Editor's Note: This is a complimentary research note published by Director of Research Daryl Jones on April 14th. CLICK HERE to get daily COVID-19 analysis and alerts from our research team and access our related webcasts.

“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
- Fredrich Nietzsche

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Earlier today we tweeted (@hedgeyedj) that the daily COVID-19 data dump is getting a little boring.  As pandemics go, boring is probably a good thing
  • The U.S. case count is now at 583,220, which is up 4.5%, or 26,000, from yesterday.  As you’ll see in the chart below, this is the lowest new daily case count since April 1
  • Globally, we are now at 1,942,360 cases and similarly has the lowest daily new case count since late March, which makes sense with both Europe and the U.S. slowing
  • We are seeing some acceleration in “hotter” spots, albeit off small bases, with Singapore again growing 10% day-over-day, Russian growing more than 10%, and Bangladesh (160 million people) growing 20%

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - 02.26.2020 black swan cartoon

U.S. Situation

The chart below shows U.S. daily new cases going back a month.  While we are always reticent to read too much into one day’s data, the trend over the last three days is certainly encouraging.

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - covid.4.14.1

As it relates to state level data, Governor Cuomo just noted that hospitalization has dropped for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic on a day-over-day basis, while the drop was small, it is noteworthy as New York State comprises roughly 1/3 of all infections in the U.S.

One caveat, it does appear that we don’t have new case data from NYC since yesterday morning and normally it is posted every day at 930am and 430pm, so we may be missing a partial day of NYC data in the U.S. totals.

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - covid.4.14.2

Another interesting data point from NYC is that every pregnant mother is screened. So far 1.9% are positive with symptoms, 13.5% are positive with no symptoms, and 84.6% are negative. Full study is here.

In terms of four-day rolling growth rates of the hardest hit states, only CO and FL saw their growth rates increase (marginally).

European Situation

New daily COVID-19 cases are now back to a level not seen since March 25th, while arguably (or not arguably) still at a high level they appear to be on the downward slope.

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - covid.4.14.3

In terms of lockdowns:

    • France has extended to May 11th tentatively
    • Italy had previously extended lockdowns until May 3rd
    • U.K. lockdown expires on April 16th and is expected to be extended
    • Spain returned 300,000 non-essential workers to work on Monday, so easing quicker, and therefore will be important to watch

Global Situation

As noted above, in the last 24 hours we continued to see a decline in global daily new cases of COVID-19.  Yesterday saw the lowest number of global new daily cases since late March.

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - covid.4.14.4

Recently, we have highlighted countries, like Singapore yesterday, that are on the wrong side of the curve.  In the chart below, we look at Russia (and we have no idea how reliable the data is).

COVID-19 Update – Boring Plateaus Are Good (4/14/2020) - covid.4.14.5

This from Vladmir Putin sums up the situation, especially for a leader who is typically characterized with bravado:

    • “We have a lot of problems, and we don’t have much to brag about, nor reason to, and we certainly can’t relax,” Mr. Putin told senior officials Monday in a televised video conference. “We are not past the peak of the epidemic, not even in Moscow.”
    • Full article from New York Times is here.