How to strike the mid-Jul Covid 19 Jackpot

The DG of MOH said that the target is to have zero cases by mid-Jul 2020.

This is a fantastic jackpot to strike.  But what are the odds?

To achieve this

• We should not have any cases immediately from the locals, foreign workers and in-coming visitors
• The number of cases under treatment should also reach zero by mid-Jul

I don’t want to pour cold water over the efforts but to achieve this a couple of things must happen

1)  Starting from today, we must have zero cases.  

Covid 19 has a 14 days incubation period.  To be certain that we are Covid 19 free by mid-Jul, it must mean that there should not be any more cases immediately.

Is this possible?  Remember the story about how New Zealand had almost a 3 week period when there was no case only to be caught by visitors coming into the country.

2) That points to Malaysia's second problem. 

The chart below shows the number of imported Covid 19 cases over the past 2 weeks. 

We seem to have a continuous stream of people entering the country.  

• At first, it was mainly students.  
• A few days ago, MOH reported that some of those infected were foreigners with special work permit

According to MOH, from 10 Jun to 27 Jun, MOH has screened 6,609 individuals at KLIA.  6,573 were found negatives and told to self-quarantine at home. 36 found positives were hospitalized.

It seems that police have conducted checks on 427 home quarantine cases and all complied with the SOP.  

So apart from those found positive at the airport, there are potential cases among those quarantined.

And these are the legitimate travelers.

What about the illegals?  

 

3)  Then we have those still under treatment.  

As of 27th Jun, there are still 187 patients in hospitals.  The numbers have been coming down over the past 14 days as can be seen from the chart below.

But technically, it would not go to zero by mid-Jul.

You can see that while it is declining, it is not a straight line as there are new cases coming in.  So if I project this mathematically at the same compounded rate as the past 14 days, it would take more than a month to get it close to zero.

OK, we can debate whether the decline would be a % rate or some fixed number rate.  But I am very confident that it would not be zero by mid-Jul.

I am not saying that the average number of daily cases would not be reduced further or that the number of people under treatment would not come down.

I am just saying the MOH jackpot target is not supported by the trends.

Covid 19 is one of the few socio-economic (?) phenomenon that mathematical models can give a better picture than just some opinion.

That is why President Trump is doomed to failure in his Covid 19 war.

Short of a miracle vaccine before the end of the year, it would be a miracle if the number of deaths in the US does not touch 200,000.

Without even talking about exponential growth, a simple straight-line projection would show that by mid-Jul the US would touch 70,000 cases per day.

I think a 2-week forecast is pretty safe because no matter what they do tomorrow (and there will not be a lockdown), the effect will take 2 weeks to be felt.

So the next 2 weeks will see the impact of what has happened over the past 2 weeks. 

US currently has a 5 % case mortality.  So in the worst case, I expect that there would be 3,000 odd daily deaths.

I expect the actual numbers to be lower as I believe this round, there are more younger people being infected so that the mortality rate would be lower.

This is the logic of why the mortality rate in Singapore is low.  The majority of those infected are the migrant workers and I would imagine that they are definitely below 50 years old.

Pulling the numbers together

• with about 180 days till the end of the year and 
• assuming 2,000 deaths per day, 
• the US currently has about 125,000 deaths 
• 200,000 deaths by year-end looks very likely

At a time when I thought that I would have run out of any meaningful statistical analysis because the Malaysian cases have come down so low, the US is providing fresh data

Hooray, for President Trump to give hope to all the mathematical modeler a new lease of life.

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.