Monthly Archives: April 2020

Some National Coronavirus Graphs – update 1

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Just an update on my post last week on this subject:

Here is the graph for the number of cases in South Korea (as of 9:36;11 AM)

In comparison, here is the United States, Spain and Italy:

In contrast here are three other East Asian nations, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam:

 

And here is China, although there is still some concern about the accuracy of their statistics:

Finally, let me add the Austrian graph to this as it appears that they are now reaching their inflection point and may start leveling off:

The daily increase for Austria is here:

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 1

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As I live and work in Northern Virginia, just a few miles outside of Washington, DC, the local situation is of interest to me, as I suspect it is to a few other readers. Again, all the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website (which I gather is also maintained in the DC area), as of 9:26:51 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

The DC area is rather sprawling, with over 5 million people scattered across DC, Virginia and Maryland. Let me list the presence of virus by location. I list the number of cases from last week’s post followed by the number of cases this week. Population is the 2018 estimate from Wikipedia:

……………………………………………..Old……..New

………………………..….Population….Cases….Cases….Deaths

Washington D.C…………..702,445……..507…….1,211……..22

Arlington, VA…………..…..237,521……..104…..….237……….2

Alexandria VA………….…160,530……….30……….126

Fairfax County, VA……..1,150,795……..244….……532………2

Falls Church, VA……..…….14,772

Fairfax City, VA……..………24,574

Loudoun County, VA………406,850….…..87………..209……….1

Prince Williams C., VA..…468,011……….94………..236……….1

Manassas………………..….41,641

Manassas Park……………..17,307

Stafford Country, VA…….149,960……….24………….49

Fredericksburg, VA………..29,144…..……1…………….8

Montgomery C., MD……1,052,567……..447………..871………21

Prince Georges C., MD….909,308……..403………1,020……..27

Total……….…….………5,365,425……1,941………4,499……76

 

The number of cases has more than doubled in a week. Do not know if that is because of more spreading or better testing. There were 23 deaths recorded last week. Now it is 76.

The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.69% up from 1.18% last week. The population known to be infect is 0.08%. or one confirmed case for every 1,193 people. From my observations, most people are doing a reasonable job of self isolating. Probably easier to do in this more spread out suburban area than in some cities.

The Washington DC statistic area according to some also includes Warren, Clarke, Fauquier, and Spotsylvania Counties in Virginia, Jefferson County in West Virginia, Frederick, Howard, Charles and Calvert Counties in Maryland. I rarely go to these places. But of interest to me is Albemarle County, VA with 38 confirmed cases and Charlottesville, VA which has 23 confirmed cases and 1 death. Montgomery County, VA has 16 cases.

 

Coronavirus Mortality Rates update 13

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My plan for now is to keep updating this post every Tuesday. The number of cases continue to increase dramatically, as sadly are the number of deaths, and of significance, so is the mortality rate. In countries that previously had low mortality rates, like Germany, they have now risen to above 1% and keep rising. Germany is now at 1.76%.

China continues to report very few new cases. I gather they are starting to relax their restrictions. What will happen now? If the virus is truly defeated and contained, then this should not be an issue. This was not the experience they had in Hong Kong. China has had 82,718 cases of which 77,410 are recovered (and 3,335 died). In contrast, the United States has 368,449 cases with only 19,919 recovered (and 10,993 deaths). We are now 27% of the world’s reported cases.

 

Country……….Cases…..…Deaths……Rate

World Wide……1,363,365….76,420….…5.61%

United States…….368,449….11,008..……2.99%

Spain………..……140,510….13,798……..9.82%

Italy………..……..132,547….16,523..….12.47%

Germany…….…..103,717……1,822…..…1.76%

France………………98,984…..8,926….….9.02%

China.………………82,718…..3,335.…….4.03%

Iran……………….…62,589…..3,872………6.19%

United Kingdom……52,301…..5,385…….10.30%

Turkey…….…………30,217……..649………2.15%

Switzerland……..…22,242……..787……….3.54%

Belgium….…………22,194……2,035………9.17%

Netherlands.………19,703…….2,108…….10.70%

Canada…………….16,667………323………1.94%

Austria……………..12,488……….243………1.95%

Portugal.…..…….…12,442………345………2.77%

Brazil……………….12,240……….566………4.62%

S. Korea……….…..10,331………192….…..1.86%

Israel…….……………9,006…..…..60…….…0.67%

Sweden…..…….……7,693…..….591……….7.68%

Russia…….…………7,497………..58……….0.77%

Australia………..……5,895..…..….45….……0.76%

Norway…………….…5,866..…..….83…….…1.41%

Ireland……………..…5,364………174.………3.24%

Denmark..….………..5,173………203………3.92%

India…………………..4,908………137.…..….2.79%

 

Sixty-two countries around the world with over a thousand reported cases. Last week it was 44 countries, the week before that it was 26 countries, and three weeks ago it was 16 countries. A few other entities of interest to this author that have less than a five thousand cases so far:

Pakistan………………4,004…..….55……….1.37%

Japan…………………3,906…..….92.….…..2.36%

Indonesia….…..……..2,738…….221……….8.07%

Mexico……………..…2,439…….125…….…5.13%

Iceland…………..……1,562…….…6…….…0.38%

Ukraine…………….…1,462…..….45…….…3.08%

Singapore…..……..…1,375……..…6…….…0.44%

Egypt…………..……..1,322……….85….……6.43%

New Zealand…………1,160……..…1…….…0.09%

Iraq…..………………..1,031..……..64….……6.21%

Hungary…………………817…….…47….……5.75%

Bahrain……….…….……756……..…4…..…..0.53%

Hong Kong….….………935……..…4………0.43%

Lebanon……..………..…548..………19….….3.47%

Andorra……….………….525.………21…..….4.00%

Afghanistan………………423………..14………3.31%

Taiwan…………….…..…376……..…5….…..1.33%

San Marino…………….…277……….32……..11.55%

Palestine…..……………..260…..……1……….0.38%

Vietnam….…………….…249……..…0……….0%

North Korea..…………..0……..…..…0…..….…0%

Syria……….……..……..0……..……..0…..….…0%

Yemen…………….……..0……..……..0….…..…0%

Libya……….…………….0………..…..0….…..…0%

Diamond Princess….712……………11……..….1.54%

 

Data is from Johns Hopkins CSSE 4/07/20 as of 9:42.07 AM EST. It is here: Johns Hopkins CSSE

A few more observations:

  1. It does appear that at best the mortality rate is around 1% if: 1) there is good health care and 2) there is good reporting.
    1. The 1% figure appears to be borne out by the reporting from South Korea and the more contained environment of the cruise ships.
      1. Still the South Korean mortality rate continues to grow to now 1.86%. I gather they have tested more than 300,000 people.
      2. The Diamond Princess deaths are at 11, for a 1.54% mortality rate. Is the mortality rate for an older population hovering around 2%?
    2. There are now few European countries that are reporting a rate of less than 1%. In most cases, it would appear that the mortality rate is going to increase over time. This has happened with German, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Ireland. Two weeks ago they were all around 0.50%, now they are all over 1%.
      1. Germany is at  1.76%. Switzerland is at 3.54%, Austria is at 1.95%,  Norway is at 1.41% and Ireland is at 3.24%.
    3. The actual mortality rate is a big issue if one is going to do any estimate of potential impact (population * percent infected * mortality rate and modified by improvements in care and developments of vaccines). I have been thinking about post about this at some point…but…
      1. Do I do an estimate based upon a rate of 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% or 2%? Makes a big difference.
      2. Needless to say, the figure of 0.5% is hard to justify now. If one does estimates based upon a 1% mortality rate, the numbers are kind of scary.
  2. Needless to say, countries will high mortality rate obviously have a lot more cases than they are reporting.
  3. San Marino has a population of 33,562. With 277 cases, this makes it the “most infected” country in the world with 0.83% infected. San Marino also has a very high mortality rate at 11.55%. If the real mortality rate should be 1%, then this means they may well have almost 10% of the country infected.
    1. The Holy See (Vatican City) is second with 7 cases in around 1,000 people (0.70%)
    2. Andorra with a population of 76,177 and 525 cases I gather is now third at 0.69%. Is Andorra a snapshot of the future of Spain like San Marino looks like a snapshot of the future of Italy?
    3. Spain with 47,100,396 people and 140,510 cases maybe fourth (0.30%). I have not checked every country.
    4. Italy with 60,317,546 people and 132,547 cases may be fifth (0.22%). Because of the high mortality rates of Spain and Italy, I believe the level of infection there is much higher.

There is now a single line on this graph, which represents the entire world. The “Total Recovered” is reported at 292,467 out of 1,363,365 cases and 76,420 deaths.

Some Statistics on Afghanistan (April 2020)

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It has been a while since I have posted on the situation in Afghanistan. This post is not about the coronavirus (Afghanistan reported as of Sunday 337 cases with 7 deaths and 15 recovered), but about the never ending war there. The country has been in open warfare much of the time since 1979. The latest quarterly report on Afghanistan from the United Nations Secretary General is now available. These are always worth looking at as they appear to have less “spin” then many other reports:

https://unama.unmissions.org/secretary-general-reports

The report was posted 23 March, although I did not see it on their site at that time (I was looking). It is dated 17 March, which is later then they usually file these reports. Probably because a lot was going on with the attempted peace agreements.

  1. For 2019, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 10,392 civilian casualties (3,403 killed and 6,989 injured), a 5 per decrease compared with 2018, but the sixth year in a row with more than 10,000 documented civilian casualties.
    1. In 2018 the United Nations documented 10,993 civilian casualties (3,804 people killed and 7,189 injured). This was the highest number of civilian deaths recorded in a single year since UNAMA began systematic documentation in 2009, and an increased of 5% compared to 2017.
    2. “Since systematic documentation began in 2009, UNAMA has documented more than 100,000 civilian casualties, with more than 35,000 killed and 65,000 injured.”
    3. Woman and children represented 42 per cent of the civilian casualties in 2019.
    4. “In January, UNAMA documented a significant decrease in civilian casualties in comparison with the same period in 2019.”
    5. “Most civilian casualties (62 per cent) continued to be caused by anti-government elements, 47 per cent attributed to the Taliban, 12 per cent to ISIL-KP and the remainder to undetermined and other anti-government elements.”
    6. “Pro-government forces caused 28 per cent of civilian casualties (including 8 per cent by international military forces).”
      1. “UNAMA documented an 18 per cent increase in civilian casualties attributed to international military forces.”
      2. “Civilian casualties caused by the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces increased by 3 per cent.”
    7. Suicide and non-suicide improvised explosive devices remained the leading cause of civilian casualties, representing 42 per cent of the total, followed by ground engagements (29 percent) and aerial operations (10 per cent).
      1. “In 2019, UNAMA documented a 24 per cent increase in civilian casualties from non-suicide improvised explosive devices by anti-government elements in comparison with 2018.”
      2. “Civilian casualties from pro-government aerial and search operations reached record high levels, with a 3 and a 2 per cent increase, respectively, in comparison with 2018.”
      3. “UNAMA also documented the continued elements, including electoral officials and election-related facilities, judges, prosecutors, health-care workers, and aid workers, as well as continued attacks against the Shi’a Muslim population” (bolding is mine).
      4. “The task force verified 10 attacks against hospitals and protected personnel, a decrease compared with the previous reporting period (26 attacks). Attacks were attributed to the Taliban (eight), and ISIL-KP and the Afghan National Army (one each)…”
      5. “A total of 29 confirmed cases of polio had been reported in 2019….Of these, 25 cases originated inaccessible areas where house-to-house immunization campaigns have been banned by the Taliban since May 2019.”
      6. Explosive remnants of war and anti-personnel mines causes 134 child casualties from November to anuary, killing 49 children and injuring 85.”
  2. “Between 8 November and 6 February, UNAMA recorded 4,907 security-related incidents, a similar number as during the same period in the previous year.”
    1. This includes 2,811 armed clashes.
    2. Use of improvise explosive devices was the second highest type of incident.
    3. 8 Suicide attacks this period, compared to 31 in the previous three-month period and 12 in the same period in 2019.
    4. 330 air strikes were conducted by Afghan and international air forces, an 19% decrease compared with the same period in 2019.
    5. “A nationwide reduction in violence commenced on 22 February…”
    6. “In 2018, the United Nations recorded 22,478 security-related incidents, a 5 per cent reduction as compared with the historically high 23,744 security-related incidents recorded in 2017.”
  3. Territory was changing hands:
    1. “On 31 December the Taliban reportedly took control of Darzab district in Jawzjan Province following the withdrawal of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.”
    2. “The Taliban also temporarily captures Arghandad district in Zabul Province…”
    3. “…while the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces recaptured Guzargahi Nur district in Baghlan Province, which had been under Taliban control since September 2019.”

              Security           Incidences      Civilian

Year      Incidences       Per Month       Deaths

2008        8,893                  741

2009      11,524                  960

2010      19,403               1,617

2011      22,903               1,909

2012      18,441?             1,537?                             *

2013      20,093               1,674               2,959

2014      22,051               1,838               3,699

2015      22,634               1,886               3,545

2016      23,712               1,976               3,498

2017      23,744               1,979               3,438

2018      22,478               1,873               3,804

 

As I noted in my post last year: “This war does appear to be flat-lined, with no end in sight.”

Now, on 29 February in Doha the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement to reduce the number of U.S. forces to 8,600 troops in 135 days with a proportional reduction in the number of coalition forces. It is to be followed by the drawdown of all international forces within another nine and half months. This is subject to the Taliban fulfilling their commitments under the agreement. I have blogged about this before. There is still no agreement between the current government of Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Some National Coronavirus Graphs

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This is a follow-up to this post:

Is the difference leadership?

Here is the graph for the number of cases in South Korea (as of 9:12:31 AM):

In comparison, here is the United States, Spain and Italy:

In contrast here are the other three East Asian nations, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam:

And here is China, although there is some concern about the accuracy of their statistics:

Two Generals

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This article is interesting: ‘Protective bubbles’: How 2 Army generals stopped the spread of coronavirus among their soldiers

  1. In the case of Daegu, South Korea I gather they started closing down the base around 20 February.
    1. Total personnel is roughly 28,500.
    2. A total of 2 soldiers and I gather 1 dependent became infected.
      1. This is 3 cases out of 28,500 or 0.01%.
      2. For South Korea it is 10,062 cases (as of 3:21:42 PM) out of a population of 51,780,579 or 0.02%
  2. In the case of Vicenza, Italy they started closing it down 24 February.
    1. Total personnel is 15,500: 4,000 soldiers, 2,750 Army civilians and 8,750 dependents.
    2. “fewer than five” have tested positive.
      1. This is 4? cases out of 15,500 or 0.03%
      2. For Italy it is 119,827 cases out of 60,243,406 or 0.20%
  3. One notes “The Defense Department has since banned individual military organizations or headquarters from releasing number of confirmed cases.”

 

The commander in South Korea, General Robert “Abe” Abrams is the son of General Creighton W. Abrams,. Jr. He is the brother of General John N. Abrams. General Creighton Abrams was the commander of the tank battalion that relieved Bastogne on 26 December 1944.  He later replaced Westmoreland as commander in Vietnam. There is a tank named after him.

 

Picture is from this article: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/05/26/colonel-creighton-abrams-at-the-battle-of-the-bulge/

 

 

Is the difference leadership?

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South Korea, with an estimated 2020 population of 51,780,5798 million, has had 9,976 cases of coronavirus (as of 10:00:04 AM). They have tested more than 300,000 people and have had 169 deaths. Of those 9,976 cases, 5,828 are reported as recovered leaving them with 3,979 active cases. Outside of China, there are currently twelve countries with more cases than South Korea. They are United States (population 330 million), Italy ( 60 million), Spain (47 million), Germany (83 million), France, (67 million), Iran (83 million), United Kingdom (66 million), Switzerland, (9 million), Turkey (83 million), Netherlands (17 million)  and Austria (9 million). Of those twelve countries, only Austria was less deaths than South Korea (although not per capita). There are an additional five countries with more deaths than South Korea (Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Portugal and Indonesia). It is clear that South Korea has done a better job at containing the virus than at least 17 other countries.

This appears to be the case for many of the countries bordering China. Japan has 2,384 cases and 57 deaths (population 126 million), Taiwan has 339 cases and 5 deaths (population 23 million), and Vietnam has 227 cases and no reported deaths (population 96 million). Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are three of the five major trading partners of China (the others being the United States and the European Union). They are the closest to the source of the disease, were among the earliest to catch it, and yet they have certainly mitigated the results of the disease, and might even yet contain it. All three countries are democracies. Many other countries have had a longer warning period and do not seem to have done as well at containing the virus.

Is the difference leadership? Is the difference the responsive of the government and their health care system? What has South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam done that the United States, Italy, Spain, Iran and so forth have not done?

Coronavirus in the DC area

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As I live and work in Northern Virginia, just a few miles outside of Washington, DC, the local situation is of interest to me, as I suspect it is to a few other readers. Again, all the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website (which I gather is also maintained in the DC area), as of 10:51:42 AM:  Johns Hopkins CSSE

The DC area is rather sprawling, with over 5 million people scattered across DC, Virginia and Maryland. Let me list the presence of virus by location. Population is the 2018 estimate from Wikipedia:

 

……………………………….Population….Cases….Deaths

Washington D.C…………..702,445……..507………9

Arlington, VA………………..237,521……..104………2

Alexandria VA………………160,530……….30

Fairfax County, VA……..1,150,795……..244………2

Falls Church, VA…………….14,772

Fairfax City, VA………………24,574

Loudoun County, VA……..406,850………..87………1

Prince Williams C., VA……468,011……….94………1

Manassas……………………….41,641

Manassas Park………………..17,307

Stafford Country, VA……….149,960……….24

Fredericksburg, VA…………..29,144…………1

Montgomery C., MD……..1,052,567……..447……..1

Prince Georges C., MD……909,308……..403……..7

Total…………………………5,365,425….1,941…….23

 

The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.18%. The population known to be infect is 0.04%. or one confirmed case for every 2,764 people. From my observations, most people are doing a reasonable job of self isolating. Probably easier to do in this more spread out suburban area than in some cities.

 

The Washington DC statistic area according to some also includes Warren, Clarke, Fauquier, and Spotsylvania Counties in Virginia, Jefferson County in West Virginia, Frederick, Howard, Charles and Calvert Counties in Maryland. I rarely go to these places.