We now have two working vaccines in America and are starting to distribute. The goal was to inoculate 20 million by the end of 2020 and then 30 million more per month for subsequent months. We fell short of the first goal (only inoculated around 2 million), but hopefully we are on track to inoculate a million people a day for here on out. We shall see.
Assuming you can inoculate a million people a day (it is a lot), then by the end of June we should have around 180 million people inoculated. There are currently over 20 million who have been tested with the virus, so they theoretically don’t need inoculation. The number who have had the virus but not been tested is probably around 20 to 60 million. The United States is currently accumulating more than 200,000 new reported infections a day, so if it continues at that rate (and I am not sure it will decline soon) by the end of June we may have another 36 million cases (and possibly another 180,000 to 360,000 deaths). The United States has a population of 331 million.
So, in an ideal scenario we would have by the end of June 180 million people inoculated, 20 million already infected, another 36 million infected over the six months, at least 20 million infected but not tested, an additional 36 million new cases of people infected by not tested, less all those people who have been infected but get the vaccine anyway (lets say 1/2 or – 56 million). So 180 + 20 + 36 + 20 + 36 – 56 = 236 million people protected/inoculated. This is 71% of the U.S. population vaccinated or previously infected. This is close to the infamous “herd immunity” which I gather should be 80% or greater.
There may be a group of people who resist or reject the vaccine. This is not a big issue for this calculation, as it simply means other people will get vaccinated instead.
Now, there are a lot of factors that will influence these figures. First and most important is can the United States vaccinate a million people a day? Right now, they have not. If they cannot then the point of recovery may slide out until the fall or even to the end of the year.
Just saw some statistics on excess mortality in Russia. Apparently it is 230,000 people for 2020, with it being estimated by one expert that 81% are from Coronavirus. 81% of 230,000 is 186,300.
The excess deaths graph in this chart is worth looking at, as it compares 2020 with 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, each year separately graphed.
Anyhow, 186,300 to 230,000 excess deaths because of Coronavirus. John Hopkins lists their reported deaths at 56,798 as of 2:23 PM today. So, it appears that Coronavirus deaths were under-reported in Russia by a factor of 3.3 to 4.0. As military historians we are quite used to the Soviet Union under-reporting or obscuring their losses. Apparently, so does the Russian government. Reminds me of a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ArlUSVDQIw
Anyhow, the excess mortality in the United States is around 400,000 or so. U.S. reported deaths from Coronavirus is 346,859.
Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit
Weekly update number 39 on the coronavirus in the DC area. Decided to maintain my very current and relevant picture.
This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 16,418 new cases. This is worse, but the statistics may be distorted because of the holidays. Last week it improved to be at 12,087 cases, as the week before there were 15,323 new cases. Eight weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We are still at least 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 (53K yesterday, it was 19K two weeks ago), France (11K), Spain (14K), Germany (19K) and Russia (27K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 202K new cases yesterday, slightly down from 216K new cases three Tuesdays ago. This is in contrast to places like China (77 cases), Japan (3,629), South Korea (1,048), Taiwan (2), Vietnam (3), Singapore (13), Australia (32) and New Zealand (7 on 12/28).
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 twenty-six weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 9:22 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….26,900……28,758……..780 Arlington, VA……………..237,521………8,121……..8,786…….181 Alexandria VA……………160,530.…..…6,782……..7,231…..….87 Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….40,483……43,434…….679 Falls Church, VA…………..14,772………..157……..…174……….6 Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.………..281……….304………10 Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..……12,925……13,996……158 Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011….….23,041……25,247……256 Manassas…………………..41,641….……2,708……..2,867…….30 Manassas Park………….…17,307…………869……….926………8 Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….4,578…….5,099…….24 Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.………..941……..1,021……..9 Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..42,551…..45,791..1,120 Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..51,006….54,127…1,079 Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……221,343…237,761..4,427
This is a 7% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.86%. This last week, there were 174 new fatalities reported out of 16,418 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 1.06%. This increased mortality rate is almost certainly driven by people who got ill several weeks ago, so in sense, the figures are now catching up from the lower mortality rates over the last few weeks. The population known to have been infected is 4.43% or one confirmed case for every 23 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. Many of the students are now home until mid-to-late January.
Harrisonburg, VA is reporting 4,343 cases (4,098 last week) and 44 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 3,842 cases (3,386 last week) and 47 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.
Charlottesville, VA has 2,182 confirmed cases (2,089 last week) and 34 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 2,756 confirmed cases (2,509 last week) and 31 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had a covid tracker which is worth looking at: 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. Apparently college students are more responsible than many adults.
Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 5,138 cases this week (4,853 last week) and 38 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.
Keep in mind all these increases in this towns is occurring while the universities are not in session. It is currently growing faster than it was when they were, reinforcing my point that college students appear to be more responsible than many adults.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 4,122 cases yesterday. Last week it was 3,591. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.
Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has 996 cases (888 last week) and 5 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.
The last two posts I made on force ratios was drawn from my book War by Numbers. There are additional posts I did early last year on the subject based upon my in-process follow-on book More War by Numbers. They are summarized here:
I have been fairly diligent about making sure the “categories” that are listed on the right hand column of the blog are maintained. Therefore, clicking on Force Ratio will lead you to all 29 Force Ratio related posts on this blog. There are 1,129 posts on this blog (as of this post).
Now, the purpose of War by Numbers was not to create Combat Results Tables (CRT) for wargames. Its real purpose was to test the theoretical ideas of Clausewitz, and more particularly, Trevor N. Dupuy to actual real-world data. Not as case studies, but as statistical compilations that would show what the norms are. Unfortunately, military history is often the study of exceptions, or exceptional events, and what is often lost to the casual reader it what the norms are. Properly developed statistical database will clearly show what the norms are and how frequent or infrequent these exceptions are. People tend to remember the exceptional cases, they tend to forget the norms, if they even knew what they were to start with.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of War by Numbers is primarily focused on measuring human factors (which some people in the U.S. DOD analytical community seem to think are unmeasurable, even though we are measuring them). As part of that effort I ended up assemble a set of force ratios tables based upon theater and nationality. The first of these, on page 10, was in my previous blog post. Here are a few others, from page 11 of War by Numbers.
Germans attacking Soviets (Battles of Kharkov and Kursk), 1943
Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases
0.63 to 1.06-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 20% 5
1.18 to 1.87-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 6% 17
1.91-to-1.00 and higher Attacker Advances 0% 21
Soviets attacking Germans (Battles of Kharkov and Kursk), 1943
Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases
0.40 to 1.05-to-1 Attack usually fails 70% 10
1.20 to 1.65-to-1.00 Attack often fails 50% 11
1.91 to 2.89-to-1.00 Attack sometimes fails 44% 9
Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) Data, U.S. attacking Japanese, 1945
Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases
1.40 to 2.89-to-1.00 Attack succeeds 0% 20
2.92 to 3.89-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 21% 14
4.35-to-1.00 and higher Attack usually succeeds 4% 26
Page 10 for War by Numbers includes the following table:
European Theater of Operations (ETO) Data, 1944
Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases
0.55 to 1.01-to-1.00 Attack Fails 100% 5
1.15 to 1.88-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 21% 48
1.95 to 2.56-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 10% 21
2.71-to-1.00 and higher Attacker Advances 0% 42
Many commercial wargames have something called a CRT or Combat Results Table. It is based upon force ratios. For example, this was one of the earliest CRTs used on Avalon Hill Games in the 1960s.
As can been seen from this Combat Results Table, at 1-to-1 the chances of an attack winning is one-in-three. At 2-to-1 odds the chances of the attacker winning is either the same as the defender winning or is a two-thirds chance of winning. At 3-to-1 odds, the attacker will always win.
Now the variable factor is the exchange result, which is defined that the defender removed everyone and the attacker removes as much as the defender. This usually results in an attacker win, if the attack has the right “spare change.” If the attacker was attacking with a single 7 strength unit against a 3 strength defender and they roll and exchange, then both units are eliminated.
Compare that to the table from my book based upon 116 division-level engagements from the European Theater of Operations (1944-145).
Needless to say, some elements of my book War by Numbers are of interest to the commercial wargaming community.
Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit
Weekly update number 38 on the coronavirus in the DC area. Decided to update my picture to something very current.
This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 12,087 new cases. While this is still very high, it is an improvement. Last week there were 15,323 new cases, the week before that 15,790 new cases, the week before that there were 10,892 new cases and seven weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. We are still at least 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 13K new cases reported for yesterday. It remains high in the UK (37K yesterday, was 19K a week ago), France (12K), Spain (11K) and Russia (28K). It is still growing in Germany (36K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 195K new cases yesterday, slightly down from 216K new cases two Tuesdays ago. This is in contrast to places like China (78 cases), Japan (2,658), South Korea (1,090), Taiwan (4), Vietnam (6), Singapore (29), Australia (18) and New Zealand (7).
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 twenty-five weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 9:22 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….25,602…..26,900……..744 Arlington, VA……………..237,521………7,594……8,121……..169 Alexandria VA……………160,530.…..…6,367……6,782……….84 Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….37,693…..40,483……..660 Falls Church, VA…………..14,772………..146……….157……..…6 Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.………..250………281……….10 Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..……12,193..…12,925…….154 Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011….….21,678..…23,041…….247 Manassas…………………..41,641….……2,612…….2,708……..29 Manassas Park………….…17,307…………836…..…869………..8 Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….4,207……4,578……..23 Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.………..860………941…..….8 Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..40,500….42,551…1,069 Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..48,718….51,006…1,042 Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…….209,256..221,343..4,253
This is a 6% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.92%. Last week, there were 139 new fatalities reported out of 12,087 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 1.15%. This increased mortality rate is almost certainly driven by people who got ill several weeks ago, so in sense, the figures are now catching up from the lower mortality rates over the last few weeks. The population known to have been infected is 4.13% or one confirmed case for every 24 people. The actual rate of infection has been higher, perhaps as much as 4 times higher.
One notes a difference in the statistics between Washington DC and Fairfax County. Washington DC has 1 case per 26 people while it has 1 death per 944 people. Fairfax Country has 1 case per 28 people while it has 1 death per 1,744 people. I suspect the primary (but not the only) driver of these differing statistics is that DC is under-reporting the number of people infected.
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. Many of the students are now home until mid-to-late January.
Harrisonburg, VA is reporting 4,098 cases (3,905 last week) and 40 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 3,386 cases (3,035 last week) and 38 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.
Charlottesville, VA has 2,089 confirmed cases (2,036 last week) and 34 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 2,509 confirmed cases (2,351 last week) and 29 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had a covid tracker which is worth looking at: 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. Apparently college students are more responsible than many adults.
Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 4,853 cases this week (4,565 last week) and 32 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.
Keep in mind all these increases in this towns is occurring while the universities are not in session. It is currently growing faster than it was when they were, reinforcing my point that college students appear to be more responsible than many adults.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 3,591 cases yesterday. Last week it was 3,160 and the week before 3,860 cases. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.
Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has 888 cases (812 last week) and 5 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.
The decision as to whether someone is ruled to have died of the coronavirus or other natural causes is sometimes a judgment call. I have discussed before that Belgium records almost as many deaths as Germany does, yet has reported less cases then Germany has. Many people have attributed these differences to how they choose to report cases, with Germany being very strict in their reporting of when some passes away from Coronavirus. Just to give some comparative statistics (as of 722 AM):
Country…..Population….Cases…….Deaths
Germany………83.12…….1,541,775…..27,156
France…………67.15…….2,535,781…..61,019
UK……………..66.80…….2,079,678…..67,718
Italy…………….59.39…….1,964,054…..69,214
Spain…………..47.33…….1,819,249…..49,260
Netherlands…..17.54……….711,540…..10,606
Belgium……….11.55……….626,911…..18,697
Czechia……….10.71………..635,414….10,562
Austria………….8.94………..342,226……5,540
Population is estimates for 2020 and is in the the millions.
So, for example Germany has one death for every 57 reported cases, Belgium has one death for every 34 reported cases, whereas the UK has one death for every 31 reported cases. Of course, this is also influenced by the extent of testing. Measured to total population, Germany has one death for every 3,061 people while Belgium has one death for every 618 people (and UK has one death for every 986 people).
Now the United States (population: 330.85 million) has 18,032,824 reported cases and 319,466 reported deaths. This comes out to one death for every 56 reported cases or one death for every 1,036 people.
The protests in Belarus continue to shrink. They report thousands of protestors in scattered locations this week, and over 100 arrested/detained (or 146 according to “Vesna”). This is the lowest arrest figure that I have seen in a while. I assume this is because there are less protestors, as opposed to the police becoming “kinder, gentler.”
P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from previous months, I just happen to like it (“Beauty and the Beast”). She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews.
There are ten references to “Dupuy” in the guide, which I believe is a first. I do not recall any previous Army manual referencing Trevor Dupuy’s work, even though I have seen his work in a manual or two without reference. It is nice that they have properly acknowledged his work.
The references are on:
Page xi: “Acknowledgements”: four references, two for Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy and two to his son Arnold C. Dupuy,. Ph.D.
Page 220: Table D-6. Division opposed rates of advance (km/day). I will have more comments about this table later.
Page 285. Paragraph G-162, Casualty Estimates: Two references. I will probably have a blog post about this later.
Page 402. References: Three references. I will probably have a blog post about this later also.
The two Trevor N. Dupuy books referenced in the Staff Reference Guide are the still out of print Numbers, Predictions & War (1979) and Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (1995). We still have 40 or so copies of Attrition for sale. See http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm
