. On the left is a graph of the overall US cases and in the last few months, case infection rates have flattened out at a slightly lower rate than last summer. Last summer, May and June had a very low case levels after the Delta surge, but May and June of this year were higher than last year, probably because of the Omicron variant being particularly virulent.
The graph on the right depicts the regional cases. The South and the West are at a higher level than the Midwest or Northeast. All regions appeared to have flattened out, maybe at a level lower than last year.
Today’s news, though, indicate US is facing a surge, especially in New York and Los Angeles, so I will have to see if that shows up in the Power BI models in the future.
I know that my hometown and state are surging.
BUT, and it’s a big but, the case counts may not be as good anymore and may be understated due to people testing at home and not reporting results.
There is something called the waste water data but I have to find a site that delivers that data freely so I can play around with the data.
In the meantime, I look closely at the hospitalization data.
US Hospitalization
Image 7: US Hospitalization, as of 7/7/2022, from CDC
Here’s where things get interesting: hospitalization is increasing, especially in the South. Definitely not as high as in previous periods (such as the January/February periods, or last summer) but it is not flattening out either like cases.
This is where I start to go “what?” Again, the news are not describing dire situation in hospitals.
US Deaths
Image 8: US Deaths, as of 7/6/2022, from CDC
The good news here is the death rate is very low, so I’m hoping that even if we see a huge surge in cases and hospitalization, the death rate keeps low. Maybe the virus is no longer as fatal, or the doctors know more now and know how to prevent deaths. I would prefer hospitalization to not rise because that would mean the virus is still very lethal and requires doctors’ intervention to save lives. So, the rise in hospitalization is concerning.
Closing
Obviously, since the pandemic is still around, doctors are still keeping an eye on the data to see where we are going with the pandemic. As this is the 3rd year, I’m sure a lot of us are anxious to see the end of this pandemic, and I think that is why everybody is going about their business as if there is no virus. I mean, we’re just tired of the whole thing.
Sources of Data
WORLD : Cases and deaths from Wikipedia website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory
US and STATES : Five main sources of data are available – Wikipedia, COVID Tracking Project, CDC, JHU, and HHS
Wikipedia: Wikipedia has broken out their tables into four links, separating out the cases from deaths and separating out the years.
New Cases 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_data/United_States_medical_cases
New Cases 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/United_States_daily_cases_in_2020
New Deaths 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/United_States_daily_deaths
New Deaths 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/United_States_daily_deaths_in_2020
COVID Tracking Project: The COVID Tracking Project was a collaborative effort of free labor overseen by The Atlantic. This project ended on 3/7/2021. The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project was provided under Common Creative license “CC BY-NC-4.0” and covered cases, deaths, hospitalization, and positivity, amongst other data.
API: https://covidtracking.com/api/v1/states/daily.csv
Table: daily
CDC: CDC has become a replacement for the COVID Tracking Project for me although the data will often come in a few days later. Hospitalization comes in a week later. I’m tracking cases, deaths, hospitalization, and positivity.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 Response. COVID-19 Case Surveillance Public Data Access, Summary, and Limitations
Table: rows
API:
Cases and deaths: https://data.cdc.gov/api/views/9mfq-cb36/rows.csv
Hospitalization: https://beta.healthdata.gov/api/views/g62h-syeh/rows.csv (Good data doesn’t start until about 7/15/2020)
Testing: https://beta.healthdata.gov/api/views/j8mb-icvb/rows.csv
Positivity: https://beta.healthdata.gov/api/views/j8mb-icvb/rows.csv
John Hopkins University (JHU): I rarely show these sets of data; I mostly use Wikipedia or CDC but sometimes I like to reference the JHU.
Please cite our Lancet Article for any use of this data in a publication (link)
Provided by Johns Hopkins University
Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE):
https://systems.jhu.edu/
Terms of Use:
1. This data set is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) by the Johns Hopkins University on behalf of its Center for Systems Science in Engineering. Copyright Johns Hopkins University 2020.
2. Attribute the data as the “COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University” or “JHU CSSE COVID-19 Data” for short, and the
url: https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19.
3. For publications that use the data, please cite the following publication: “Dong E, Du H, Gardner L. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Inf Dis. 20(5):533-534. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30120-1”
Website https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
HHS: Hospitalization data for US – can be US level, state level or county level
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