Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I’ve been saying for some time now that the number of confirmed cases is a very poor way to measure the spread of the coronavirus infection. This, I’ve said, is because the number of new cases you’ll find depends on how much testing is being done. I’ve claimed that if you double your tests, you’ll get twice the confirmed cases.
However, that position was based on logic alone. I did not have one scrap of data to support or confirm it.
Max Roser is the data display genius behind the website Our World In Data. He has recently finished his coronavirus testing dataset, covering the patchwork quilt of testing in various countries. The data is available here.
Being a ‘Murican myself, I first looked at the US daily new testing versus number of US daily new confirmed cases. I have to confess, when I saw it, I did laugh …
Figure 1. Scatterplot, daily new tests versus daily new cases, United States. Yellow/black line is linear trend.
Just as I have been saying, in the US, new cases is a function of new tests. For every one hundred additional tests that we do, we find an additional nineteen confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Of course, when I looked further there were other countries which were nowhere near as linear as the US. Here’s Australia, for example:
Figure 2. Scatterplot, daily new tests versus daily new cases, Australia. Yellow/black line is linear trend.
However, there are also plenty of countries that are just as linear as the US.
Figure 3. Scatterplot, daily new tests versus daily new cases, Turkey. Yellow/black line is linear trend.
Poland shows the same type of mostly linear relationship.
Figure 4. Scatterplot, daily new tests versus daily new cases, Turkey. Yellow/black line is linear trend.
So … how about for the whole world? Glad you asked. Here’s that chart.
Figure 5. Scatterplot, world total daily new tests versus total daily new cases. Units are thousands of tests and thousands of cases. Yellow/black line is the linear trend. Black “whiskers” show the uncertainty (one sigma) of the individual mean values for the various days.
One item of interest is the difference in the rate of discovery of new cases in various countries. In the US there are nineteen new confirmed cases per hundred new tests; Turkey is 13/100; Poland is 4/100; Australia is 1/100; and globally, there are eleven new cases for every one hundred new tests.
I suspect that this variation depends directly on at least a couple of things — the underlying number of cases in any given country, and exactly which subgroup is being tested.
For example, in the US we’re still short of tests. So the tests are being reserved for people who are showing obvious symptoms … and as a result, the US tests would be expected to come up with more new cases than the global average.
This leads to a curious situation. In addition to being a function of the number of tests, confirmed cases can also be a function of the scarcity of tests …
Conclusion? Don’t use confirmed cases as a metric of the spread of the virus—the number of cases is indeed a function of the numbers of tests.
w.
PS—When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. It avoids endless misunderstandings.
PPS—While I’m here, let me shamelessly recommend the Watts Up With That Daily Coronavirus Data Graph Page. I create the daily graphs and maintain the page. I’ll also recommend my own blog, Skating Under The Ice. I note that it’s been one full month since I publicly called at my blog for an end to the American Lockdown. Finally, I’m on Twitter here. Enjoy.
wow.
Wow. That’s impressively linear. You know you will be getting more positives but no shape to the curve.
Does this mean my good news is worthless because I utilize confirmed cases?
http://protocriteria.com/index.php/2020/04/23/coronavirus-death-rate-revisited-2/
“Being a ‘Murican myself ”
‘Murican is a derogatory term that describes someone, usually uneducated and politically conservative, who evinces unsophisticated, jingoistic behavior. Generally synonymous with hick, redneck, cracker.
Really Willis?
Also I now know how to stop the virus completely – stop testing. /sarc
Really David? That’s your takeaway? It’s a semi-quote from Lyndon Johnson. Has nothing to do with anything except a little humor. Get over yourself and actually read and try to comprehend the writings of a very smart man. Or were you describing yourself? Come on.
I didn’t call Willis a Murican. He called himself that. I quoted the definition of Murican. Then knowing that Willis absolutely doesn’t fit that description I asked the question (with tongue in cheek) Really Willis? How is that offensive to Willis or any other rational person? It isn’t. You need to lighten up.
A couple of comments re: ‘Muricans.
My main connotation with that term comes from the fact that I lived through its popularization. President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) used to start all of his folksy speeches with the phrase “Mah fellah ‘Muricans.” It was a staple of the cartoons of the time.
As to it having a meaning of:
I hadn’t heard of that. And LBJ definitely didn’t mean that.
w.
David
Jeff Foxworthy might take exception to your complaint. He got rich making fun of his branch-less family tree.
I find this map of German infection rates highly interesting:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/coBUQ/1/
They are concentrated in the rich South – Bavaria and the Ruhr. Very sparse in the former East Germany.
Then again, Welsh cases are particularly concentrated around Cardiff and Newport:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7Lbsv/1/
and cases in England are far from evenly distributed, with London and major conurbations dominating – apart form the odd case of Cumbria
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OvtCA/2/
Case data also allows infection peak timing to be estimated where it has probably occurred
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/eFD6C/1/
“Conclusion? Don’t use confirmed cases as a metric of the spread of the virus—the number of cases is indeed a function of the numbers of tests. ”
I was not aware this was even in question. Am I missing some broader point? (Not snark – just asking.)
So much data, such a confused, incomplete picture. Another numbers crunch I like is that of ‘excess deaths’ over previously established weekly averages. Article on this appeared in the NYT yesterday;
“28,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html
In general the excess deaths exceed the officially reported Corvid-19 deaths. Despite the negative spin by the Times – no room for the otherwise sick – this disparity could also be about unconfirmed virus deaths. Would love to eventually see more US data and, of course, the true China numbers to reveal their blatant suppression of the pandemic’s initiation and their failure to contain it.
For countries that release their total deaths in a timely manner just look at number if deaths above the average for that time of year. Unless you can come up with some other explanation then that number above the average will be a very good estimate of the number of Covid-19 deaths.
Someone else here provided me this link, but a nice broad graphical summary of quite a few European countries deaths.
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
If we’d randomly tested the world’s population and found 11 people with Covid for every 100 tested, that implies there are (11/100)*7.6 billion who have or have had Covid. That’s 836 million. Of whom, about 200,000 have died. So that’s a death rate of 200,000/836,000,000 = 1/4180 = 0.024% death rate per Covid case.
I know we haven’t randomly tested the whole population, but…
Hi Willis
May I be so bold as to suggest a bit of “confirmation bias” in your analysis?:
“Just as I have been saying, in the US, new cases is a function of new tests. For every one hundred additional tests that we do, we find an additional nineteen confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Of course, when I looked further there were other countries which were nowhere near as linear as the US. Here’s Australia, for example:”
The graph shown is hardly supportive of your hypothesis. Then you say:
“However, there are also plenty of countries that are just as linear as the US.”
I would be a bit more interested in your hypothesis if you had noted that you found a strong exception, and provided a cogent discussion of how the two graphs (linear, vs scattered) might be reconciled.
With respect to this particular analysis I must admit to leaning towards Steven Moshers comment:
“No controls.
No consistency
Not science
No conclusion.”
Which I find a “bit” ironic as your analysis are usually just the opposite…ie when you see data that does not support a hypothesis you zero in on that inconsistency.
Again I will parrot my repeated request: Please, please, please address the differences in the data and opinions and analysis….I strongly hold that that path leads to better information overall. It is my observation that the single most objectionable aspect of this Covid-19 event is the horrid quality of the information streaming in from all directions, with almost no attempt by anyone to try to productively reconcile that information.
Regards,
Ethan Brand
Ethan, One of the things I find odd is that surely we have had enough time now to gather some data which is a bit more useful. As you say, the quality of information from all over the place is very poor.
If there had been enough available tests regional samples could have been tested which would have confirmed (or otherwise) the reliability of the apps data.
I think we’re all trying to tease answers out of data that is not fit for that purpose.
Instead take your favorite economic model and run forecasts on just how long we can maintain the current lockdown before we are in a depression. Or better yet, take an ensemble of models and plot a spaghetti graph of projections, then pick a line through the middle and call that your “high confidence” forecast. Then take projections of unemployment and other aid costs and calculate just how long the US government can borrow at that rate before consuming the world’s available liquid reserves (keep in mind the value of equities worldwide is crashing all this time).
Anyone think we can remain locked down until a vaccine is proven “safe and effective” and available for everyone? I don’t.
Those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs we can do effectively from home can stay home as long as the lights come on, the internet works, the water flows, the toilets flush and the markets remain stocked. But a lot of people can’t. According to unemployment data from March, almost 3 million fewer people are working as a result of the lockdown. The April figures will be worse.
We need to find ways to get a significant number of people back to their normal work environments as soon as possible; we have no choice. Police, Fire and other urgent response organizations need to have sufficient people to dispatch as needed. We need military forces on duty at their stations and available for deployments. You don’t have a military in order to keep them safe: you have a military in order to keep them dangerous. If they aren’t dangerous it doesn’t matter how safe they are.
We need to take whatever we know about this virus and craft measures that we can apply widely right now that minimize rate of transmission, and limits it to the least vulnerable (most resistant) part of the population, which happily appears to include most people of normal working age.
Face masks and frequent hand-washing don’t impede most normal work routines or infringe civil liberties, and they cost very little. I see no reason we can’t re-open factories; the same crew working every day is a lower transmission risk that places that serve the public (food markets, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot) which have been allowed to remain open as essential businesses.
If we stay locked down into a depression, Democrats who are now hollering at Trump for not acting soon enough will blame him for crashing the economy. If people get back to work and we avoid a depression, Democrats will blame all the deaths on Trump’s recklessness. The lockdown is a socialist’s dream — you throw all the private sector people out of work and make them dependent on government aid.
I want all my memories of the “great depression” to remain just stories I heard from my parents. And I don’t want to survive the virus to find myself living in Venezuela.
Steve and Willis,
I agree looking at this data is not going to helping us solve the virus problem. Covid-19 isolation is going to cause economic collapse if we do not find a real solution to stop this virus and other viruses.
There is absolutely no doubt that the virus is very, very contagious and it is dangerous because a large portion of our population are deficient in ‘Vitamin’ D, Zinc, and magnesium.
When these key components in our bodies are corrected/optimized our bodies become super strong and efficient microbiologically, eliminating 80% of all sickness and cancers and stopping almost all deaths due to covid-19.
Twenty years of studies have shown that there is up to an 80% reduction in most of the common cancers if we took vitamin D supplements to raise our 25(OH)D concentration in our blood to 60 ng/ml.
https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/disease-incidence-prev-chart-051317.pdf
That change ‘cures’ type 1 diabetes, causes people to lose 40 to 60 pounds, reduces the incidence of type 2 diabetes by 40%, reduces the incidence of the flu by 30%, stops people from getting multiple scleroses, and some other good stuff.
The vitamin D deficiency is a crisis problem for people who have dark skin. It is unbelievable that twice as many dark skin people get HIV and die from covid than white skin people.
600,000 people die a year in the US from cancer.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/health/black-americans-hiv-coronavirus-blake/index.html
The current recommended maximum Vitamin D dosage is 1000 UI/day which is odd as research eight years ago showed 4000 UI/day is conservatively safe and would cut deaths (more diseases than cancer) by 50%.
So say, a reduction in deaths and expensive intervention (most people do not die) by 50%.
The minimum vitamin D required to achieve 60 ng/ml is 4000 UI/day for a small woman.
This is a link to a women’s movement that found this out and started their own research center.
https://www.grassrootshealth.net/document/cancer-risk/
https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/McDonnell-2018-breast-cancer-GRH.pdf
And it gets better, in addition to the population deficiency breakthrough where we find out that the majority of common ‘diseases’ were caused by population wide deficiencies….
The US has developed new microbiological systems that will kill 100% of all common cancers and will revolutionize medicine… and will reduce the cost and need for medical treatment by a factor of at least 10.
This obviously is disruptive technology. Our system hides disruptive technology.
This new engineered solution to medicine, will eliminate almost all of the need to do cancer ‘research’ and will obsolete all cancer drugs. This is a subject for another thread.
You are a clown…nothing cures Type 1 diabetes except beta islet cells transplants and in that case the cure is worse than the disease. Massive doses of Vitamin of D over many years hasn’t even changed daily insulin ratios in my family of Type 1’s.
The actual pervasiveness of the virus in a given population at any given time is the “holy grail” for reconciling much of the information out there regarding infections rates, death rates, testing efficacy, lock down efficacy, etc.
As noted many time here at WUWT and elsewhere, usable information about the pervasiveness is in short supply to say the least.
Two reports that might be helpful: (Importantly the testing was not for people specifically reporting symptoms of some sort)
The first one:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-antibody-study-early-results
Reports that 13.9 percent of supermarket customers tested positive. Given that the customers were mobile, and probably not terribly sick, this “might” be a decent analysis. Reported that 3000 were tested.
I cannot locate the source other than New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reported comments .
The second one:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/testing-shows-at-least-200k-in-la-county-may-have-gotten-coronavirus/
Reports
“4.1 percent of the county’s adult population has antibodies to the virus in their blood, which is an indicator of past exposure.”…. “The results were determined from antibody testing of about 863 people who were representative of L.A. County, the researchers said, according to the L.A. Times.”
I cannot locate any source information for either study…without it is impossible to gauge just how useful the information is…what, when, how…..
As testing continue to ramp up, hopefully somebody is mining meta data out of the results…ie using the results of thousands of “uncontrolled” testing, but perhaps gleaning useful data out of the bits of information provided. For now the only way to bracket the data is with two boundaries:
1) The number of virus exposures is (probably)not less than the “official” reported numbers.
2) The number of virus exposures is not more than the actual population of the earth.
Glad I am not a politician or policy maker right now…:)
Ethan Brand
Adding a couple more “data” points: (Thanks to Pft and Ulric Lyons)
Pft:
https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus
“The Mass. General study took samples from 200 residents on the street in Chelsea, MA. Participants remained anonymous and provided a drop of blood to researchers, who were able to produce a result in ten minutes with a rapid test.”
“Sixty-four of the participants tested positive – a “sobering” result, according to Thomas Ambrosino, Chelsea’s city manager.”
Rate 32%.
Ulric Lyons:
“The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier – which is about 94% complete – was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.
Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says.”
[That’s about a 12.5% overall infection rate too.]
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/uss-theodore-roosevelt-sailors-coronavirus-asymptomatic
Found another one:
https://jocogov.org/article/2020/04/16/13283
“On April 10, the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment conducted drive-thru random sample testing. The community testing included 374 participants.
374 tests administered; 369 tests processed
14 positive tests – 3.8% of the total number of processed tests
355 negative tests
5 tests were damaged; four tests were re-administered, one declined testing”
Another:
https://fox4kc.com/tracking-coronavirus/johnson-county-shares-results-of-first-round-of-random-coronavirus-testing/
“In all, 371 people were tested, and 330 test results were immediately available. The nine positive tests represent less than 3% of those tested.”
Another (Hawaii)
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/03/13/breaking-news/hawaii-testing-of-random-samples-for-coronavirus-yields-negative-results/
“Hawaii health officials have tested 31 random samples for the novel coronavirus that have all come back negative, as part of a statewide surveillance program to identify undetected cases and community spread in the islands.” 0% (small sample, Hawaii)
Diamond Princess:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339893491_Estimating_the_asymptomatic_proportion_of_coronavirus_disease_2019_COVID-19_cases_on_board_the_Diamond_Princess_cruise_ship_Yokohama_Japan_2020
“A total of 634 people tested positive among 3,063 tests as at 20 February 2020.”
Rate: 20.6 %
More data to come: (I expect a lot more of these surveillance testing results in the coming weeks)
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/surveillance-testing-in-miami-dade-will-gauge-how-far-coronavirus-has-spread/2215512/
“Beginning Friday night, Miami-Dade County and University of Miami will begin calling 750 people each week for the next four weeks to randomly test people in the county. This “surveillance” testing will be used to gauge how far the coronavirus has spread.”
Please add any data you find….
Ethan Brand
Note the different reporting for the Johnson County…..3% vs 3.8%…hard to find actual source data.
Tests in the US have not really been random. If you were tested then there was a good chance you were showing some kind of symptoms, so the ratio of 1 case per 5 tests is not unexpected.
The antibody tests conducted in NYC that Ethan referred to were tests of people at supermarkets, not symptomatic people. The result was 13.9% positive rate.
“The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier – which is about 94% complete – was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.
Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says.”
That’s about a 12.5% overall infection rate too.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/uss-theodore-roosevelt-sailors-coronavirus-asymptomatic
Updated story as of yesterday is 840 positive (17.5% infection rate but no update on how many asymptomatic. 8 hospitalized with 1 ICU (non ventilator) and 1 death a month after the out break started
Lots of discussion about COVID and whether personal services should be “allowed” to be open or kept closed. Are personal services REALLY that much of a threat? Check my thinking here. The total daily incidence of new cases for the last 15 days in Georgia is approximately 13,600 so those are perhaps the individuals still contagious….they are also likely still self isolating. That will perhaps decline over the next several days. There are likely some unknown new contagious that have yet to be diagnosed. With 10.6M people in Georgia 0.13% of the population has been affected the last 15 days. The probability of a pair of individuals being a threat to each other approaches zero. Now add in mitigation steps and the probability of threat further reduces towards zero: 1. Temp checks and health questionnaire for both provider and customer. 2. Both wash hands before service. 3. Both wear masks and glasses 4. Provider wears gloves 5. Sanitation of all equipment/tools. 6. No talking except to discuss service. 7. Distance/barriers between work stations. With all the possible mitigation, it is likely that the probability of threat in groups of 10 is MUCH higher than individual personal services.
TRUST the American people!!! Especially small businesses that survive by emphasizing customer care and are interested in their health and welfare…..and their own.
“We the People” are risking a probability of poverty approaching 1.
If they could somehow routinely test people that have lots of close interactions with others because of their job that would help. For example hairstylists, taxi drivers, cashiers, teachers etc. Also give them n95 masks.
In most states teachers and hairstylists, and many cashiers are in lockdown. Pretty sure taxi business is way down.
Yes, I meant to say what to do when we start coming out of lockdown.
In NYC 21% of the population were found to have antibodies to COVID-19 virus. A smaller random sampling near Boston found 35%. Not everyone exposed develop antibodies as many clear the virus quickly with their innate immune cells before antibodies can be generated. So a far greater number have been exposed. So yeah, anyways, more testing more positives.
The other thing to consider is these tests are not validated. Sensitivity and specificity not known. Its likely as in earlier HIV tests there are many false positives, especially when you test those with mild or no symptoms since the PCR test may not be specific or may be picking up remnants of the dead virus from recovered and noninfectious persons
Those in lockdown or in rural areas have much lower exposure though, so no natural immunity for them and they will be ripe for a 2nd wave. Good news for vaccine makers. Lockdowns prevented herd immunity and likely will cause increased deaths from suicides and other diseases like heart attacks, strokes and cancer due to stress and delayed treatment.
If one were to plot the daily deaths from all causes minus accidents during the month of March for the past ten years, unlabeled, would one be able to detect the line for 2020?
Yes, it’s very apparent. They did this in Santa Clara County and it was very revealing. Newsom has asked all other counties to do the same thing.
As to the 19 to 1 ratio of tested too infected. What is the likelihood that this may be revealing how much sickness is really just seasonal flu or similar vs actual C-19 infection? That is, normal season sicknesses are the dominating factor and C-19 is just a minor element?
Much respect for the ti fighters used in chart 5. However, I think a review of the US testing data shows a peak in 5-day average positive test rate on Saturday, April 12th at 21.6% with a very consistent decline since with the 5-day average positive test rate for today, Thursday, April 23rd at 14.2%. This data seems to contradict the findings presented in this article, at least for the US.
The number of daily tests in Australia has dropped from 4000 to 2700 … because fewer people are getting sick. Yesterday there were a total 8 new cases across 25,000,000 people. There were just 12 new cases the day before.
Your graph certainly does not apply here.
Willis !
If you do a similar linearity test with the data for Iceland from OIWD you get scattergram not unlike the Australian one anda result a 2.4 cases / 100 tests, with an r-squared coefficient of 0.26 it would be a a totally meaningless result so to speak. In terms of number of test per 1000 residents Iceland is way ahead all other nations with more than 131 tests for each 1000 of residents in the country (> 13% of the total population) , and the test data you see there are combined testsets from two differtent activities , as of to today the the total numbers of people tested ( = samples analysed ) is around 45000, with close 16900 of the samples coming from state or community run healt care centers around the country and are analysed/processed at the virology lab of the National University Hospital , those sample s come from mostly from people that show up at the the state clinics because they feel ill and suspect they are infected or think are showing the typical symptoms and people that come in via an aggressive contact tracking program ,run by the official crisis management commite , of people who have been in recent contact with people that are found to be infected. In other words the high prior probability part of thhe population. The rest of the samples a little over 28000 as of today come from a program initiated by deCode Genetics a private icelandic-american genetics/biopharma Company which has extensive research facilites situated here , they offered to take samples an analyse them for anyone who for some reason wanted to have it done free of charge as a public service and are also running random sampling study projects to in an attempt to estimate the real spread of how extensive the infection is countrywide, and also preparing to set up a serological sampling program to try map out the possible number of people who may have been infectt but wer asymptomatic. And so on . deCode got their gig up an running about two weeks after the first confirmed case here was found and have been running and have been going full speed since then, almost two out of very three test done here has been by them. The Civil defence and Emergency authority and The Healt Directorat ( a kind of counterpart to your ” Surgeon General”) are running a Covid-info website where the data collected from both the University Hospital lab and the deCode lab are accessible and downloadable in CSV files partitoned in separate columns for each laboratory, the URL for the english language version of the graphs and data is https://www.covid.is/data download , i suggest you take a quick look , the first thing you almost immediately notice on their graphs is that almost all the confirmed cases were found by the University lab, and a little peruasal of the numbers show out out the 1789 cases confirmed 172 were found in the 28164 test done by the deCode lab while 1617 were found in the 16888 test analysed by Univeristy Hospital virology lab, a 1 out 10 confirmed case was in a 63% of the total data collection while the other 9 out of 10 were in the remaining 37% of the total. Ach , I did not mean this become such a long comment , but what i intended to communicate was that i downloaded the data for the daily unearthed cases and daily test done by each of the labs, and created scatter plots and calculated the linear regression for daily new cases vs. daily new tests for the dataset from each lab separately and got a wildly different results from them , the data from University Hospital virology lab result had 9.6 confimed cases per each new 100 test with an r-squared coefficient = 0.521 while the similiar deCode plot had 0.6 confirmed cases per each new 100 tests and an
r² = 0.296., and my point was that the rosen test data collection valiant though the effort is , is probably not always a suitable for drawing any general conclusions from with the help of regession analysis et such stuff, the data collection procedures can vary so much from one country to another enough that any corss country comparation might be just as fruity as trying to make orangade by squeezing apples.
Hi Willis, if you haven’t seen it already, I recommend the interactive site https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
It shows the variation in deaths per week from all causes in western Europe during the past 4 years. Particularly clear is the annual spike in mortality during the period of about 2 months starting around Christmas. The spike, attributable to flu and colds, has become lower in successive winters, and was especially weak during the very mild winter that has just ended. However since around mid-March 2020 a new spike has appeared, not yet apparent in every country, but strong enough in the most affected countries (Italy, UK, England, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden) to show up as a spike for the whole region. Caution is needed in interpreting data for recent weeks on account of delays in reporting delays, but this means that the spike is more likely to grow than to shrink.
ALL Deaths in Germany-you see…NOTHING!In 2018 there were more deaths because of normal flu.
Gesamtjahr/Year:
2016: 910.902
2017: 932.272
2018: 954.874
2019: 935.292
Nur Januar-März/Only January-March:
2016: 242.030
2017: 269.618
2018: 277.876
2019: 251.876
2020: 250.338
Nur März/only March:
2016: 83.669
2017: 82.934
2018: 107.104
2019: 86.419
2020: 85.922