Mystics & Statistics

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 37

Weekly update number 37 on the coronavirus in the DC area. This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 15,323 new cases. Last week there were 15,790 new cases, the week before there were 10,892 new cases and six weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. This has slide out of control and 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 15K new cases reported for yesterday.  It remains high in the UK (19K yesterday), France (12K), Spain (10K) and Russia (26K). It is still growing in Germany (34K, up from 29K last week). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 198K new cases yesterday, slightly down from 216K new cases last Tuesday. This is in contrast to places like China (110 cases), Japan (1,672), South Korea (1,078), Taiwan (2), Vietnam (3), Singapore (16), Australia (12) and New Zealand (4). 

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-four weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 2:26 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….23,854…25,602..…..720
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………7,062…..7,594……166
Alexandria VA……………160,530.…..…5,950…..6,367……..82
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….34,996…37,693..….648
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772………..128……..146………6
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.………..232…….250…..…10
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..……11,270…12,193..….154
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011….….20,080…21,678..….244
Manassas…………………..41,641….……2,440….2,612…..…29
Manassas Park………….…17,307…………776…….836…..….8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….3,811…..4,207…….23
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.………..795…….860……….8
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..37,194…40,500..1,039
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..45,345…48,718..1,007
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……193,933..209,256..4,114

This is a 8% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.98%. Last week, there were 101 new fatalities reported out of 15,323 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 0.66%. The population known to have been infected is 3.90% or one confirmed case for every 26 people.

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 3,905 cases (3,680 last week) and 40 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 3,035 cases (2,667 last week) and 38 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA has 2,036 confirmed cases (1,958 last week) and 31 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 2,351 confirmed cases (2,161 last week) and 28 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 4,565 cases this week (4,260 last week) and 30 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.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 3,160 cases yesterday. Last week it was 3,860 and the week before 2,228 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 had 812 cases (744 last week) and 4 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

No Deal Brexit?

This is a little out of our normal lanes of discussion, but I have watching Brexit for a while. In the end, economic power = military power, so the impact of this is worth examining. The UK is one of four of the ten largest economies in the world that are located in Europe (note that Russia is 11th, behind Canada). Here is a rough comparison between them:


……………………GDP……….Population…..Per Capita GDP……..PPP
Germany………3.8………….83.1……………..46,259…………………56,052
UK……………….2.8…………66.8………………42,300…………………48,710
France…………2.7………….67.2……………..40,494…………………49,435
Italy……………..2.0…………60.0………………33,190…………………44,197

Russia…………..1.7………146.7………………11,585…………………29,181

United States…21.4……..330.8……………..65,281…………………65,281

 

Spain……………1.4………….47.3……………..29,614…………………42,214

Netherlands….0.9………….17.5……………..52,448…………………59,687

Ukraine…………0.15……….41.7……………….3,659…………………13,341

 

These are 2019 World Bank data, which pre-dates the coronavirus. GDP is in trillions. Population is an estimate as of 2020. It is in millions. Per capita is the World Bank 2019 figures, so as to again dodge the coronavirus. It is in dollars.

So, to put in simple terms, UK and France are about the same population wise, GDP wise and in per capita GDP. Germany is a little larger and a little richer. Italy is a little smaller and a little poorer. This is a good group of candidates for a long-term comparison. 

Now, I happen to think that economically, Brexit is a bad idea. What I expect to see over time is a change in the UK GDP compared to other western European countries. But we probably won’t really know what the full impact will be until we have gotten through the coronavirus issues and economies and the rest of the world have re-adjusted back to a more normal existence. Meaning, it may be a few years before we appreciate and fully understand the impact of Brexit and its long term effects. So maybe revisit this post in 2022? 

 

Disputed Elections – week 18

Pretty much the same-old-same-old with Belarus. The protests in Belarus drag on with no clear end in sight. The demonstrations this weekend were stated to include “thousands” of demonstrators protesting at a reported “more than 70 different sites” or “more than 120 marches.”

Clearly it is no longer “tens of thousands” protestors and far from more than hundred thousand protestors that we saw on some of the weekends. The strike called last month didn’t seem to do much. Does that mean that the protests are losing virulence, or are they just hunkered down for the long term? The Belarus opposition is now opening up “People’s Embassies:” in a dozen countries and has support in many countries in Europe. Meanwhile, Belarus has closed its borders to try to combat the Coronavirus. Considering that Lukashenko has never taken the virus seriously before, most likely it is to try to stem the “brain drain” of talented and young people bailing out of Belarus.

This is beginning to look a whole lot more like the failed protests in Venezuela than the various color revolutions in Eastern Europe that overthrew the governments of Ukraine and Georgia. Lukashenko may be able to suppress/contain the protests but it will be at considerable long-term cost to the economy. The country already has a declining population (see graph below). Turning a country of 9.4 million into a new type of Gulag in hardly the basis for a modern, growing economy.

There were more than 130 or 170 protestors detained/arrested this weekend. Many news reports state that over 30,000 people people have been detained in Belarus since the start of the protests in August. Many accounts are reporting that four people have died since this started as a result of government crackdowns.

 

 

 

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

Casualty Counts from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

A tail of a multiple rocket ‘Smerch’ sticks out of the ground near the town of Martuni, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020. (AP Photo)

Last week Azerbaijan announced that they lost 2,783 troops killed during the six week 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. They also reported more than 100 missing-in-action. Another 1,245 are being treated in medical facilities. Fighting ended on 10 November, so I gather this is the wounded that had to be hospitalized for more than a month. There are certainly a whole lot more wounded that have been treated and released (more than 10,000?). The government has said that 94 civilians were killed and more than 400 wounded (wounded-to-killed ratio of over 4.25-to-1).

Armenia has previously announced at least 2,718 troops killed.

Article is here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-azerbaijan-says-2783-troops-were-killed-in-fighting-over-nagorno/

Equipment losses are discussed here:

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)



Also see: 

Results from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 36

Weekly update number 36 on the coronavirus in the DC area. This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 15,790 new cases. This is highest we have seen for this area so far. Last week there were 10,892 new cases, the week before 11,293 new cases, and five weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases. Around three months ago we had two weeks of less than 3,000 cases a week and now it has gone back up. This has slide out of control and we are still at least six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone.

In contrast, Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 15K new cases reported for yesterday, down from the 23K reported two weeks ago. Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. In the UK (12K yesterday, down from 13K one week ago), France (14K up from 10K), Spain (17K on 11/7, up from 12K), Germany (29K, up from 25K) and Russia (26K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 216K new cases yesterday, up from 180K new cases last Wednesday. This is in contrast to places like China (112 cases), Japan (2,158), South Korea (677), Taiwan (2), Vietnam (10), Singapore (12), Australia (6) and New Zealand (3). 

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 twenty-three weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 1:28 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….21,842….23,854……..704
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………6,417…..7,062……..162
Alexandria VA……………160,530.…..…5,447……5,950………81
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….31,661….34,996…….629
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772………..109……..128…………6
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.………..212…..…232………10
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..……10,302….11,270…….151
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011….….18,662….20,080…….237
Manassas…………………..41,641….……2,331……2,440………28
Manassas Park………….…17,307…………734….….776……….8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….3,366……3,811…….22
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.………..711……….795…..…6
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567………34,159…..37,194..1,000
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308………42,190….45,345…..969
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……178,143…193,933..4,013

This is a 9% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 2.07%, which is high, but has been steadily declining. Last week, there were 103 new fatalities reported out of 15,790 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 0.65%, although there is a lag between increases in reported cases and increases in mortality. The population known to have been infected is 3.61% or one confirmed case for every 28 people.

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 3,680 cases (3,493 last week) and 39 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 2,667 cases (2,343 last week) and 36 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA has 1,958 confirmed cases (1,864 last week) and 31 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 2,161 confirmed cases (1,932 last week) and 27 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 4,260 cases this week (3,950 last week) and 16 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.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 3,860 cases yesterday. Last week it was 2,228. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down. But right now, only one of our 49 states appears to be containing the virus (Hawaii).

Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has had 744 cases (654 last week) and 4 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

Disputed Elections – week 17

The protests in Belarus drag on with no clear end in sight. The demonstrations this weekend were stated to include “thousands” of demonstrators. This is clearly a lower figure than the “tens of thousands” were have seen claimed before and from the more than a hundred thousand protestors that we saw on some of the weekends. Does that mean that the protests are losing virulence, or are they just hunkered down for the long term? The strike last month didn’t do much.

There were more the 300 protestors detained/arrested this weekend. Lukashenko and his son were banned by the Olympic committee from the games. Lukashenko leads the Belarus Olympic Committee and his son is the first vice-president of the committee.

 

 

 

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

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 35

Weekly update number 35 on the coronavirus in the DC area. This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 10,892 new cases. This is lower than last week, but it is still very high. Last week there were 11,293 new cases, the week before that 8,625 new cases, the week before that there were 7,348 new cases and the week before that 4,256 new cases. Around three months ago we had two weeks of less than 3,000 cases a week and now it has gone back up. This has slide out of control and we are still at least six months way from having a vaccine available for everyone.

In contrast, Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 19K new cases reported for yesterday, down from the 23K reported a week ago. It is bad all across Europe, but appears to be improving. In the UK (13K yesterday, up from 11K one week ago), France (4K on 11/30, down from 10K), Spain (8K, down from 12K), Germany (25K, up from 16K) and Russia (26K, up from 24K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 180K new cases yesterday, up from 173K new cases the previous Tuesday. This is in contrast to places like China (91 cases), Japan (2,014, up from 1,232), South Korea (511, up from 382), Taiwan (4), Vietnam (4), Singapore (10), Australia (11) and New Zealand (1). 

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 twenty-two weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 10:26 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….20,516……21,842….690
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………5,994…….6,417….157
Alexandria VA……………160,530.…..…5,106…..…5,447…..77
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….29,566……31,661….624
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…………..97…….…109……..6
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.…………205……….212…….9
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..……..9,717……10,302….144
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011….….17,484……18,662….235
Manassas…………………..41,641….……2,250…….2,331……28
Manassas Park………….…17,307………….713………734….…8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….3,134..…..3,366……22
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.…………674………711….…6
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..32,005….34,159….966
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..39,790….42,190…938
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……167,251…178,143…3,910

This is a 7% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 2.19%, which is high, but has been steadily declining. Last week, there were 73 new fatalities reported out of 10,892 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 0.67%, although there is a lag between increases in reported cases and increases in mortality. The population known to have been infected is 3.32% or one confirmed case for every 30 people.

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 3,493 cases (3,397 last week) and 37 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 2,343 cases (2,176 last week) and 37 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA has 1,864 confirmed cases (1,823 last week) and 31 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 1,932 confirmed cases (1,840 last week) and 27 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 3,950 cases this week (3,806 last week) and 16 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 2,228 cases yesterday. This is still not good although it is better than last week. 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 had 654 cases (597 last week) and 4 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow. It is growing a lot faster than during the summer.

Their Wehrmacht was Better than our Army

Poking around the internet, I ran across an article from 1985 by the British journalist and historian Max Hastings, rather provocatively titled “Their Wehrmacht was Better than our Army.” It was published in the Washington Post. I had not seen it before (as I went to work for Trevor Dupuy in 1987):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4-4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/

A few highlights:

  1. The language in the first couple of paragraphs is also pretty provocative. 
  2. The discussion then goes to Liddell Hart.
  3. The discussion then goes to Trevor Dupuy and Martin Van Creveld.
  4. From Dupuy: “On a man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances. This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost.”
  5. From Hastings: “A spirit of military narcissism, nourished by such films as “The Longest Day,” “A Bridge Too Far” and “The Battle of the Bulge,” was perpetuated mythical images of the Allied and German armies.”
  6. From Hastings: “Yet to be a soldier in America has never been the honorable calling, outside a few thousand Army families. It has traditionally been the route by which young men of modest origins…may aspire to build a career.”

It is worthwhile to read the entire article.

Now, these claims were controversial in the 1980s, and a number of U.S. Army officers and people out at Leavenworth personally and professionally went after Trevor Dupuy over this issue. There was a long unpleasant discussion of that story written up by the lawyer Thomas Nutter. He was going to turn into a book, but I gather that effort was never completed.

I do address the subject of the relative performance of armies in combat in Chapters 4 through 7 of my book War by Numbers. 

 

Disputed Elections – week 16

Well, the protests in Belarus drag on. Not sure where this is going. Major events this week:

  1. Thousands protested this weekend. Was it tens of thousands?
  2. They switched the protests to a “march of neighbors,” meaning instead of protesting in the heavily policed downtown, they did about 20+ separate protests across the various neighborhoods in Minsk. I gather this is an attempt to complicate the police’s job and to reduce the number of people arrested. It is a change of tactics.
  3. 313 people were detained/arrested
  4. Lukashenko claimed he would step down after a new constitution is adopted. “I am not going to shape the constitution to suit my needs. I am not going to be the president once the new constitution is in place.” He has been in power for 26 years.
  5. Have no idea what is going to be in the new constitution or when it will be completed. It does not appear that the opposition are putting much faith in the process, or have any role in it.

Anyhow, it appears to be more of the same for several more weeks. 

 

 

 

P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from last month, 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

The Soviet General Staff study on Kursk compared to Unit Records (part 3 of 3 – Conclusions)

What we did was a simple comparison of the Soviet General Staff study data on the air fighting in the south compared to the daily records we gathered from the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies. What we found was their were minor differences in the sortie counts, but overall that was close to what was reported in the unit records we had.

On the other hand, the reports on casualties was not. There were outrageously incorrect estimations of enemy losses, which is typical of Soviet accounts. But as significant, the reports of their own losses were low. In particular, our count of Second Air Army losses from 5-18 July was 481, their count was 371. This Soviet General Staff study only reported 77% of their losses. Does this mean that if I draw losses reports from the Sixteenth Air Army from the Soviet General Staff study (as I don’t have the unit records), should I “inflate” them by 30%? (the inverse of 0.77).

Added to that, they simply left out the Seventeenth Air Army losses (182 aircraft). It may have been an oversight or a deliberate effort to downplay their losses.

But, just to focus on the Second Air Army losses, the staff study has the total losses for the 5th – 18th as 371: 172 fighters, 31 bombers, and 168 assault. We have the Second Air Army’s losses for 5 to 18 July 1943, taken from their daily reports, as 481 (See Table IV.32 of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka). This includes 248 fighters, 48 bombers, 180 assault and 5 night bombers. So actual losses of the Second Air Army were 30% higher than what was reported in the Soviet General Staff study, or 28% if one leaves out the night bombers.

One does wonder about the process where even the internal classified post-operation staff studies understate their losses (in addition to many other errors). They did have the unit records available to them. In particular, their table is vastly off on the 5th of July when the Second Air Army lost 114 planes and the Soviet General Staff study reports only 78, but it consistently underreports for every single day. They also do not report the losses for the Seventeenth Air Army, which according to our count was another 182 or 221 planes lost (see Tables IV.34 and Tables IV.35). This does argue that the reported losses for the Sixteenth Air Army may be low compared to reality.

In the bigger picture, the Soviet General Staff studies are secondary sources, not primary sources. Furthermore they are secondary sources with considerable bias and errors. They invariably (grossly) overplay German losses and seemed to try to minimize their own losses. Furthermore their narrative of accounts often downplays certain aspects of their operations. They do have be used with extreme caution, as opposed to treating them as somewhat authoritative.

Now, Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson offer a similar discussion of the problems of relying on the Soviet General Staff studies in their book The Korsun Pocket: The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944. It is clear that these are secondary sources with biases that must be used with considerable caution.