ANALYSIS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC DATA SETS

This article was authored by Douglas Decicco of TranSeed Research, Lighthouse Point, Florida, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is difficult to predict the exact trajectory of diseases, but the trajectories of diseases caused by the spread of a pathogen such as a virus have identifiable features. Many natural and cultural phenomena have the same features.

• Apparent initial nonexistence of the phenomenon

• Exponential growth after initial appearance, doubling every fixed period of time

• Deviation from exponential growth because of limiting factors

• Increased attenuation toward an equilibrium state

These phases in the progression of the pandemic can be characterized with reliability.

The limiting factors in disease trajectories can be preventative measures taken because of public awareness of the disease. Preventative measures can include behavioral changes to interrupt the ease of viral transmission. Pharmaceutical interventions may arise and inhibit the disease’s progress. In severe pandemics throughout human history the loss of life of those whose immune systems are most vulnerable to the disease can eventually interrupt the paths of the virus. All natural and manufactured phenomena that start with exponential growth must be curbed by limiting factors because such phenomena depend, directly or indirectly, on some limited resource. In the case of pathogens that cause disease, eventually some situation must arise to reduce the rate of transmission.

Developing a model that takes into consideration the duration of time to presentation (incubation period) to mean death, and to mean recovery has been constructed and used to characterize the most reliable of existing COVID-19 data. From the current data available as of the date of this article, the following can be reliably proven with the data sets collected by the county, state, country, and continent level health organizations.

• The number of new cases doubles ever two to three days according to the most relevant metrics collected without bias for Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the U.K., Austria, and others.

• Some countries such as Singapore, Kuwait, and Japan are seeing doubling every 10 days.

• States such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and others are seeing doubling faster than every 2.5 days.

• The result is that the death rate is far above the 2% published by many news sources and quite a bit below the ratio of total deaths divided by the total cases, as you and I had concluded. It appears to range from 5% to 20% for the age range of 30 to 100.

• There is no evidence of curbed transmission in the United States, as evidenced by the fact that the duration of time for new cases to develop is actually moving in the wrong direction. It has narrowed a little but is otherwise a straight line on logarithmic plot since January 27th, 2020.

• It appears from trajectories of multiple regions of the world that the exponential growth has only exhibited attenuation and movement toward an equilibrium after a few percent of the population is culled.

• This repetitive fact in the trends of multiple countries is a likely indication that people have to have a familial, social, neighborhood, or business connection with some of the dead before levels of precaution taken in residences and businesses escalate to a point where prevention measures present in health organization data.

• No country has yet reached a recovery rate above a new-cases rate, so the spread is not controlled anywhere in the world if data is filtered by country or state.

• Based on this more comprehensive model, it is likely that the current death count of 15 thousand will approximately double every three to four days for at least two more weeks.

• Depending upon the timing of large scale behavioral changes, the final death toll globally is likely to be anywhere between 2 million to 100 million.

• It is difficult to model second order effects that would determine when sufficient herd immunity will be achieved and where, within that range, the COVID-19 related deaths will total.

One issue causing this poor outcome from current preventative measures is that coronavirus tests are not readily available in every region and the wait time for results is long. Test results for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) becomes available 14 business days after the test date in Palm Beach County Florida, a region on the opposite side of the spectrum from the third world. Those seeking diagnosis also have to stand in line to get the test, which is obviously counterproductive in terms of transmission. Theirs and many other regional health care systems are entirely ineffectual at the current time because the results become available after a the subject is already dead or well into recovery.

Furthermore those who have been tested often conduct life as usual without a conclusive diagnosis. Few are self-disciplined enough to conduct life as if a positive test result was received prior to receiving one. It is likely that the increasing loss as a result of unsatisfactory preventative measures will lead to a greater commitment to prevention and personal and professional behavior may engage at higher levels to curb the disease trajectory until its impact is much smaller.