World Trends on the Eve of Christmas

I can’t believe it – almost a whole year has gone by. Tomorrow is Christmas so I will keep this post as short as possible, but I did say two days ago that I wanted to show the coronavirus trends in the world.

But first, the news has been reported that airlines are cancelling flights due to the surges going on around the world, causing staffing shortages. In addition, there are some severe weather going on also. The cancellations are kind of ruining Christmas for some folks.

Top 10 by moving average

Ok, the surges. Here is a graph of the top 10 countries by moving average over the last 14 days. I’ve circled in red the US’s vertical surge (bright kelly green) and UK’s near vertical surge (dark green). I read today that London has an infection rate of 1 in 20 in the community and is projected to be 1 in 10 next week.

That arrow is supposed to be pointing at the yellow line representing Spain. Behind Spain is the bright blue of Italy. Both countries are undergoing dramatic surges. Spain and Italy just recently popped into the top 10 list, so we’ll have to see whether that is an ominous trend or is the result of other countries’ declining infection rates.

By continent

In the graphic below, I’ve circled the surging US where it looks like we’re about to become a runaway. Europe, despite quite a few countries surging, is actually stalled at a high level as different countries surge and then subside.

The bright blue is Africa where the Omicron was first announced; the surge appears to be contained now.

(By the way, I’m trying a thinner circle to see how that looks.)

Africa

The dramatic surge in South Africa appears to be over because there has been a dramatic drop. Omicron rose quickly and then it fell quickly. Hopefully we will see that same trend in the UK where the country is currently undergoing a steep rise in cases.

Also, the indications still continue to be that Omicron does not appear as severe as the earlier variants. The only problem is the news does not distinguish whether the symptoms are less severe for both vaccinated and unvaccinated or just for vaccinated. The jury is still out on that.

In the chart, the purple is South Africa and the dark green is Zimbabwe. It looks like the other countries in Africa are starting to surge which is what I’m pointing to with the red arrow.

Asia

Asia continues to stay quiet; Russia and Turkey have stabilized. The taupe line that is showing a surge at the end is Vietnam so that will bear watching.

Canada

Canada…I’m not sure why I’m not seeing anything in the news about them. The country looks like it is undergoing an Omicron surge with that steep vertical rise. In absolute numbers term, the counts look relatively small compared to the other countries, but the vertical line looks like pure Omicron. And we have…crickets.

Europe

Now Europe is all over the map with some countries surging and others receding. I’ve circled UK (dark green) and Spain (dark yellow). The red arrow is supposed to be pointing at Italy’s bright blue line that is hiding behind Spain’s yellow line. Those three countries are surging while everyone else appears to be calming now. Both UK and Spain look like Omicron type surges.

South America

Finally, here’s South America. It’s amazing that Brazil has managed to successfully contain the spread of the virus for a period of time with the result being the entire South American continent being quiescent.

Connection between case counts and hospitalization

As of now, I haven’t heard anything about whether there is a successful disconnect between cases and hospitalization for the unvaccinated. For the vaccinated, I think the vaccine does provide protection. If there is such a dramatic number of cases…which is very possible judging by UK’s projected 1 in 10 statistics by next week, as mentioned earlier… then hospitals will still strain and be unable to provide adequate care to save lives. I’m just showing the case counts and haven’t looked at the hospitalizations (I’m not sure that I can obtain hospital data for other parts of the world) and I haven’t looked at the deaths.

I probably should look at the deaths to see if any connection starts to appear.

Anyway, that’s it for tonight.

Happy Holidays!