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Editor's Note: This is a complimentary research note published by Director of Research Daryl Jones on March 17th. With the impact of COVID-19 picking up, we're working on disseminating this research more broadly. More to be revealed. |
“Caesar: The Ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Aye, Caesar; but not gone.”
- William Shakespeare
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Global case continues to accelerate on both percentage basis and new case count. According to the last WHO report, global cases grew 9.1% to 167,515 in the last 24 hours and added the most new cases since the start of the epidemic at 13,998
- The U.S. continues on it’s exponential growth path. As of our note yesterday, per Johns Hopkin’s current case count is at 4,661, or up 24% in less than 24 hours. On this path, a case count of 10,000 by the weekend is on track
- Asia continues to encourage us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel as Chinese (if we believe it), Korean, and Japanese data remain promising
- Europe is a certifiable train wreck and we don’t see much that suggests the U.S. isn’t on that path (we’d love to be proven wrong by the data!)
U.S. situation
As we’ve been writing, U.S. case count growth continues on a path that parallels all of the worst outbreaks globally. We see no evidence that this curve will slow in the short term.
- The CDC has given guidance to effectively stay home for the next 8 weeks, as cases accelerate people will take this more seriously, but this is our base case for the period in which the U.S. economy effectively comes to a halt / major slowdown
- Currently there are 36,810 tests available per day in the U.S. As of yesterday at 4pm, the U.S. had tested 41,552 people, 4,019 positive, 35,840 negative, 1,691 pending. Positive test rate is just under 10%
- There continue to be plenty of people that are saying (“it’s just the flu bro”) in the U.S. and we certainly aren’t trying to be doomsayers, but the lack of willingness to take individual action is what has the U.S. on the path to match or exceed Europe. The data is the data.
- The hot spots where hospitals are likely to come under real duress are the Bay Area, NYC, and Seattle
- We’ll leave you with this from NY Governor Cuomo:
“Per @NYGovCuomo the peak of the Coronavirus patient curve is expected to hit in about 45 days. At that point, there will be 55,000-110,000 patients in need of hospital beds & 18,600-37,200 in need of ICU beds... The frightening part: NY only has 53,000 beds & 3,000 ICU beds”
Global Situation
The chart below shows global case count growth globally since February 20th. As you can see the growth rate is accelerating. Currently according to Johns Hopkins, we are at 185,067, which implies another new record of cases by the final WHO report today at 430pm eastern
Despite some serious shutdowns across Europe, we are not seeing new case count slow meaningfully. As of the last WHO report yesterday:
- Italy up 17% day-over-day to 24,747
- Germany up 27.5% day-over-day to 4,838
- France up 20.4% day-over-day to 5,380
- Spain up 34.8% day-over-day to 7,753
- U.K. has also now hit more than 1,000 cases and is growing exponentially
Asia Updates
If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it is of course Asia
- China continues to heal and is only adding around 20 new cases a day
- Korea is now growing at less than 1% per day
- Japan, despite being an early outbreak area, still has case count below 1,000
Lots of people are asking why these countries have been able to do contain the curve. It’s a combination of cases, tracking and social containment. The table below shows that Korea in many ways just crushed the curve with testing
