UPDATE 10 June 2020
The USA now has a total of 2,056,561 cases and 114, 678 deaths.
Adjusting for population size the USA has more cases per 1 million people than Italy, Spain, the UK, France, China, Russia or any South American country.
Cases in New York continue to decline with no upsurge in new cases.
However some states that lifted lockdown measures early are seeing rapid rises in cases. In particular Texas, California and Florida now have a higher number of new cases each day than they did before they locked down. (1)
Despite this Florida is in the process of reopening its theme parks. (2)
UPDATE 25 May 2020
The USA has now had nearly 1,700,000 cases and 93,500 deaths from COVID-19 in total.
New York has seen a steady decline in both new cases and deaths each day and has appears to have passed its peak. (1)
However elsewhere in the USA case numbers are continuing to rise. Despite this many states are lifting their restrictions.
California and Florida have seen hundreds of people flocking to the reopened beaches despite scientists warning they may not have reached their peak number of cases. (2) (3)
Likewise in Texas, all businesses are open again, including ones where social distancing is not possible such as beauticians and tattoo artists, despite COVID-19 case numbers not yet declining. (4)
On 23 May 2020, China announced no new COVID-19 cases or deaths for the first time since it began reporting on 11 January 2020. (5)
China claims it is being transparent with its figures but, as mentioned in the previous update of 18 May, many outside of China remain sceptical of their numbers. (6) (7)
UPDATE 18 May 2020
Since writing my original piece on the USA and China the pandemic has accelerated in the USA. It has now registered 1,529,000 cases and has had over 92,000 deaths in total.
New York has continued to bare the brunt with over 360,000 cases and 29,000 deaths.
Although the number of deaths per 1M of the population for the USA as a whole is 275, for New York there have been 1,456 deaths per 1M, a number which dwarfs anywhere else in the world. In neighbouring New Jersey there have been 1,167 deaths per 1M people. (1)
Meanwhile, under intense political pressure and against the advice of its own medical advisors (who fear the pandemic has not yet peaked) the US is already easing lockdown restrictions virtually country wide with the exception of five states. A detailed map of the restrictions is available here from the Wall Street Journal. (2)
No other country has eased lockdown at this stage in their outbreaks.
Across the globe in China their official figures have remained constant with just under 83,000 cases and 4,700 deaths. However, given the fact Beijing restricts foreign access to its COVID-19 data an increasing number of scientists and economists are sceptical about these figures. (3) (4)
Original Piece 27 March 2020
On the Worldometer for COVID-19 the USA is now the country with the most cases with Spain in second place, Italy in third and the UK now in fourth. China has dropped to eleventh place.
Scientists and epidemiologists around the world are scrutinising the figures and with good reason.
Having achieved virtually a complete lockdown in Wuhan followed by other parts of the country, China may have brought their outbreak under control.
On January 23rd 2020, the Chinese authorities imposed a complete lockdown on the city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak. This was rapidly extended, first to other parts of the region and then large swathes of the country including Beijing. At the time the world watched with a degree of horror and fascination, questioning both the necessity and humanity of such action.
Two months later and most of Europe and parts of the USA were under similar lockdowns.
To take a snapshot in time, on March 26th 2020 China had had four consecutive days with no new cases in Wuhan. Of the 55 new cases reported countrywide on that date, 54 were imported into the country from overseas. Fearful of imported infection, China has imposed a temporary travel ban on all overseas visitors. The number of new daily cases in China is remaining steady at between 35 and 50 per day. Likewise the daily death toll is remaining steady and low, at less than 10 per day over the first two weeks of April.
Life is very slowly getting back to normal in China as some restrictions are lifted. Businesses are reopening and public places being made accessible again.
Only time will tell if a second wave of infection takes hold as restrictions are eased. A partial lifting of the lockdown in Wuhan began on March 28th with people allowed to return to the city although not yet to leave it. The lockdown was fully removed on April 8th.
What happens next in China will tell us a lot about not only the effect of the lockdown but also if it was for the right period of time.
In Italy and Spain, the worst affected of the European countries and seven weeks into complete lockdown, the rate of increase in new cases is starting to level off. This would indicate that they have reached the peak of their outbreaks. The UK, five weeks into lockdown, saw a rapid increase in new cases as it too headed along a similar trajectory as Italy and Spain. Early signs in the UK are that it may be reaching its peak number of cases.
Attention is turning to the USA who now have more than 1,323,300 cases (as of May 9th 2020). This is made even more worrying by the fact the USA is not thought to have reached the peak of its outbreak.
New York is currently bearing the brunt of the outbreak, more than 341,500 cases but with cases across the entire country all 50 states have declared a state of emergency. However the highly devolved administrative system in the USA means individual states and even cities are setting their own lockdown requirements. Thirteen states, including California and Washington, imposed complete lockdowns early but others, including Florida and Georgia, were slow to put restrictions in place.
Florida remained officially restriction free until April 3rd by which time there had been over 7000 cases although some individual counties within Florida were closing public places sooner. The state now has 40,000 cases as of May 9th 2020.
Many US public health experts called for a complete shut down of the nation concerned that within weeks the country will be overwhelmed with cases. However, with little political consensus, no coordinated healthcare system and now swathes of the public demanding the restrictions be lifted, different states have gone in widely different directions.
Indeed Florida and Georgia have already begun lifting their lockdowns going against the advice of the US medical advisors.
Whilst some politicians and world leaders continue to express conflicting views over the reasons behind the outbreak, how it should be handled, which countries are withholding their true figures and the economic fallout of prolonged lockdowns there is one known fact. The virus is no respecter of borders or economics. It will continue to spread unabated unless the extreme measures we have seen in China and Europe are implemented elsewhere.
