First things first. If you start counting days after the 100th confirmed cased of COVID-19, the United States is indeed skyrocketing past every country in terms of confirmed cases.
However, the number of confirmed cases is simply a function of the number of tests administered and the existing prevalence of the disease. We know that we got a late start and are catching up fast, so this probably isn’t the best measuring stick.
The more important number to watch is the number of deaths.
By this metric, Spain is far and away the country breaking the records, going from 10 deaths to 2,808 in only 17 days. It’s already about to pass up China in terms of total deaths. If Spain is the next Italy, the United Kingdom may be the next Spain…
The UK is actually not far behind where Spain was at 10 days after 10 deaths. Meanwhile, the United States seems pretty quiet, relatively speaking…
However, at the state level, you see a different picture…
If you count days since 10 deaths (the first data point for NY above is at 10, even though the chart says it’s counting days since 5), New York is at a whopping 210 deaths after only 8 days. Compare that to Spain’s 289 and Italy’s 107 at that point and you realize that this is very alarming. NY has less than half the population of Spain and a third of the population of Italy.
Given that Italy’s death toll has been rising 20 days longer than New York’s with no end in sight, I don’t think that this thing is going to clear up by Easter.
