After plateauing in terms of new cases during August, COVID-19 new cases are increasing rapidly for the world as a whole. For the period September 14-27, data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show new cases in the world topping four million for the first time — 4,110,081. That compares to 3,780,469 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period and 3,558,360 for August 17-30, 3,624,548 for August 3-16 and 3,568,162 for the July 20-August 2 period. Total cases since the end of December 2019 are now above 32.9 million.
The United States which has more confirmed cases (7,078,798) than any other nation and more confirmed deaths from COVID-19 (204,497), saw the number of new cases increase over the last two weeks after three two week periods where the U.S. saw a decline in new cases. The U.S. recorded the extraordinary number of 908,980 new cases during the fourteen day period July 20-August 2. That number declined to 740,721 during August 3-16 and further declined to 600,417 new cases in the August 17-30 period and was further reduced to 524,526 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The downtrend was reversed these past two week, when the number of new cases increased to 592,690 or a daily average of 42,335 cases. The United States had the second largest number of new cases, following only India whose number of new cases is continuing to increase, and were 1,238,176 in the last two weeks, slightly higher than the 1,211,623 new cases reported in the August 31-September 13 period. India is the only country to have recorded more than one million cases in a two week period and appears to have plateaued at a rate of more than 88,000/day over the last month.
Brazil maintains its hold on third place though its new cases are falling since July 20-August 2 (633,017 new cases) to 609,219 new cases during August 3-16, 529,057 new cases during August 17-30, 469,534 new cases during August 31-September 13 and down to 402,304 new cases during September 14-27.
India, the United States and Brazil accounted for 54.33% of the new global cases during the last two weeks (down from 58.34% in the prior two weeks) and account for 54.04% of all cases confirmed since late December 2019 (up from 54.01% through two weeks ago).
The United States with 4.3% of global population has accounted for 21.51% of total confirmed cases since December 2019 — five times the share of total cases our population would justify. With the increase in the most recent two weeks after six weeks of declines, the U.S. was 14.42% of the total (up from 13.87% of new cases during August 17-30) or 3.35 times the U.S. share of global population. The U.S. also accounts for 20.55% of total deaths or 4.78 times the U.S. share of total population.
Continued growth of cases in the developing world
With the number of new cases in the United States declining over most of the last two months, the trend of new cases being focused on the developing world has shixed with a resurgence in Europe following the summer vacation period with a renewal of at least some international travel. While India and Brazil had by far the largest number of new cases from developing countries, they were followed by Argentina (166,781), Colombia (97,074), Peru (77,301), Iraq (73,883), Mexico (62,458), Iraq (59,191), Indonesia (56,582), the Philippines (43,393), Iran (43,146), Turkey (23,331), Chile (23,313), Bangladesh (21,829), South Africa (21,284) and then dozens of other countries with smaller numbers of new cases. Of the listed developing countries, only India, Argentina, Iraq, Indonesia, Iran and Turkey saw increases from the August 31-September 13 period.
Developed country resurgence in new cases
With the reopening of some international travel and with the end of the summer holiday season, there has been a noticeable surge of new cases in a number of developed countries, particularly in Western Europe where is it generally described as the coming of a second wave of COVID-19 cases. France overtook Spain for the most new cases during September 14-27 with a total of 153,535. France nearly doubled the large number it had experienced in the August 17-30 period (57,009 new cases) in the August 31-September 13 period with new cases reaching 101,381. Spain continues to show large increases for a developed country that had gotten the COVID-19 spread under control until recently. For August 17-30, Spain saw an additional 96,473 new cases. The August 31-September 13 period saw a further large increase for Spain to 127,040 cases. For the period from September 14-27, Spain’s numbers further increased to 150,155. The United Kingdom nearly doubled the number of new cases to 64,103 up from 32,422 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The Netherlands more than doubled its number of new cases during September 14-27 from the prior two week period going to 27,584 new cases from 11,374. Germany showed a significant increase in the most recent two weeks to 24,712 from the prior two weeks (17,657 new cases; two weeks before that 17,538 new cases). Czechia which spiked following summer vacations saw its number of new cases grow to 23,893 from 11,307 in the August 31 September period; Italy added 21,807 (up from 19,444 the prior two weeks); Romania added 18,849 (up from 16,553 in the prior two weeks). Other countries in Europe (Russia (86,209 new cases), Ukraine (43,645 new cases) and Hungary (12,189 new cases)) as well as Israel (73,883 new cases) also saw significant additional new cases.
Deaths/100,000 population
The United States has the largest number of deaths of any country to date (204,497) and had the second largest number of deaths in the last two weeks (10,796) behind only India (15,917), though the U.S. number of new deaths declined slightly from the prior two weeks while India’s number of new deaths continued to climb. The countries with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population for the last two weeks were the following: Argentina (9.68), Colombia (5.09), Brazil (4.83), Peru (4.76), Costa Rica (4.72), Bolivia (4.61), Mexico (4.42), Panama (3.96), Chile (3.67), Puerto Rico (3.65), Israel (3.97) and the United States (3.28). All other countries (including all other developed countries) had lower rates of death per 100,000 population. For all countries, the death rate over the last two weeks was 0.98 deaths/100,000 population. So the U.S.’s death rate over the last two weeks was 3.35 times the global average and was much higher than many large and/or developed countries. China’s number was so low, it was 0.00 people/100,000 population; France was 1.18, Germany 0.13, India 1.16, Italy 0.36, Japan 0.08, South Korea 0.08, Singapore 0.00, United Kingdom 0.52, Spain 3.16, Taiwan 0.00, Canada 0.25, Australia 0.27, New Zealand 0.02.
If looking at the entire period since the end of December 2019 through September 13, the average number of deaths for all countries per 100,000 of population has been 13.10 deaths. The nine countries (of 86 which account for over 98% of total deaths) with the highest death rates/100,000 for the full period are: Peru (98.87), Belgium (87.07), Bolivia (67.79), Spain (66.54), Chile (66.44), Ecuador (64.89), United Kingdom (62.97), Brazil (67.00), the United States (62.14). With the exception of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and the United States, each of the other top countries overall has shown a drastic reduction since their peaks in April and as reflected in the experience in the last two weeks (the European countries were typically less than 1 death per 100,000). The United States death rate has been 4.74 times the global rate and many times higher many other developed countries and most developing countries. Consider the following examples: China, where the virus was first found, has a death per 100,000 population of just 0.33 people. India’s data show 6.92; Germany has 11.39; Japan has 1.22; Korea is just 0.78; Canada is 24.76; Switzerland is 20.81; Poland is 6.38; Ukraine is 8.87; Norway is 5.07; Australia is 3.45; New Zealand is 0.52.
Conclusion
The world in the first nine months of 2020 has struggled to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. While many countries in Europe and some in Asia and the major countries in Oceania have greatly reduced the number of new cases over time, there has been a significant resurgence in many of these countries (particularly in Europe) as their economies reopen, travel restrictions are eased and as schools reopen in many countries. But the number of new cases continues to rage in much of the Americas (other than Canada), in parts of Asia (in particular India) and in limited parts of Africa. A recent WTO Secretariat information paper showed that there has been a reduction in shortages of many medical goods needed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic which is obviously good news, although as the global total of new cases continues to rise, there may yet be additional challenges in terms of supply. See 18 September 2020, Information Note, How WTO Members Have Used Trade Measures to Expedite Access to COVID-19 Critical Medical Goods and Services, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/covid19_e/services_report_16092020_e.pdf.
In the northern hemisphere, countries are going into fall where there will likely be greater time spent indoors which could result in a significant spike in cases which could further stretch the global ability to respond.
Moreover, in many countries, stimulus packages have run their course such that large scale increases in unemployment could happen in the coming weeks. This is obviously the case in the United States in the airline industry (but also elsewhere) and will likely be the case for many state and local government employees with the start of the fiscal year in October and the obligation for most states to run a balanced budget. See, e.g., Bloomberg Businessweek, September 23, 2020, Airlines Face Desolate Future as Attempts to Reopen Crumble, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-23/coronaviruspandemic-airlines-face-empty-future-as-crisis-continues? utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews The failure of a new stimulus initiative will significantly increase the braking action on the economy from the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The September 14-27 period has seen the global number of new cases continue to grow after six weeks in July and most of August of what appeared to be a peak or plateau. October – December are likely to see continued growth in the global number of new cases.
The progress on developing safe and effective vaccines is encouraging and has been sped by the willingness of major economies like the U.S. and the EU to fund manufacturing ahead of actual approval of the promising vaccines. Still the results of the phase three trials are not yet in and as a temporary delay by AstraZeneca with its phase three trial showed, the timing of outcomes remains unknown though anticipated by the end of 2020 and first part of 2021. China has been distributing one of its vaccines to parts of its population in advance of formal clearance of stage three trials. The Russians have been lining up customers for their vaccine even though the stage three trials are only underway and the results will lag the initial rollout of the vaccine. For other countries (the U.S., European Union, Japan, etc.) the rollout of vaccines if approved will take time to get large parts of the global population vaccinated. It is unclear what the global capacity will be to produce vaccines proven to be safe and effective, although reports suggest a likely significant shortfall despite government assistance in the global supplies that will be available in 2021. This uncertainty about likely capacities, plus the large purchases made by major western governments (U.S., EU, U.K., Japan), will likely place a large cloud over much if not all of 2021 in terms of distribution of vaccines even in an optimistic scenario.
The ride is likely to get more complicated going forward with the world collectively unable to get the pandemic under control in many parts of the world, with likely increases this fall and winter, with fatigue in many countries on the actions needed to slow the spread of the virus and, in at least some countries, the mixed messages from government on the correct actions needed to gain control. With the global death count nearing one million, there have already been tens of thousand and likely hundreds of thousands of deaths that didn’t need to occur. The prospect of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands more dying needlessly hang over the global community. 2020 has proven to be a very challenging year. Time will tell if the challenge is confined to this year or continues to inflict substantial costs in 2021 and beyond.
Terence Stewart, former Managing Partner, Law Offices of Stewart and Stewart, and author of the blog, Current Thoughts on Trade.
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