17/4/20: Error Runs in COVID19 reported data

In my previous post, I referenced some preliminary stats relating to my analysis of significant outliers in the data on the number of cases reported by different countries (see: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/04/17420-covid19-updated-charts-and.html). Here are more detailed results:

By country (listing only countries with > 5,000 cases as of April 17, 2020):

And a summary set of statistics (top part is for countries > 5,000 cases and bottom part for countries with > 1,000 cases):

By way of explaining: I have used two methods for detecting observations of 'suspect quality' or 'outliers':

• Firstly, I am only focusing on outliers below the 'normal reporting trend' (potential under-reported observations);
• Secondly, I use two criteria (labeled 1. and 2. in the tables above): 1. relates to the cases where an observation is below the trend and reported day count is < 20 cases; 2. relates to the cases where an observation is below the trend and reported day count is < 50

In all of the above, I am only looking at 'suspect' observations after the date when the country in question reported its first 50 or higher daily count. The reason for this is that it is a commonly accepted view that during the early stages of contagion (small number of cases reported daily), the data does not exhibit a trend.

Final explanation: for trend, I used country-fitted power law trends.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions about different countries, based on this data, but for those interested in my insights:

Highest death rate so far on per capita basis is observed in 

• Belgium at 425.2 persons per 1 million of population, with decent quality of data (potential error range of 0%-9.5%)
• Spain at 409.4 persons per 1 million of population, with very strong data quality (0%-2.3% potential error range)
• Italy at 366.9 persons per 1 million of population, with zero potential error in cases reporting
• France at 267.5 persons per 1 million of population and zero potential error in reported cases
• UK at 206.5 persons per 1 million of population and zero to 2.5% potential error in reported cases.

The above results broadly remain unchanged when one controls for duration of the contagion period (number of days since > 50 cases were reported for the first time).

Highest rates of infection (per 1 million of population) have been recorded in

• Spain - 3,913
• Switzerland - 3,129
• Belgium - 3,048
• Italy - 2,796
• Ireland - 2,743

Adjusting for the days since the onset of contagion, the rates of infection are the highest in:

• Spain - 91 per day in contagion stage
• Ireland - 85.45
• Switzerland - 74.51
• Belgium - 72.56
• Portugal - 53.9

Adjusting for the days since the onset of contagion, the rates of infection are the lowest in:

• India 0.37
• China 0.67
• Indonesia 0.69
• Pakistan 1.03
• Japan 1.72