Tale of a Death Toll foretold: Predictions for 3rd of May

Covid19, to use its "proper" name, has spread around the world, with an unknown death toll so far, and an unknown eventual death toll. In the developed world, the death toll is fairly well understood, and predictable. For example, I predict that by the 3rd of May, just under two weeks from the date of writing this, there will be:

80,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the United States, and 
29,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the UK

How can I make that prediction? I look at the number of cases, and extrapolate the number of coming deaths. It really is not that difficult, and having done so over a week ago, I was able to confirm that the methodology, as blunt a tool as this is, results in projections that tracked fairly closely to actual death toll through the following week.

For countries that have adequate testing programmes (adequate, not good) that enable them to identify cases presenting at hospitals or doctors, these simple extrapolations work. 

This does not work for the entire world, and if anything serves to confirm that the global death toll will be far higher than any numbers that we can estimate from reported cases. There are too many parts of the world where there is inadequate counting of actual cases. This is especially true for underdeveloped or as we like to call them these days, developing countries. 

Ecuador, a lovely country of warm and welcoming people, is suffering terribly. Early on there was the hope that warm weather countries would be spared the pandemic. This was not the case. Unfortunately, as a developing country, Ecuador has a limited healthcare system; effective and good quality for the rich, but completely inadequate for handling something approaching Covid-19. Earlier, in late March there were reports of the first case in Ecuador, and by early April the news was simply terrible. 

As of today (April 21, 2020) Ecuador officially reports a total of 10,000 cases, with 500 deaths. But these are the confirmed numbers only. On the 13th of April, France24 was reporting that close to 800 bodies had been collected from people's homes.

"The number we have collected with the task force from people's homes exceeded 700 people," said Jorge Wated, who leads a team of police and military personnel created by the government to help with the chaos unleashed by COVID-19. He later said Sunday on Twitter that the joint task force, in operation for the past three weeks, had retrieved 771 bodies from homes and another 631 from hospitals, whose morgues are full.

Eventually, Guayaquil city reported that the first two weeks of April saw an almost unimaginable spike in death, with bodies literally lying in the streets, and there had been almost 6000 additional deaths. The BBC reported: 

The government said 6,700 people died in Guayas province in the first two weeks of April, far more than the usual 1,000 deaths there in the same period.

How does this relate to the US and the UK?

The single biggest difference is the ability of the "developed" countries to test. And yet, both the US and the UK have been "late to the party" when it comes to testing, and because of that, the virus has spread much further through their populations then they are willing to admit or prove (or prove otherwise).

So returning to the original purpose of this post, the projected death tolls in the US and the UK on the 3rd of May, just under two weeks from today.

How did I get to those estimates?

It was observed some time ago that deaths tend to be delayed by two weeks from the date of confirmation of the diagnosis. That means that the news cases today will result in an estimated number of deaths in two weeks time. By taking the historical data from this pandemic, we can calculate the percentage of people reported as confirmed cases that may die. For example, if 10,000 cases are confirmed on a given day, and the mortality rate was 3%, then we can predict that in two weeks were will be 300 deaths. 

Now, this is an extremely blunt instrument of a calculation of future deaths.

But for the past week, I have been watching that blunt instrument, and it has held directionally correct, with daily peaks and troughs suggesting it is either too aggressive or too meek. 

Therefore I updated my charts, and fed in last weeks numbers through the 19th, and this is what it tells me:

The US numbers will continue to grow to reach 80,000 on the 3rd of May. These deaths are already "baked in" to the existing numbers of cases. And as there will most certainly be many more cases, it is safe (if that is a word that I want to use right now) that the total will be much higher. 

Remember that these expected deaths are based on cases already reported and confirmed across the United States. 

Looking at the UK, the situation is no better. My prediction for the UK is 29,900 deaths by the 3rd or May. This uses the same blunt instrument. Again, tracking the totals over the past week have convinced me that this methodology is directionally correct. Certain I hope that it is out significantly on this high side.

Based on the fact that so many deaths are already "baked in", my expectation is that the total UK death toll by the end of May, with the hope that the peak is in or is very close, will still be around 40,000 deaths.

These numbers or terrible, and each is a lost family member, a friend, a grandparent, parent sibling. There will be time later to look back and learn from the responses of government both countries, and certainly for all of us to look at what we need to do to help developing countries avoid this in the future. 

But to be clear, it does not take significant computing or mental power to run projections based on what has already happened, We are not talking about what will happen, because we don't want to, not because we cannot predict what will happen.







Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician, I do not play one on TV, and if fact I do not even know how to spell sadistics.

How to Bribe a policeman

Is "petty corruption" the same as major corporate or central government corruption?

When flagged down for a minor driving offense, an acquaintance was told by the male and female police officers that this would be a $75 fine. Okay, said the acquaintance, you’re right, I was wrong, write me the ticket and we'll all the on our ways. If only it was so simple. Driving in Panama City can be very difficult, and while a right turn from the inner of three lanes is considered normal, it is possible to break the road code, indeed this is what happened.

First, this is not a comment advocating corruption, or bribing policemen, or bribing anyone else for that matter. This is a comment on the reality of life in Panama, and no doubt in many other countries. Bribery is "normal" in so many places and situation; sometimes petty as I'm going to describe, while at other times major such as the brown envelop scandals of Siemens and Odebrecht, and the Asset Seizure Program in the United States.

Odebrecht is the current poster-child for massive corporate corruption, having bribed its way to successful bids for major infrastructure projects across Latin America. One estimate is that Odebrecht paid out over $780 million in bribes, with investigations and arrests under way in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and other countries. This was corruption on a massive scale, and has already brought down at least one government.

Unlike corporate corruption, in too many countries, including Panama and the United States, to name just two, police forces are under-funded, and in many cases, police officers are poorly paid. In some cases, they are so poorly paid that they cannot, on their salaries, feed their families and buy their uniforms. An unfortunate position to place the protectors of social order, including general ethical standards.

In the United States, police budgets are boosted by something called the Asset Seizure Program ("Civil Forfeiture" program), a process by which police can declare that you had the intent to use your assets to commit a crime, or that those assets were gained as a result of criminal activity. Of course, if you can prove that you are innocent, in as much as you did not commit a crime to afford your car, and if you can prove that you did not plan to commit a crime such as buying drugs with the $200 (or $2000) that you have on you, then they will give those assets back to you. You will need to hire a lawyer and go to court, so in many cases, even fighting will cost you more than the assets sieved. US police forces boosted their budgets by $4.5 billion in 2014, more that the total reported value of property reported stolen in burglaries that year.

This can better the described as Kleptocratic behavior on the part of a government. Top-down corruption, if you will.

But coming back to Panama, and our friend stopped by the police.

"A ticket would be a bad thing for your record" the police said, "there is probably a better way to handle this". According to the story we were told, the driver then figured out what was being suggested, and decided to play along, with no desire or intent to pay a bribe. "What do you mean?" She is European, and Northern European, and the thought of bribing a policeman for any reason was deeply repugnant to her way of thinking.

Well, they said, if you were, for example, to pay the fine on the spot, it would of course be reduced, and there would be no need to add it to your permanent record. "Okay", she said, "can I pay it right now at the police station?"

Well that wouldn't be very convenient, would it? So they asked for her passport, which you are required to have with you at all times in Panama. She handed it over, and they looked at it, and handed it back. "There seems to be something missing" she was told. Again, she played dumb.

This carried on for a short while, with the two police looking at each other, wondering about just how dim this woman could possibly be. This was a perfectly normal transaction, and they were confused as to why this wasn't going to script.

So they passed her a red notebook, and in their frustration, said "Look, the way it works is that you put a $20 in the notebook, and everyone is happy." And with no option being given, and instead of the $75 fine that she would legitimately have had to pay for a real ticket, she took a $20, put into the red notebook as instructed, and handed the notebook back to the police.

And yes, that was the end of the story. They then very politely wished her on her way, as if nothing had happened. The law had been upheld, she had been fined for breaking the law. They did their job in pointing that out to her, and giving her an option that did not include wasting her time and theirs, and costing her more money. And they were paid what is in effect the top-up to their salaries that is expected.

Does any of this excuse or condone what was done. Was the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) law broken, or the UK Bribery Act broken? Most surely, a foreign official, two actually, were paid a bribe.

Am I suggesting a moral equivalence between the individual police extracting bribes when minor infringements happen, and the crimes of Odebrecht, Siemens and the US national and state governments? Actually, I would suggest that the bigger evil, not just because of the bigger amounts involved, is the US Asset Seizure Program. This is the nation-state acting as the organized criminal enterprise. Odebrecht and Siemens were crooked, not doubt about that, and used capitalist incentives to illegally entice officials to win sales. The local police who use these tactics to pay for uniforms, food and housing, and schooling for their children, all within an existing and established culture that has effectively established a price for infringements, is the lesser evil by far.

Corruption starts at the top, and the messages from the top determine if a society is corrupt. In the case of the police in Panama, are they individually more corrupt than company executives, or less (or more) than local and national police forces that use extra-judicial seizure of assets? The higher the corruption starts and is justified, the greater the rot it contributes to and create in a society.