Mystics & Statistics

Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 38

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.

Excess Mortality

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. 

I did notice an article published yesterday by AP about the estimated number of deaths in the United States for 2020: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-deaths-2020-top-3-223015097.html

Highlights:

  1. Around 3.2 million Americans have died of all causes in 2020.
    1. There were 2,854,838 deaths in 2019.
    2. Deaths usually rise by 20,000 to 50,00 each year.
  2. Excess deaths for 2020 is around 400,000 more than 2019.
  3. These are preliminary figures.
  4. This is an increase is total deaths by 15% from 2019 to 2020.
  5. The increase from 1917 to 1918 (Spanish Flu) was 46%.

So, it does appear that the U.S. excess death totals are in line with the reported number of cases recorded as died of Coronavirus.

Disputed Elections – week 19

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.”

A couple of personal stories:

  1. Jewish female Belarussian WWII sniper arrested: https://www.jta.org/2020/12/16/global/this-holocaust-survivor-in-belarus-was-fined-for-flying-a-symbolic-protest-flag-shes-not-backing-down
  2. Miss Belarus 2008 released: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/miss-belarus-2008-released-after-42-days-in-prison-for-anti-government-protests/ar-BB1c6ITc?%25253Bpfr=1%253Fc
  3. The IIHF (Hockey) championships banned in Russia but not Belarus: https://tass.com/sport/1236889

 

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.

Staff Reference Guide

The U.S. Army Staff Reference Guide, Volume I: Unclassified Resources, December 2020, ATP 5-0.2-1 has been released.

Link to it is here: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN31193-ATP_5-0.2-1-000-WEB-1.pdf

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:

  1. Page xi: “Acknowledgements”: four references, two for Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy and two to his son Arnold C. Dupuy,. Ph.D.
  2. Page 220: Table D-6. Division opposed rates of advance (km/day). I will have more comments about this table later.
  3. Page 285. Paragraph G-162, Casualty Estimates: Two references. I will probably have a blog post about this later.
  4. 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

 

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