Abstract
The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) epidemic started in late 2019, and was upgraded to a pandemic on March 11, 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). Well established epidemiological models have been used over the last few months in an attempt to predict how the virus would spread. The predictions were frightening, and the resulting panic caused many governments to impose lockdowns or other severe restrictions, with lasting effects. This short paper discusses another way of looking at the spread of COVID-19, by focusing on the daily rate of infection, defined as the daily rate of increase in the number of infected persons. It is shown that the daily rate is monotonically decreasing, after a short initial period, in all countries, and that the pattern is similar in all countries. This appears to be a universal phenomenon. Based on these calculations, the April 1, 2020 data for Western Europe were sufficient to predict the beginning of the end of COVID-19 in that region before the end of that month.
Highlights
At the time of writing, in May 2020, the corona- data allow analysis of the rate of spread
Looking at my calculations based on the actual data of March 25, a clear pattern was discovered: a monotonic decrease of the average daily rate of increase in the number of infected persons
I included a prediction, that the rate of increase of the total number of COVID-19 infections would decrease, before the end of April, to below 1.05 in most of Western Europe, which would enable most of the countries to start relaxing restrictions
Summary
At the time of writing, in May 2020, the corona- data allow analysis of the rate of spread. The most serious problem in this context is the reliability and the meaning of the available data, both as to the number of infected persons and to the number of deaths due to COVID-19. We might think that the number of deaths is iron-clad and totally reliable for comparative evaluation, but even the definitions for attributing deaths to COVID-19 are not identical in all countries.[1] For example, in some countries, the death of a person who has not been previously identified as being infected will not be attributed to the virus. The definitions for a COVID-19related death changed in the same country, often for political reasons (France, UK, and the USA are prominent examples).[2,3]
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