COVID-19: What does 2021 hold?
What do you need to know about the Covid-19 pandemic on February 2021? Here is the situation today globally.
Introduction
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It has been more than a year that the first COVID-19 patient was confirmed in Wuhan, China (December 2019), and 10 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak as a pandemic. Today, in February 2021, COVID-19 has changed radically our lives and the worldwide responses to the pandemic have resulted in the major economic and social disruption.
In this post, we aim to explore neither the changes that the pandemic has brought to our personal and professional life nor the disturbance that the new virus caused in socioeconomic levels. Our primary focus is to provide an epidemiological update, specifically an overview of the global, regional, and country-level COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. Moreover, we highlight key data and trends, and other relevant COVID-19 pandemic information as well.
We target to address 6 main questions:
- What is the current epidemiological situation globally in terms of confirmed cases and deaths?
- What are the COVID-19 mortality rate and the growth factor globally?
- Which are the top 20 countries in terms of confirmed cases, deaths, and mortality rate?
- What is the current epidemiological situation in the US?
- What is the current epidemiological situation in Europe?
- What is the current epidemiological situation in Asia?
For the purpose of our study, we use the latest data from John Hopkins University GitHub repository: https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19. The data of the repository is updated on daily basis and the version we use for our analysis is the: 4/2/2021.
Part I: What is the current epidemiological situation globally in terms of confirmed cases and deaths?
The universal confirmed cases figure (Figure 1a) clearly shows an exponential growth curve, indicating that the number of confirmed cases increases steadily and rapidly from day one of the COVID-19 pandemic till today, February 2021. The universal deaths figure (Figure 1b) shows that an exponential growth curve, very similar to the confirmed cases curve, pointing out that the deaths increase stadily and rapidly during the pandemic.
By the end of April 2020, 3.2M people were affected from the virus, while 237K people died from COVID-19 disease. Four months later, on August 31st, the number of confirmed cases globally rose to 25,5M people and the number of deaths to 851,2K. At the end of 2020 (December 31), 83.5M confirmed cases and 1.81 M deaths were reported. Today, February the 4th, 104,8M of people have been affected from COVID-19 and 2.28K have died from the disease.
The new cases graph (Figure 1b) shows that there is not a straight increase or decrease in new cases. Overall the trend here is periodic and it illustrates that new cases are increasing and decreasing through time. Interestingly, there is a huge spike on December 10th, when almost 1.5M new cases were reported.
Moreover, the Figure 2 below illustrates the growth of confirmed cases, deaths and new cases in log-scale. The confirmed cases growth rate highlights the rapid increase of cases in April 2020 compared with March. We can assume that despite the lockdown policy globally, the number of cases were rasing rapidly. The same trend we can see in the increase of deaths caused by COVID-19. Actually, the groth of confirmed cases and deaths in log-scale seem to follow the same curve.
Part II: What are the COVID-19 mortality rate and the growth factor globally?
The Figure 2 above, shows that the death curve is a shifted confirmed cases curve to below in log-scale, which indicates that mortality rate is almost constant.
Here, in Figure 3, we can see the trend of the mortality rate. While in the first two months of the pandemic the mortality rate seems constant and around 3%, at the end of April we notice a gradual increase to over 7%.
The increase of the mortality rate at the end of April is associated with the increase of confirmed cases in Europe and US at the same period. The mortality rate is high in those regions as well, because the health care system can not provide sufficient medical care to the huge amount of serious infected patients or because the little available COVID-19 tests caused “hidden” and untracked cases.
However, the mortality rate drops significantly at the end of May and it was dropping until today, that we have the lowest rate of 2% mortality rate worldwide.
After the first “shock” and the unknown sphere of the pandemic, it seems that sufficient medical care started to provided to patients or the number of “hidden” confirmed cases are detected as well due to the increase of COVID-19 tests.
The Figure 4 below shows the growth factor worldwide from the first day of the pandemic.
Growth factor is the factor by which a quantity multiplies itself over time. The formula used is every day’s new cases / new cases on the previous day. A growth factor above 1 indicates an increase, whereas one which remains between 0 and 1 it is a sign of decline, with the quantity eventually becoming zero, whereas a growth factor constantly above 1 could signal exponential growth. — https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/
Beside the huge increase of confirmed cases on December 10th, since May the worldwide growth factor is around 1, which indicated that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stays steady, eg. does not increase or decrease either.
Part III: Which are the top 20 countries in terms of confirmed cases, deaths, and mortality rate?
US, India, Brazil, United Kingdom, and France are the countries with the highest number of reported confirmed cases. In the Figure 5, we can see a variety of countries from all the continents, meaning that the virus currenlty is spreading all over the world.
Due to a lack of space, we will not attempt to illustrate all the countries and their confirmed cases and deaths from the beginning of the pandemic until today (February 2021). However, we will focus on the top 20 countries (Figure 6).
As we know, the first COVID-19 patient was detected in Wuhan, China (December 2019), and afterwords it was spread rapidly around the world. Surprisingly, China is not included in the top 20 of countries with the most COVID-19 confirmed cases. It seems that the lockdown restrictions were beneficial for stoping the spread of the virus in time.
At March 2020, or as we refer to it as the first “wave”, COVID-19 has reached Europe and US. United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, France trends show similar spread of the virus through time. The spread start from middle of March and it is steady until September 2020. Afterwards, a second “wave” arrives and the speed of the spread grows faster, increasing the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases significantly. For instance, the number of confirmed cases in UK increases from 0.5M cases in September 2020 to almost 4M cases in February 2020. The spread of the virus speeds up in Ukraine and Poland later on November 2020.
US seems to be the country with the most critical situation of all the countries globally. The spread of the virus start in the first wave (end of March 2020) and the speed of the spread accelerates rapidly over time, especially during the second wave (Novemebr 2020). Today, US has more than 25M confirmed cases and still counting.
Following US, Brazil and India are the second and third counties respectfully in terms of high number of confirmed cases. Both countries count 10M confirmed cases today and it seems that the speed of the spread grows faster on September 2020 and afterwards.
Russia and Turkey are the fourth and fifth country respectfully with a high ammount of confirmed cases, counting 4M and 2.5M of confirmed cases today. The spread of the virus in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico increases steadily over time and the number of confirmed cases today is around 2M for those countries. South Africa and Iran have around 1,4M confirmed cases today. Interestingly, the speed of the spread in South Africa accelerates sharply in early October 2020 and gets even faster in December 2020. The new coronavirus variant first detected in early October 2020 in South Africa, known as B.1.351, is most probably responsible for above mentioned increase in confirmed cases.
Finally, Peru and Indonesia have currently less than 1.2M confirmed cases (1.15M and 1.11 respectfully).
In the Figure 7 below, we can check the growth of the confirmed cases in log-scale. We can see that the speed of confirmed cases growth rate increases through time, and at the end of March and afterwards. Especially, at the second wave (November 2020), the speed of the spread increases in all the countries.
In terms of number of deaths, US and Europe are in critical position today as shown in Figure 8. US is the first country in terms of deaths from COVID-19, as almost 456k deaths were reported untill today. Brazil and Mexico are following with 229k and 161k respectively. India and United Kingdom are the fourth and fifth countries worldwide with the highest number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, counting 155k and 110k deaths respectively. Italy is the sixth country in the world and second in Europe with high number of deaths, around 90k, while France is following with 78k fatalities.
Russia counts 74k deaths from COVID-19 at the moment, while the total number of fatalities in Spain and Germany is around 60k for both countries. Outside Europe, Iran, Colombia, Argentina, South Africa and Peru are the next countries in line of the top 20 countries with high number of deaths. Specifically, the numbers of deaths in each country are; 58k for Iran, 55k for Colombia, 49k for Argentina, 45k for South Africa and 41k for Peru.
The 15th and 16th countries with high number of deaths are Poland and Indonesia, with 38k and 31k of fatalities respectively. Turkey follows with 26k of deaths caused by COVID-19. Finally, the last two countries in the line, are Ukraine and (surprisingly) Belgium with numbers of deaths; 25k for Ukraine and 21k for Belgium.
In the Figure 9, we can check the growth of the deaths in log-scale. We can see that the speed of deaths growth rate increases through time, and at the end of March and afterwards. Especially, at the second wave (November 2020), the number of the fatalities increase in all the countries.
The mortality rate is calculated by the following calculation :
mortality rate = deaths / number of actual cases
In our analysis, we used the number of deaths and the number of reported cases (rather than on the actual ones), however this is a greatly overestimate of the fatality rate. A large number of COVID-19 cases present very mild symptoms or non (asymptomatic) and since testing has not been performed on the entire population, only a small fraction of the virus infected population is detected and confirmed as a COVID-19 case through a laboratory test. Moreover, a number of fatalities are not reported as COVID-19 deaths because the patients are not hospitalised (especially in care homes) and therefore not tested for whether are infected by the virus. Consequently, the mortality rate is considering underestimated.
However, with the available data that we have, we present the top 20 countries with high and low mortality rate (Figure 10 and 11). We can find that countries across the world appears in both figures. From Iran and Afghanistan in Middle East, to European countries like Greece and Bulgaria, and exotic areas like Tanzania and Zimbabwe, COVID-19 is a really universal pandemic.
A variety of counties appears in the figure of the top 20 countries with low mortality rate (Figure 11). We can spot the exotic Maldives and Seychelles, and the overpopulated Singapore and Thailand. It is worth it to mention that the low mortality rate can be caused by a small number of deaths due to these countries failure to report or measure the fatalities properly.
The following heat maps (Figure 12 and 13) show us the confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world. Again, we can see that the COVID-19 is a world wide pandemic, while US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia and Asia are red and some parts even black.
Part IV: What is the current epidemiological situation in the US?
Let’s zoom up to US. As we know by now, the highest numbers of confirmed cases and deaths have been reported from the United States of America since the beginning of the pandemic.
The following heat map (Figure 14) illustrates the states with high and low numbers of confirmed cases. California is the state with the highest number of confirmed cases, around 3.38M cases today. Texas follows with 2.46M confirmed cases and Florida with 1.57M confirmed cases. New York is the fourth state with high number of COVID-19 cases, since the state counts 1.45M confirmed cases from day one of the pandemic. Illinois is the fifth state with the highest rate in Covid-19 cases, with 1.13M cases currently. The rest of the states count less than 1M confirmed cases, while Wyoming is the state with the lowest number of confirmed cases, only 25K COVID-19 cases in total.
The following heat map (Figure 15) illustrates the states with high and low number of deaths caused by coronavirus. Interestingly, the state with the highest number of deaths is New York, although it is the fourth state reporting high number of confirmed cases. The number of deaths is 44K in total today. California is in the second place, with 43K fatalities and Texas is in the third place with 38K deaths . Florida follows with total number of deaths iquals to 27K. Pennsylvania counts 22K of fatalities from COVID-19, number that declares the state as the fifth state in US with the highest number of fatalities. Whilst Illinois finishes at the sixth place in the rank with 21.5K coronavirus deaths. The rest of the states count less than 20K of deaths while Wyoming is again the state with the lowest number of deaths, only 624 in total.
Part V: What is the current epidemiological situation in Europe?
Let’s zoom up to Europe now. In our previous analysis, we confirmed that the European Region continues to report a substantial number of cases as the spread of COVID-19 grows fast in parts of Europe since the end of March 2020 and especially after the second wave (November 2020).
The following heat map (Figure 16) illustrates the European countries with high and low numbers of confirmed cases. As we can see, most countries of Northern and Easter Europe have less confirmed cases today than countries in South Western Europe. The first country in Europe reporting the highest numbers of confirmed cases is UK with 3.9M COVID-19 confirmed cases in total. Russia with 3.87M confirmed cases, finishes in the second place of the rank although the difference with the United Kingdom is only 0.03M cases. France is the third country in Europe reporting a major confirmed cases number, around 3.3M confirmed cases from the day one of the pandemic. Right after France, Spain, Italy and Germany follow in the specified order, with 2.9M, 2.6M and 2.2M confirmed cases respectively.
Poland and Ukraine are the 5th and 6th countries reporting a high number of COVID-19 cases with 1.5M and 1.3M confirmed cases respectively. As we can see at the heat map, the rest of the countries, have less than 1M confirmed cases. Iceland is the country with the lowest number of confirmed cases in Europe, with only 6016 COVID-19 cases at the moment.
The following heat map (Figure 17) illustrates the European countries with high and low number of deaths. As we can see, the situation is quite the same as the heat map above. Again, UK is the country in Europe reporting the highest number of deaths, counting 110K fatalities today. However, Italy is in the second place with 90K fatalities and France is the third place with 78K fatalities. Although Russia is the second country in terms of the highest confirmed cases in Europe, however, the total number of fatalities is around 74K, making Russia the fourth country in the rank. Germany follows with 60K deaths from coronavirus.
Poland and Ukraine are the 6th and 7th country in Europe with high number of deaths, with 38K and 24K respectively. The rest of the countries in Europe have less than 20K of deaths, while again Iceland is the European country with the lowest number of fatalities, only 29 in total since the beginning of the pandemic.
Part VI: What is the current epidemiological situation in Asia?
Let's zoom up to Asia now. The following heat map (Figure 18) illustrates the Asian countries with high and low number of confirmed cases. Although Covid-19 was first detected in China, it is not the first country in Asia in terms of the highest confirmed cases. India’s number of confirmed cases is growing rapidly and becomes the top-1 country in Asia, with 10M cases as of today. Turkey finishes in the second place of the rank with 2.5M cases and Iran in the third place with 1.45M cases. Indonesia follows with 1.12M confirmed cases at the moment. Pakistan is the fourth country with a high number of confirmed cases with 551K fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic. Japan follows with 399K deaths today and right next to Japan, Saudi Arabia wtih 369K fatalities.
The rest of the Asian countries have less than 100k confirmed cases, while Laos is the country with the lowest number of Covid-19 cases with only 45 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
Finally, we illustrate the the Asian countries (Figure 19) with high and low numbers of deaths with the help of the following heat map. As suspected, India is the top-1 country in Asia in terms of deaths, with 155K deaths as of today. Surprisingly, Iran is the second country reporting a high number of fatalities around 58K deaths and Indonesia follows as the third country with 31K deaths. Although Turkey is the second country with a high number of confirmed cases, in the rank of the deaths cause by COVID-19 is only the fourth country, reporting only 26K deaths currenlty. Iraq is the fifth country in the rank with 13K deaths and Pakistan follows with 11K fatalities. The rest of the Asian countries have less than 10K deaths today, while Laos and Cambodia have reported 0 deaths so far!
Conclusion
In this article, we took a look at the COVID-19 epidemiological situation globally according to john Hopkins University data.
We learned so far that:
- Globally, more than 104M people have been affected from COVID-19 and 2.28K have died from the disease.
- COVID-19 is a really universal pandemic, since we can see a variety of countries from all the continents affected by the disease.
- The mortality rate is considering underestimated as the number of actual cases might differ significantly from the number of confirmed cases.
- The number of cases and deaths can be affected dramatically by the new variants of the virus.
The findings here are the result of a study on the data provided on February the 4th. So the epidemiological situation at the published date of the article will be slightly different.
Thank you for reading my article and I hope that we will return to our usual daily life and peace in the near future!
