Thread by @jburnmurdoch

NEW: Sat 18 April update of coronavirus trajectories

Daily deaths
• US & UK may be peaking but still too early to say. Deaths not clearly trending down
• Successes in dark blue: Australia, Norway, Austria locked down early => gentle slopes

Live charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Now cumulative deaths:
• US death is highest worldwide and still rising fast 📈
• UK curve still matching Italy’s
• Australia still looks promising
• India now in green to make it easier to track its curve

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Now daily new cases:
• Feels increasingly safe to say daily confirmed infections in US have peaked
• UK testing less, so could be misleading
• New cases falling in four countries that acted early: New Zealand (!), Australia, Norway, Austria

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Cases in cumulative form:
• US curve beginning to taper?
• Turkey still battling a severe outbreak
• Japan about to pass Korea
• Curves flattened early in Austria, Australia, Norway

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Subnational region daily deaths:
• NY daily confirmed covid deaths look to have peaked (we’re excluding nursing homes for consistency)
• If daily London deaths have peaked, they’re not declining fast

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Subnational death tolls cumulatively:
• NY curve tapering, but has passed Lombardy for world’s highest subnational death toll

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Small multiples of daily deaths in subnational regions grouped by country
• Rio de Janeiro 📈
• 30 US states now, steepest curves include CT, IL, MD, MA, MD, PA
• Sicily, Sardinia, Balearics, Canaries all low curves: do islands fare better?

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Small multiples for daily new deaths in countries:
• Norway locked down while Sweden didn’t; Norway’s daily death toll rising much more slowly than Sweden’s
• Australia faring well so far
• In Europe, Austria, Denmark & Norway faring well

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Small multiples for daily cases in 76 countries:
• Bangladesh 📈
• Early action in Australia & New Zealand may have turned corner 🇦🇺🇳🇿📉
• Austria & Norway locked down early; new cases falling
• Watch as countries relax lockdowns 👀

All charts: ft.com/coronavirus-la…

Re: relaxing lockdowns, how’s that going so far?
• Road traffic in Wuhan still far below normal levels, 10 days on from end of lockdown
• In Vienna and Helsinki traffic is picking up more quickly
• Bottom row is cities that have never fully locked down

ft.com/content/0c1375…

I talk a lot about whether or not peaks have been reached.

A good metric for this is hospitalisations:
• More reliable than confirmed cases (not influenced by testing regimes)
• Shorter lag than deaths

So here are some charts showing hospitalisations in various countries:

First, Italy:

Colour = phase of outbreak
• Red: more new hospitalisations every day than day before
• Orange: total hospitalisations rising, but rate of increase slowing
• Blue: fewer people in hospital than before

Almost all Italian regions now in "reduction" phase :-)

Next, Spain:
• Madrid & Catalonia now firmly in "reduction" phase
• In most other regions, rate of increase has slowed but each day still brings more new hospitalisations than discharges
• Aragon, Balearics etc facing second acceleration? 😕

France:
• Rate of increase in hospitalisations dropping across the board, but most regions yet to see total occupancy fall

US:
• Hospitalisation data is patchy from state to state
• NY and Louisiana both entering the "reduction" phase, hospital bed occupancy dropping 👍
• Rate of acceleration falling in New Jersey, hopefully soon sees net reduction

UK:
• Hospitals in London & Midlands now have fewer covid patients with each day 👍
• Rate of increase slowing elsewhere across UK
• Suggests UK is at or near peak for new infections, though too early to say, and care homes of course absent from this view

And tonight I’m adding hospitalisations in Stockholm:
• Remember Sweden has not locked down like most places
• But signs suggest a steady deceleration in new hospitalisations
• Daily hospital beds occupied still rising, but currently on course for net reduction soon

Wrapping up: our focus has now shifted to tracking excess all-cause mortality (numbers of people dying for any reason at all) as we think this avoids pitfalls of different countries’ covid-death reporting methodologies.

So my call-out tonight is:

Please point me to data on all-cause mortality (total numbers of deaths from all causes) in your country, by week, up to and including recent weeks 🙏

Reply here, email [e-mail] or add a link to this spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

Final bits:

Here’s a video where I explain why we’re using log scales, showing absolute numbers instead of per capita, and much more:

https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1244519429825802240

And a chart showing why we're using absolute numbers rather than population-adjusted rates:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1249821596199596034

Please email [e-mail] with feedback, requests & subnational data.

All of these are invaluable, and we incorporate your suggestions and data every day.

We’ll keep getting back to as many people as possible.

Have a good evening, folks :-)

Recommended reads:
• @FT’s @jemimajoanna on complex trade-offs of lockdowns
ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/04/15/158…
• Wuhan lockdown is over, but restrictions remain
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
• Brilliant analysis shows why "covid victims would have died anyway" is wrong henrytapper.com/2020/04/07/the…

Dinner tonight was baked gnocchi with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. Simple but oh so effective

Recipe comes from @missminifer's magnificent cookbook, "The Roasting Tin"