CODID-19 Daily Update for Yesterday, Thursday, 8/27/2020

World Wide Trends in Brief:

The world wide daily change in new cases now appears to be roughly flat in both the 7 and the 14 day averages: 

The reason for this can be seen in the daily cases and recoveries chart below: 

However, since the daily cases are also in VERY gradual decline, eventually the daily recoveries should catch up, and the daily change in active cases should go negative. Unless there is a new increase in the number of daily cases.

Second Wave Watch:

For the last month we have been watching three countries that initially did very well in responding to the virus, namely South Korea, New Zealand, and China. They each used a different approach, but all three initially succeeded in handling the pandemic in a way that most of the rest of the world has failed to do. New Zealand even completely eliminated all local transmission for over 100 days, and completely reopened. 

However, near the end of July/start of August, all three have seen a second resurgence of cases. It will be important to watch and see if they are capable of controlling the virus again, if so, it will demonstrate that their initial success was not a 'fluke', and that it was something the rest of us COULD have done, had we chosen to. 

Cases in South Korea are still rising. Their contact tracing system has yet to catch up with the viral spread. Nevertheless, most countries would be ecstatic if they could keep cases below 400/day. Whether this remains a "success" will depend on whether cases continue to climb. 

Cases in New Zealand appear to be declining. Their response to this failure at their boarder which allowed the virus back in has been phenomenal so far. If this continues, it seems likely that New Zealand will soon be virus free again, and can again reopen. 

When they do, they will show the world that the best response both economically and from the perspective of public health is to "go early, and go hard."

China is also seeing a steep decline in the number of daily cases, which is now well below 100/day. 

While their authoritarian tactics are neither desirable nor something we would want to emulate, they are a second case study demonstrating that local lockdowns coupled with contact tracing can successfully eliminate viral spread, and keep the rest of the country open, and thus minimizing economic impact. 

And New Zealand demonstrates that this can be done without the authoritarian overtones. 

The US's halfhearted response, with a "lockdown" that never actually locked things down, is the absolute worst of both worlds, with extreme economic impact, but without any meaningful control of the virus.