areppim: information, pure and simple
What a memorable age! Pushed against the wall by the angry crowds that have been filling the streets from Hong Kong to Santiago, from Paris to Algiers, politicians and their sidekicks on the brink of collapse welcomed the new coronavirus pandemic as a God given gift. With a sigh of relief they fancied that it was time to have a break. The pandemic came just in time.
Language is a good telltale sign. The Clinton, Bush, Sarkozy, Obama, Macron of the world, all of them waged wars, worked havoc upon the earth, wrecked lots of states and organized societies allegedly to promote democracy, human rights and peace. In fact, “promoting peace” is the other way to designate war in the parlance of the political establishment. We should therefore ask ourselves now what do Trump, Macron and other lesser leaders have in mind when they proclaim in earnest that war is declared against the virus, and appeal to their peoples to unite and join in the fight against the common enemy.
What they really mean is the opposite : they seek to persuade on their peoples that it is time to lay down their arms, stop arguing, muzzle their protests, break off the riot, disband the rallies, forget the grudge, go home, open the fridge, fetch a beer, sit down and watch TV. In other words, shut the clap up, get out of the way, just vanish and let us take care of our business as usual.
The war metaphor is a most convenient device to make a dupe of the naive. It works this way. In order to face the menace of the virus, this sneaky enemy coming from a foreign country to threaten the full nation, the leader feels entitled to demand blind obedience, full unity, zero discord, self-sacrifice, readiness to march no questions asked. Moreover, in times of war we have to make do : the state of emergency is deemed to justify the suspension of the constitutional rights with the ensuing string of such repressive measures as the curfew, quarantine, seclusion, tightened surveillance, called residency, censorship, inclusion in a list of unsure characters, etc.
As a free bonus, it drastically precludes any and all arguments about the shallow preparedness of the “war chiefs” as regards the ruinous state of the health care system, the scrapping of hospital units, the scarcity of beds, sanitary materials and instruments, the weariness of health professionals and the abysmal incompetence of the top layers of executives in charge of health care.
For many decades, the elite of politicians, businessmen and mercenary scientists have been bolstering up their promise of eternal life for mankind by means of NBIC (nanotechnologies, bioengineering, information technologies and cognitive sciences) and rejoicing of the civilizational culmination attained thanks to their wisdom.
The gullible felt thrilled with such grand prospects… until the virus came and proved beyond doubt that thousands of lives could have been spared if only we had ample supplies of simple, affordable stuff such as protective gowns, sanitary masks, hand sanitizers, medical testing devices, breathing ventilators and, in the first place, hospital beds, and enough health professionals. All the things that our civilized countries were supposed to be fully equipped with since the mid 1900s. Unfortunately, as everybody knows, including maybe the “war chiefs”, we are a long way off. It is this unpreparedness, and not the shortage of the killing instinct that those individuals want to arise in us, that is accountable for the loss of, as yet, 10,000 lives.
Someone¹ said that "civilization is a disease produced by the practice of building societies with rotten material." Maybe the unfortunate merit of the coronavirus pandemic is to expose the rottenness of the fabric of which our current society is made.
¹ George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903.
Actual data from ECDC (EU's European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control), and areppim S-curve projections for selected countries:
| World total deaths | World total cases | China total cases | France total cases | Germany total cases | Iran total cases | Italy total cases | Portugal total cases | Spain total cases | Switzerland total cases | United Kingdom total cases | United States total cases |
As of 5 August 2020, World:
Death toll: 700,539 or 3.78 percent of the infected cases.
Total cases: 18,519,579 or 0.24 percent of the population.
New cases: 249,943 or a new infection ratio of 3.206 per 100,000 people.
The number of world deaths grew up to 7.28 percent of world cases on 24, 25 April 2020, and moved slowly downwards to the current value thereafter.
Further to the disparate quality of the raw data, to the erratic definitions of the statistical units, and to the shady reliability of the sources, death rates vary widely from country to country in the selected group. Death rate is the highest for France 15.75 percent, and the lowest in the United States 3.29 percent. According to a study completed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, each person infected early in the epidemic in Wuhan may have passed the virus to an average of 5.7 other people. Should this spread rate hold for the rest of the world, about 82 percent of the world population should be immunized to put a stop to the pandemic.
The pandemic has laid bare the dismal unpreparedness of all administrations, and provided a peephole into the swollen-heads of some state leaders. The French president Macron, who vaingloriously declared himself a “Jupiterian”, not a “normal” chief of state, and labels himself the “commander in chief of the war” on the coronavirus has successfully placed France in the lead of the covid-19 death ratio: almost 20 percent of the infected French die from the disease. Does it hurt the pompous “war leader”?
As for the British prime minister Boris Johnson, he should be praised for his farcical illustration of immanent justice. On March 3rd, he faced the cameras to boast of his contempt for the despicable virus : “you’ll be pleased to know that I was in the hospital yesterday and I shook hands with infected patients, and I won’t stop doing it”. On April 7th, a press release announced that the conceited leader was in an “intensive care unit, fighting against the coronavirus”! While resting in bed he should have plenty of time to savor the practical joke that destiny played on him.
Our projection is obtained by a logistic regression based on the actual numbers provided by ECDC. In those cases where significant bumps in the time series suggest a definite change of direction, we fitted the regression curve by means of a multi-logistic function.
See more charts of deaths projections »
As of 5 August 2020, World:
Total cases: 18,519,579 or 0.24 percent of the population.
New cases: 249,943 or a new infection ratio of 3.206 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 700,539 or 3.78 percent of the infected cases.
The pandemic containment, partially achieved after the administrations enforced anti-contagion measures upon the pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization in March, gave way to a generalized surge of the infection with the arrival of the summer season. People in charge defined their dilemma as a choice between saving the economy, or saving the public health, and opted clearly for the first option, the economy.
They took that course of action without implementing the specific instruments and tools to trace the disease, test the suspected cases, quarantinize and take care of the positive ones, while ensuring that people in need without a remunerated job would get a minimum income, and citizens could go about their business enjoying safe transportation, safe shopping, and safe work conditions. The responsible agencies should have reconfigured or provided such facilities, in the absence of which the pandemic couldn’t but enjoy a new boom.
Our forecasts show that the pandemic will spread further along the year, although it will fade out eventually. The question is when will this happen. Equally important, what will be the final price to pay for the incompetence of those in power. It is highly likely that the latter will have sacrificed public health on the altar of the economy, without achieving anything but another mega economic crisis. What a repulsing and contemptible record!
As of 5 August 2020, China:
Total cases: 88,206 or 0.01 percent of the population.
New cases: 107 or a new infection ratio of 0.007 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 4,676 or 5.30 percent of the infected cases.
As of 5 August 2020, France:
Total cases: 192,334 or 0.29 percent of the population.
New cases: 1,039 or a new infection ratio of 1.592 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 30,296 or 15.75 percent of the infected cases.
Beginning of June, the number of cases took an upturn, suggesting the emergence of a new wave of contagions.
As of 5 August 2020, Germany:
Total cases: 212,022 or 0.25 percent of the population.
New cases: 741 or a new infection ratio of 0.884 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 9,168 or 4.32 percent of the infected cases.
In Germany too, the number of cases jumped upwards by mid-June, indicating an unforeseen rise of the infections.
As of 5 August 2020, Iran:
Total cases: 314,786 or 0.37 percent of the population.
New cases: 2,751 or a new infection ratio of 3.275 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 17,617 or 5.60 percent of the infected cases.
As of 5 August 2020, Italy:
Total cases: 248,419 or 0.41 percent of the population.
New cases: 190 or a new infection ratio of 0.314 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 35,171 or 14.16 percent of the infected cases.
As of 5 August 2020, Portugal:
Total cases: 51,681 or 0.51 percent of the population.
New cases: 112 or a new infection ratio of 1.098 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 1,739 or 3.36 percent of the infected cases.
Between May 3 and May 9 the reported figures varied considerably first down, then upwards. Thereafter, the logistic curve fit deteriorated, suggesting the presence of some unidentified new phenomena, triggering the second wave at around mid May.
As of 4 August 2020 (latest available data), Spain:
Total cases: 302,814 or 0.65 percent of the population.
New cases: 5,760 or a new infection ratio of 12.320 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 28,498 or 9.41 percent of the infected cases.
By late June, the situation which seemed pretty much under control, deteriorated with the outbreak of a high number of new cases.
As of 5 August 2020, Switzerland:
Total cases: 35,657 or 0.41 percent of the population.
New cases: 130 or a new infection ratio of 1.502 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 1,705 or 4.78 percent of the infected cases.
In mid June, Switzerland had a rise of new contamination cases, starting a new S curve.
As of 5 August 2020, United Kingdom:
Total cases: 306,293 or 0.45 percent of the population.
New cases: 670 or a new infection ratio of 0.995 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 46,299 or 15.12 percent of the infected cases.
As of 5 August 2020, USA:
Total cases: 4,771,087 or 1.44 percent of the population.
New cases: 57,525 or a new infection ratio of 17.379 per 100,000 people.
Death toll: 156,806 or 3.29 percent of the infected cases.
The North American world superpower and beacon of the modern technical civilization has gained the dubious honor of reporting the highest number of both Covid-19 infection cases (25.76 percent of the world total) and of deaths (22.38 percent), and a ratio of daily new infections five fold higher than the world's ratio. The bumps of the time series suggest the presence of new infection waves that unsettle the unfolding of the pandemic.
Previous reports available :