Mystics & Statistics

Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 47

Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit

Well, in general the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus has continued at a lower rate but we do not see a continual decline everywhere. It did decline locally, but not for all of the United States. It is still high and needs to come down further. This is weekly update number 47 on the coronavirus in the DC area.

This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by only 5,977 new cases. There were 7,566 new cases last week. Five weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Sixteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We still look to be about six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone as this process is going a little slower than it should (in my opinion).

Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 10K new cases reported for yesterday.  It remains high in the UK (10K yesterday) although it has dropped from its high of 68K new cases a day on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (20K), Spain (7K), Germany (6K) and Russia (12K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 71K new cases yesterday. This is improvement for a high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (23 cases), Japan (1,103), South Korea (439), Taiwan (1 on 2/20), Vietnam (11), Singapore (14 on 2/19), Australia (2) and New Zealand (2). Still, the number of new cases is down almost everywhere, which is good news.

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-four weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 12:23 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….39,180……39,844…..998
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..12,684……12,974…..217
Alexandria VA……………160,530…….10,056……10,229…..110
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……64,355……65,718…..880
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.……….331……….342……….7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..……….468……….482……..13
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850…….22,351……22,816…..207

Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011…….38,197…….38,920….368
Manassas…………………..41,641..……..3,930………3,971……36
Manassas Park………….…17,307….…..1,110….…..1,116……..8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……..9,252….…..9,418……65
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144…….1,718….…..1,747…….19
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……61,942…….62,767..1,399
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……71,402…….72,609..1,314
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425….336,976…..342,953…5,642.

 

This is a 2% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.65%. This last week there were 181 new fatalities reported out of 5,977 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 3.03%, but the higher figure is clearly a result of the declining infection rate while the mortality figures are lagged. The population known to have been infected is 6.39% or one confirmed case for every 16 people. The actual rate of infection has been higher, perhaps as much as 4 times higher.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions a the beginning of February.

Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,652 cases (5,591 last week) and 71 deaths, while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 5,991 cases (5,934 last week) and 86 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has reported 3,529 cases (3,168 last week) and 41 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has reported 4,759 cases (4,319 last week) and 48 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had good covid tracker website: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker. Three weeks ago they recorded 82 new case from Monday through Friday. Two weeks ago they recorded 238 new cases from Monday through Friday. Last week it was 737 new cases from Monday through Friday. Needless to say, they have put in more stringent lock-down procedures as the number of cases have been in decline since a peak of 229 new cases on 2/16. A number of students are blaming this spike on the fraternities conducing “rush.” This has now resulted in increased restrictions for everyone. There is a lesson in here somewhere.

Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has reported  6,867 cases (6,787 last week) cases and 105 deaths (45 deaths these last five weeks).

Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has reported 7,478 cases (7,035 last week) and 73 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 1,769 cases yesterday. Last week it as 1,770 cases. Four weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.

Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,838 cases (1,820 last week) and 8 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

Did the LSSAH have 3 panzer panzer companies, 4 panzer companies or two panzer battalions in July 1943?

This subject has been discussed here before, but I am now preparing a little write-up for Advancing Fire for their game Prokhorovka! (PROKHOROVKA! (advancingfire.com) So, as this is a controversial argument, I wanted to present it here again.

———-the write-up———————-

I am of the opinion that the LSSAH Division had more than three medium panzer (tank) companies in action that day. The location of the 5th and 7th panzer companies is known through Ribbentrop’s post-battle account where he states that the other two panzer companies in his battalion were behind the tank ditch. He later reports in his account that the other two panzer companies fired upon the advancing Soviet tanks from behind that ditch.

The LSSAH Panzer Regiment sent its I Panzer Battalion back to German before July 1943 to refit with Panther tanks. This, and other evidence, has led many to conclude the LSSAH Division on 12 July 1943 had only one operational panzer battalion consisted of three medium companies and one heavy (Tiger) company. The issue is that the LSSAH Division on 4 July had 90 Panzer III and IV tanks and 9 Panzer III Command tanks. One cannot fit all these tanks into three companies of 22 tanks each. Twenty-two tanks is the authorized strength of the panzer company and Ribbentrop states that is what his company had on 5 July 1943.

Therefore, as a minimum the LSSAH Division had an 8th company. This company is reported as being in existence on the 20th of July. It may have been in existence before 20 July 1943. It is stated in a book written in 1990 by Rudolf Lehmann, the former chief of staff of the division, that ““The 8 Kompanie did not take part in Operation Zitadelle because of an insufficient number of Panzers.” With operational 90 Panzer III and IV tanks, this statement makes no sense. The statement also indicates that the company was in existence before 20 July. If they used the 8th company, then with a panzer battalion of four medium tank companies, then this comes out to exactly 22 tanks a company, if one assigns 6 tanks to the battalion and regiment commands, ignore five spare Panzer IIIs (the Tiger companies no longer had five Panzer IIIs with them), and places the four Panzer IIs and the three Panzer Is under regimental command. There is no mention made of an 8th company on 12 July 1943.

On the other hand, there is a report (twice) in the division and corps records on the 8th of July 1943 of a I Panzer Battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. This could be a typo, except, the Das Reich SS Division also sent its I Panzer Battalion back to Germany for refit. They substituted an antitank battalion to serve in its place, so that the Das Reich SS Panzer Regiment has two battalions of seven medium panzer companies and one heavy panzer company for its 111 light and medium tanks and 12 Tigers. The Totenkopf SS Panzer Regiment has two battalions of six medium panzer companies and one heavy panzer company for its 114 light and medium tanks and 12 Tigers. The LSSAH Panzer Division records does not state how its armor was organized for June and July of 1943. It would be logical, as they were all under the same command (General Paul Hausser), that the LSSAH was also organized with two battalions of 6 to 8 medium panzer companies for its 106 light and medium tanks. This organization seems more logical than one battalion of three or four panzer companies. This would give the average tank strength of each panzer companies between 12 and 16. For the Das Reich it was an average of around 16 tanks per medium tank company and for the Totenkopf it was an average of around 19 tanks per medium tank company. Did the LSSAH do something radically different (around 30 tanks in a medium tank company) or did they match their two neighboring sister divisions?

There is the added confusion that Ribbentrop reported only 7 tanks on the 12th of July. If he started with 22, then he is looking at 68% losses over the previous week of fighting. Yet the division had 65 operational light and medium tanks (6 light and 7 Panzer III command) on the evening of 11 July. The panzer regiment’s light and medium tanks had been attrited 39%. If the 6th Panzer Company had 7 tanks, then the average of the 5th and 7th Panzer Companies would be at least 22 tanks or the average of a 5th, 7th and 8th Panzer Companies would be at least 15 tanks. Did one tank company take horrendous losses and the rest of the companies were left relatively unscathed? And if so, then why would that much weaker company be the panzer company that was left forward the night before the attack on the 12th? This argues for there being two battalions in the LSSAH Panzer Regiment and that the starting the strength of the 6th Panzer Company and all the other medium panzer companies, were really more like 16 tanks (assuming six medium panzer companies).

It is reported by the division chief of staff, Rudolf Lehmann, in his book that II Battalion commander has only 33 panzers. Other sources claim that they had around 33 panzers at hill 252.2 on the afternoon or evening of the 11th. Losses during the 12th are reported by Lehmann to be four panzers from the 6th company and one from the 7th.  So, depending on whether that figure is a count of 33 panzers from before the start of the engagement or after, it would appear that II Panzer Battalion had 33 to 37 tanks. Yet on the evening of the 11th July the division had 65 operational light and medium tanks.

It has been reported that the entire II Panzer Battalion moved up there on the 11th, and then pulled back their 5th and 7th companies, leaving the 6th company in the area of hill 252.2. The 6th Panzer Company was reported to have only 7 tanks operational on the morning of the 12th. So, II Panzer Battalion may have had three companies of 7-12 tanks each, and the battalion staff with three Panzer III Command tanks. This leaves 32 tanks unaccounted (including regimental command tanks and six light tanks). That could well be the complement of a temporary I Panzer Battalion.

So, it is not known of the LSSAH Panzer Regiment consisted of 1) one panzer battalion of three overstrength medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company, 2) one panzer battalion of four full-strength medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company, or 3) two panzer battalions of six to eight medium panzer companies and a heavy tank company. It is known that the heavy tank company, renamed recently as the 13th panzer company consisted of only four operational Tiger tanks on 12 July 1943 and started the battle in a reserve position.

——end of write-up—————————–

Just for reference:

Advancing Fire

PROKHOROVKA! (advancingfire.com)

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 – II | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Summation of Open Questions on Prokhorovka | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

 

Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 46

Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit

Well, in general the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus has declined and seems to be in continual decline: locally, in the United States, and internationally. Still, it is high and needs to come down further. This is weekly update number 46 on the coronavirus in the DC area.

This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by only 7,566 new cases. There were 10,871 new cases last week. Four weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Fifteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We still look to be about six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone as this process is going a little slower than it should (in my opinion).

Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 10K new cases reported for yesterday.  It remains high in the UK (11K yesterday) although it continues to drop from its high of 68K new cases a day on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (20K), Spain (10K), Germany (6K) and Russia (13K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 62K new cases yesterday. This is improvement for a high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (15 cases), Japan (1,810), South Korea (621), Taiwan (1 on 2/12), Vietnam (42), Singapore (9 on 2/15), Australia (6) and New Zealand (3). Still, the number of new cases is down almost everywhere, which is good news. 

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-three weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:22 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….38,438….…39,180……..985
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..12,364……12,684……..210
Alexandria VA……………160,530………9,798……10,056……..104
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……62,445…….64,355…….834
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.……….318…………331……..…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..……….448…………468……….12
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850……21,808……..22,351…….195

Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011……37,184….….38,197…….328
Manassas…………………..41,641..…….3,866………3,930………33
Manassas Park………….…17,307….….1,101……….1,110…….…8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……..8,727……….9,252……..54
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144…….1,668……….1,718……..14
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…..61,001.……..61,942…1,382
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308…..70,244..…….71,402…1,294
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425….329,410…….336,976…5,460

 

This is a 2% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.62%. This last week, there were 183 new fatalities reported out of 7,566 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 2.42%, but the higher figure is clearly a result of the declining infection rate while the mortality figures are lagged. The population known to have been infected is 6.28% or one confirmed case for every 16 people. The actual rate of infection has been higher, perhaps as much as 4 times higher.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions a the beginning of February.

Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,591 cases (5,504 last week) and 68 deaths, while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 5,934 cases (5,796 last week) and 77 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has 3,168 cases (2,883 last week) and 40 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has 4,319 cases (4,132 last week) and 39 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had good covid tracker website: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker.  They are showing an increase in new case, with there being 40 to 56 new cases a day last week and there being 117 new cases on 2/15. They have increased restrictions on campus in response.

Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has 6,787 cases (6,581 last week) cases and 89 deaths (29 deaths these last four weeks).

Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has 7,035 cases (6,685 last week) and 71 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 1,770 cases yesterday. Last week is as  3,291 cases. Three weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.

Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,820 cases (1,776 last week) and 8 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

Situation Currently in Afghanistan

I have not blogged about Afghanistan in a while, since:

Some Statistics on Afghanistan (April 2020) | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Will probably be a addressing it more in the near future. There was New York Times article today that I thought was worthwhile. It is here: The Taliban Close In on Afghan Cities, Pushing the Country to the Brink

One of the odd things when we were doing the insurgency work on Iraq and our later more theoretical insurgency work, we never were asked by our various contracting agencies to look at Afghanistan in particular. This is odd, as we kind of nailed the prediction on Iraq (see Chapter One of America’s Modern Wars). In the end I do have a chapter on Afghanistan in that book and were asked to brief the military advisor to the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in late 2005 and again in late 2008. This also lead to a briefing with the Chairman of NIC.

I still think there is value in having us do an independent analysis of the situation in light of our correct predictions for Iraq and Bosnia (see Appendix II of America’s Modern Wars). I also have a very brief chapter in my book on “Withdrawal and War Termination.” Needless to say, this was a subject I proposed to several agencies that we do more work on, and there was absolutely no interest. So instead I write books. Now, I don’t control the budget over at DOD and other agencies. Sometimes their priorities mystify me.

Some Background on TDI Data Bases

The Dupuy Institute (TDI) are sitting on a number of large combat databases that are unique to us and are company proprietary. For obvious reasons they will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

The original database of battles came to be called the Land Warfare Data Base (LWDB). It was also called the CHASE database by CAA. It consisted of 601 or 605 engagements from 1600-1973. It covered a lot of periods and lot of different engagement sizes, ranging from very large battles of hundreds of thousand a side to small company-sized actions. The length of battles range from a day to several months (some of the World War I battles like the Somme).

From that database, which is publicly available, we created a whole series of databases totaling some 1200 engagements. There are discussed in some depth in past posts.

Our largest and most developed data is our division-level database covering combat from 1904-1991 of 752 cases: It is discussed here: The Division Level Engagement Data Base (DLEDB) | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

There are a number of other databases we have. They are discussed here: Other TDI Data Bases | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The cost of independently developing such a database is given here: Cost of Creating a Data Base | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Part of the reason for this post is that I am in a discussion with someone who is doing analysis based upon the much older 601 case database. Considering the degree of expansion and improvement, including corrections to some of the engagements, this does not seem a good use of their time., especially as we have so greatly expanded the number engagements from 1943 and on.

Now, I did use some of these databases for my book War by Numbers. I am also using them for my follow-up book, currently titled More War by Numbers. So the analysis I have done based upon them is available. I have also posted parts of the 192 Kursk engagements in my first Kursk book and 76 of them in my Prokhorovka book. None of these engagements were in the original LWDB. 

If people want to use the TDI databases for their own independent analysis, they will need to find the proper funding so as to purchase or get access to these databases. 

Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 45

Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit

The number of cases and deaths from coronavirus has declined but is still very high. This is weekly update number 45 on the coronavirus in the DC area.

This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 10,871. There were 11,498 new cases last week. Three weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Fourteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We look to be about six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone.

Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 11K new cases reported for yesterday.  It remains high in the UK (12K yesterday) although it continues to drop from its high of 68K new cases a day on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (19K), Spain (16K), Germany (6K) and Russia (15K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 95K new cases yesterday. This is improvement for a high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (40 cases), Japan (1,558), South Korea (443), Taiwan (5), Vietnam (14), Singapore (11), Australia (11) and New Zealand (2). Still, the number of new cases is down almost everywhere, which is good news. 

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-two weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:22 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….37,199……38,438…….965
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..11,867……12,364…….209
Alexandria VA……………160,530………9,544……..9,798…….105
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……60,265……62,445…….721
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.…….…296………..318…….…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..….……437………..448……..12
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850….…20,791……21,808…….191

Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011……..35,693…..37,184….…327
Manassas…………………..41,641..………3,753……3,866……….33
Manassas Park………….…17,307….……1,073……1,101…………8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960….……8,123……8,727……….53
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144………1,569……1,668……….14
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..59,439…..61,001.…1,360
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..68,490….70,244..…1,272
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…….318,539..329,410.….5,277

 

This is a 3% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.60%. This last week, there were 65 new fatalities reported out of 10,871 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 0.60%. The population known to have been infected is 6.14% or one confirmed case for every 16 people. The actual rate of infection has been higher, perhaps as much as 4 times higher.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions last week.

Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,504 cases (5,364 last week) and 67 deaths (up 19 these last four weeks!), while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 5,796 cases (5,589 last week) and 76 deaths (up 22 these last four weeks!). This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has 2,883 cases (2,752 last week) and 40 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has 4,132 cases (3,966 last week) and 39 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had good covid tracker website: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker.  

Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has 6,581 cases (6,279 last week) cases and 85 deaths (25 deaths these last three weeks).

Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has 6,685 cases (6,414 last week) and 70 deaths (up 22 these last four weeks!). This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 3,291 cases yesterday. Last week is as  2,740 cases. Two weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.

Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,776 cases (1,701 last week) and 7 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

 

U.S. Fleet versus Chinese Fleet

This subject has been addressed in a few cases in our past posts. Let’s dredge up a few:

From January 2020:

The Size of Fleets in the South China Sea, Part 1 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Size of Fleets around the South China Sea, Part 2 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

U.S. Navy Compared to Russian Navy | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

From August 2016:

Chinese Carriers | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Chinese Carriers II | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

To summarize:

………………………….US…China…Size

Aircraft Carriers………..11……………..100,000-106,300 tons

Small Carriers……………0…….2………..54,500-58,600

LHA/LHD (Carriers !)……9 * ……………..41,150-45,693

Cruisers…………………..22………………….9,800

Destroyers……………….69………………….8,315-9,800

Destroyers……………………….36………….3,670-12,000

LCS……………………….20………………….3,104-3,900

Frigates……………………0…….52………….2,000-4,200

Corvettes…………………0…….42…………..1,400

Missile boats……………………109…………..170-520

Submarine chasers…………….94

Gunboats………………………..17

 

LPD…………………………11..,…6……………25,000-25,300

LSD…………………………12…………………..15,939-16,100

LST…………………………..0…..32…………….4,170-4,800

LSM………………………………..31…………….800-2,000

Mobile Landing Platform………….1

Special-purpose……………7……………………895 – 23,000

MCM………………………..11…..20

PC…………………………..13

 

SSBN………………………14………………….18,750

SSBN………………………………..7……………8,000-11,500

SSGN……………………….4…………………..18,750

SSN………………………..48…………………….6,927-12,139

SSN…………………………………12……………5,500-7,000

SSK…………………………………55……………2,110-4,000

 

 

*This excludes the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), which is still on the rolls but because of the fire of 12 July 2020 is clearly never returning to duty.

Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 44

Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit

The number of cases and deaths from coronavirus has declined but is still very high. This is weekly update number 44 on the coronavirus in the DC area.

This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 11,498 new cases. Last week it was 16,058 new cases and the week before it was 18,934 new cases. Thirteen weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We look to be about six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone.

Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 10K new cases reported for yesterday.  It remains high in the UK (17K yesterday) although it continues to drop from its high of 68K new cases on 8 January. Yesterday they reported for France (23K), Spain (29K), Germany (8K) and Russia (16K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 114K new cases yesterday. This is improvement for a high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (50 cases), Japan (2,313), South Korea (467), Taiwan (3), Vietnam (32), Singapore (19), Australia (6) and New Zealand (3 cases on 1 Feb). 

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases thirty-one weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:21 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….35,865…..37,199……..926
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..11,414…..11,867……..203
Alexandria VA……………160,530………9,236…….9,544……..104
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……58,092….60,265………792
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.…….….285………296…………6
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..….…….413………437………..12
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850….…19,508….20,791………184

Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011…….34,314…..35,693………317
Manassas…………………..41,641..……..3,608……3,753………..33
Manassas Park………….…17,307….……1,062……1,073……..…8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960….…..7,586……8,123……….50
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144……..1,468……1,569……….14
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…….57,685….59,439……1,320
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308…….66,535.…68,490……1,243
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……307,041…318,539……5,212

 

This is a 4% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.64%. This last week, there were 167 new fatalities reported out of 11,498 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 1.45%. This high mortality is probably as a result of the number of cases dropping, while the mortality numbers are tied to the number of cases several weeks earlier. The population known to have been infected is 5.94% or one confirmed case for every 17 people. The actual rate of infection has been higher, perhaps as much as 4 times higher.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions this week.

Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 5,364 cases (5,223 last week) and 63 deaths (up 15 these last three weeks!), while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 5,589 cases (5,434 last week) and 74 deaths (up 20 these last three weeks!). This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has 2,752 cases (2,681 last week) and 39 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has 3,966 cases (3,789 last week) and 36 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had good covid tracker website: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker. This is definitely worth looking at, as you can see how they were able to bring the virus under control with a student body of 25,000.  

Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has 6,279 cases (6,003 last week) cases and 79 deaths (19 deaths these last two weeks).

Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has 6,414 cases (6,188 last week) and 65 deaths (up 17 these last three weeks!). This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 2,740 cases yesterday. Last week it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.

Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,701 cases (1,629 last week) and 6 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

The lockdowns from Coronavirus are over in 6 months? – update 1

Update to this post: The lockdowns from Coronavirus are over in 6 months? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The original goal was to inoculate 20 million people by the end of 2020 and then 30 million more per month for subsequent months.

According to one of the trackers I am watching (Bloomberg), as of 1 Feb. we have administered almost 33 million doses. The last couple of days we have been administering 1.3 or more million doses a day. This is better than the original needed goal of a million a day. Of course, most of these cases are the first of two doses, although I gather there are around six million people who have now received both doses. It does look like this is now on track.