Indicators of the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak development

5 min readSep 9, 2020

(A.B. Alyokhin, B.V. Burkynskyi, A.N. Grabovoi, V.A, Dilenko, N.I. Khumarova)

Statistical Monitor

09/09/2020. S-No 155.

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/179439827032254

As of September 8, 2020, negative trends in the development of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic in general persist (see Fig. 1–3).

However, there have been positive developments. First, they relate to the nature of the increase in the progress indicator level in some countries (Fig. 4).

The leaders of this rating (Brazil, South Korea, USA, Japan) achieved an increase in the progress indicator level due to a noticeable decrease in the infected growth. This is exactly the mechanism that is only able to tame the coronavirus and suppress the epidemic.

The outsiders of this rating (France, Israel, Ukraine, Italy) have not yet coped with this task. Moreover, only Ukraine among these countries has no positive experience in this matter in the past.

In the overall ranking (Fig. 5), only China (the group of leaders) and France, the USA, Ukraine (the group of outsiders) are firmly in their positions. The rest of the countries change places with their ranking neighbors from time to time, keeping the overall picture practically unchanged.

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Against the background of general synthetic indicators, the progress shown by the United States, country that has amazed (and continues to amaze) the whole world with the scale of the coronavirus tragedy, is not so obvious. At the same time, there have been obvious positive shifts in the United States recently.

Fig. 6 shows the trajectories of the main cumulative coronavirus epidemic indicators in the United States. As can be seen, the growth in the number of infected (TC) is slowing down and the number of active cases (AC) is stabilizing. The number of people who have recovered is growing steadily (R).

For a long period, the growth rate of new infected (statistical reproductive number, Fig. 7) was below 1.0, which indicates a slowdown in the spread of infection. This is also evidence by the dynamics of the number of new infected in recent years (Fig. 8). We should also note the positive dynamics of the daily death rate (Fig. 9).

With a huge number of deaths (more than 194 thousand people on August 8, 2020), the mortality rate in the United States ranges from 2.98% (indicator I (TC)) to 4.86% (indicator (I (CC )), Fig. 10).

Note that the mortality rate in Ukraine, which some public figures, either intentionally or through thoughtlessness, consider very low, ranges from 2.09% to 4.41%, i.e. slightly different from mortality in the United States. Exclusively the incomparably smaller number of cases, thus, determines the current number of deaths in Ukraine. However, the number of those initiated in Ukraine, which today exceeds 140 thousand, seemed fantastic just a few months ago. Moreover, after our long-term forecast, which noted the number of infected 40–45 thousand people for a certain date, a number of faint-hearted comrades publicly left our pages. It would be interesting to know what they left when the number of patients crossed this, by today’s standards, a very modest line.

Thus, statistics indicate that there is clear progress in the United States in curbing the epidemic. This seems optimistic, because not long time ago the situation in the country was ungovernable

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Note.

The achievement of the indicator of progress (IP) equal to 1.00 means the end of the epidemic in the corresponding region, i.e. at the time when there are no new infected, current patients are absent, all previously infected have added to the lists of those who have recovered and died.

Diagram 1 shows the values of the IP progress indicator for all countries in the world together taken and a number of individual countries.

Other similar diagrams show “leaders”, “average” and “outsiders” in cases where there are significant differences between them.

The terms “leaders”, “average” and “outsiders” used solely to differentiate countries and regions according to the level of the IP epidemic progress index and to separate them into different charts for easy viewing and visual comparison.

At the end of the epidemics, the values of both mortality rates should be equal.

Mortality indicators widely used in medical statistics are not capable of sufficient informative reflecting the dynamics of the epidemics development at the initial stage. In contrast, the IP progress indicator records changes in the development of epidemics quite accurately and informatively practically throughout the entire life cycle of the epidemic.

Sources of statistical data:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

https://covid19.rnbo.gov.ua/

Our materials also:

https://www.facebook.com/MATHMODELCOVID19

https://t.me/mathmodelcovid19

Accuracy of our forecasts:

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/154698732839697 (Germany)

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/142548897388014 (Spain)

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/150095069966730 (Italy)

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/148450556797848 (USA)

https://www.facebook.com/ab.alyokhin/posts/154364292873141 (Ukraine)