Northern Ireland: Deaths per million curve steepens. New cases getting closer to the Southern new cases. Total cases appears to be doubling roughly every 4 days now.
Republic of Ireland: New cases (200) only very slightly above new cases 10 days ago (190). New cases drop: the lowest number of new cases for six days. None of the other countries on these graphs have had a 10-day ‘stasis’ and then returned to steepening behaviour. Could we be on a 6-day plateau, or a calm before the storm? Deaths per million curve has a slight shallowing. Total cases appears to be doubling roughly every 4 days now. Logarithmic best-fit suggests 4,540 cases after 100 days (365 more than yesterday). Recovery rate very low: recovered persons take a while to recover, whereas, sadly, many deaths have come more quickly. The recovery rate should increase relatively sharply after another week. The question is: will the Republic of Ireland follow Italy or China / South Korea?
New Graph: There are two significant differences between the two Irish jurisdictions in relation to the COVID19 outbreak. Firstly, the Irish government has kept very close to the WHO recommendations on COVID19 prevention and public health measures, and has acted in concert with its EU partners. By contrast, the UK has travelled a different pathway with, for example, significantly less testing. This has caused strains in the Northern Ireland Executive where, for example, Dublin-phile parties were calling for school shutdowns while London-phile parties followed Boris Johnson’s approach. Secondly, the health system in both jurisdictions is quite different. Will the HSE and NHS both prove up to the task, or will one system prove its relative superiority? The new graph “Deaths in Ireland” may help us answer one or both of these questions. (It should be appreciated that other factors such as average life expectancy, age demographic profile and degree of urbanisation will also impact on the death rates.)
for stats and charts see my website: http://mysql02.comp.dkit.ie/mcguinnp/covid19/
“kelly salon” by susanjanegolding is licensed under CC BY
Philip McGuinness teaches at Dundalk Institute of Technology, and loves to walk around and over the wee perfect hills of the Ring Of Gullion.
