[I will be updating this daily for the foreseeable future.]
A very simple, two-week-ahead COVID-19 fatalities predictor. The main purpose of this predictor is to give a better sense of the implications of exponential growth to viewers who may not have a strong intuitive sense of that. Also, it’s for people like me who simply want to know: “If conditions stay as they are, where will we be in two weeks?” Finally, if it spurs discussion about the causes for changes in the exponential growth factors, that would be great too.
Daily change in exponential growth factors:
2020-03-28: 1.28
2020-03-29: 1.22
2020-03-30: 1.21
2020-03-31: 1.3
2020-04-01: 1.23
2020-04-02: 1.25
2020-04-03: 1.2
2020-04-04: 1.19
2020-04-05: 1.14
2020-04-06: 1.12
COMMENTARY:
The most recent exponential growth rate is the lowest yet. This may indicate a temporary slowdown, or a long-term one. However, it is interesting that there have been 4 straight days of decreased growth, and that the overall trend for the last 10 days is very much down.
Ultimately, the shape of a pandemic is basically logistic, meaning the total number of infections (and therefore fatalities) starts of looking exponential, but eventually flattens out because of herd immunity and running out of people to expose. We may be seeing that start to happen. But the slowdown we’re seeing now is substantially due to the social distancing efforts in the country. While social distancing slows the total growth in infections, it does not mean that the total number of cases over time will be substantially different in the end. Still, as is widely understood, “flattening the curve” will keep the hospitals and ventilator supples from being as overloaded as they might be, reducing the total number of deaths.
Yesterday’s US fatalities: 10,780
Predicted total fatalities for the US based on the average growth rate for the most recent 3 days:
2020-04-07: 12,402
2020-04-08: 14,269
2020-04-09: 16,417
2020-04-10: 18,889
2020-04-11: 21,732
2020-04-12: 25,004
2020-04-13: 28,768
2020-04-14: 33,098
2020-04-15: 38,081
2020-04-16: 43,813
2020-04-17: 50,409
2020-04-18: 57,997
2020-04-19: 66,728
2020-04-20: 76,773
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