Thread by @jburnmurdoch

NEW: Sun 19 April update of coronavirus trajectories

Daily deaths
• Still too early to say if US & UK peaked
• Successes in dark blue: Australia, Norway, Austria locked down early; gentle slopes
• Notable emerging market countries in green

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

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, 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…

A key take-home tonight:

Thus far, curves are rising steeply but descending slowly. Often we see more of a plateau than a peak per se.

Demonstrates why restrictions are being eased slowly, gradually and carefully. No quick return to normality.

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
• Balearics facing second acceleration? 😕

France:
• Rate of increase in hospitalisations dropping across the board, and some regions beginning to see total occupancy fall including epicentres Ile de France & Grand Est

US:
• Hospitalisation data patchy from state to state
• NY & Louisiana both in the "reduction" phase, hospital bed occupancy dropping 👍
• Rate of acceleration falling in NJ & Colorado, hopefully soon net reduction
• Connecticut still has a way to go before occupancy falls

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

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.

Hope you’ve all had good weekends :-)