13/7/20: COVID19 Update: US vs EU27

While I was whitewater rafting over the weekend, the US of A has finally surpassed the EU27 in terms of overall death counts relating to COVID19 pandemic. This is without adjusting the figures for population size or pandemic onset timing, etc.

So here are the updated charts comparing the U.S. and the EU27:

In case numbers, the U.S. is on a clear 'lead' relative to 'slow' EU27. The latter has smashed the curve, the former is 'enjoying' a public health disaster befitting a country with no real public health institutions:

Or illustrated from a different angle:

Like a mighty Ford F150 smashing the puny Euro Fiat 500, the U.S. totally dominates the chart of new COVID19 cases... you know, if only we could force China and Mexico to buy more of those in a new trade deal... 

 

And U.S. public health system, the pride of the nation and both President Trump and his competitor, Joe Biden, is firing on all cylinders:

Sarcasm aside, and recognizing the genuine nature of this tragedy, it is mind-boggling to think how the U.S. tolerates this level of leadership incompetence. If peak levels of deaths from COVID19 were coming from older patients (not that such a reality should have been acceptable in the first place), we are now witnessing increasing numbers of younger patients dying from the virus.

13/7/20: COVID19 Update: Worldwide Cases and Deaths

The COVID19 Pandemic is far from over. It is, in fact, is far from slowing down.

Worldwide new cases arrivals are still raging at a medium-term increasing rates:

Much of this growth, commented on in the chart above, is coming from the emerging and developing economies, with lower rates of testing, implying the true extent of the pandemic is much greater than thee official stats reflect.

Deaths counts are now trending at an elevated level, compared to the trough around late May and early June, caused by the crushing of the curve in Europe. Since then, U.S. and emerging economies' deaths counts have overtaken the trend.

Consistent with the comments above, growth rates in new cases remain positive and growth rates in deaths are now also in the positive territory:

Two summary tables for key descriptive statistics, covering G7+ advanced economies and BRIICS economies:

Put simply, we are heading into the period of new economic restrictions in the U.S. and pressures are mounting in MENA and Latin America to impose or maintain stricter controls on public mobility. The pandemic is still in Wave 1, and this wave is still accelerating.

13/7/20: COVID19, Self-Employed and Contingent Workforce

Self-employed workers rarely get any systemic/analytical attention from policymakers and business analysts. Despite their huge importance in modern economies. This especially applies to the current environment, impacted by COVID19, in which policy tools used to offer some security of income and jobs tenure as an insurance against the pandemic have been focused almost exclusively on protections and supports to regular employees and employers, leaving the self-employed outside the safety nets.

Germany's ifo Institute did some interesting research on the topic of self-employed and the impact of COVID19 on them. ifo's study found that 66% of the self-employed "recorded declines in sales" during the pandemic, as opposed to just 20% of those in more secure workforce positions. Per ifo: "...the vast majority of blue- and white-collar workers and civil servants (80 percent) have not suffered any loss of salary as a result of the coronavirus crisis". Furthermore, "More than half (61 percent) of the self-employed were unable to work at all or worked only to a limited extent during the pandemic. ... Among the self-employed, it has particularly affected women who are single parents, 85 percent of whom had to reduce or completely stop their activities. Among dependent employees, meanwhile, it is low earners, secondary school graduates, and blue-collar workers who have suffered the most."

10/7/20: COVID19 Update: Sweden v Nordics

Sweden has been continuing its uncontested-by-anyone-else march toward thee non-existent 'herd immunity':

And the pipeline of upcoming intensive care patients seems to be un-abating:

In the mean time, the rest of the Nordics have crushed the curve. And this is without inclusion of Iceland. 

Personally, I cannot understand how Sweden's resident are tolerating this, but... who knows... 

10/7/20: COVID19 Update: US vs EU27

Updating charts on the U.S. vs EU27 comparatives for COVID19 pandemic:

U.S. is now one day away from catching up with the EU27 in terms of total deaths, even without adjusting for the larger EU27 population:

Note: since higher rates of testing - per 1 million population - should result in earlier and better detection of the COVID19 cases, and since the U.S. population is younger, demographically, than that of the EU27, one should expect U.S. death rates peer 1 million of population to be lower than those in the EU27. This difference should furthermore favour the U.S. due to the fact that Europe experienced much earlier onset of community contagion, when neither testing nor treatment were widely available and as accurate/effective as they are today.

U.S. vs EU27 cases and deaths - daily arrivals:

The charts above clearly show that the EU27 have managed to 'crush the curve' of contagion and deaths, while the U.S. shows no signs of success in dealing with the pandemic.

Here is a more direct comparative between the U.S., EU27 and other major advanced economies:

10/7/20: COVID19 Update: World Cases and Deaths

Updating COVID19 data through today's ECDC release:

Worldwide, new cases are at a historic high of 227,756, reaching above 200K in three days in a row. In the last 7 days, we have had highest, second and third highest daily counts on record. This is despite the fact that testing remains spotty in higher growth geographies (emerging and developing economies). The trend is accelerating, as well (see last chart, blue line).

Deaths:

 In the last seven days, we had three days with daily deaths counts ranked in top 50 overall. The trend remains elevated, but relatively steady. As the chart below shows (orange line), rates of growth in daily deaths are now positive, once again:

The above presents a serious problem to the idea of opening international travel. Simple 'exclusion' or 'quarantine' rules applied to countries that remain hot spots of COVID19 pandemic are not sufficient to prevent pandemic growth re-accelerating in the countries which managed to significantly depress the curve, as international travellers can use different entry points relative to their point of origin.

10/7/20: America's Scariest Charts Updated

Updating my series of 'America's Scariest Charts' for the latest data releases this week.

First: continued unemployment claims for data through the week of June 27th.

Continued unemployment claims fell from 18,760,000 in the week of June 20 to 18,062,000 in the week of June 27. Continued claims are now down 6,850,000 from their pandemic-period peak, which implies a decline of 978,571 per week since the peak. Based on the last two weeks' average weekly decline, it will take around 28 weeks to return continued unemployment claims to the pre-COVID19 levels.

Now, putting current crisis into historical perspective, the following chart uses log scale to show COVID19 recession experience in relation to all past recessions:

Next, new unemployment claims for the week of July 4, 2020. New claims in that week stood at 1,399,699, down slightly on the new claims in the eek prior at 1,431,343. Table below provides a summary:

Updated non-farm payrolls forecast for July 2020, based on June data for payrolls and the first data for July on changes in unemployment claims:

Average duration of unemployment is still completely swamped by the force and speed of the COVID19 onset, but is rising toward recession-consistent above-average territory:

8/7/20: On a Long-Enough Timeline, This Is Not Sustainable

Something will have to give, and on an increasingly more proximate timeline, although we have no idea when that timeline runs its course...

In basic terms, U.S. Bonds yields are only sustainable as long as:

1. There remains a market-wide faith that the U.S. Government will not deflate itself out of the fiscal mess it has managed to run, virtually un-interrupted, since at least 1980 on; 
2. There remains a regulatory coercion into the U.S. Government bonds being 'risk-free' capital 'instruments'; and
3. There remains vast appetite for the U.S. dollar as the store of value instrument for everyone - from migrants and legitimate business people in the politically questionable jurisdictions to drug dealers.

Which puts a serious question mark over how long can the U.S. Treasury afford to escalate weaponization of the dollar.

7/7/20: Presidential 'Porkies' Series 4, Episode 99,732

So, we have a new Presidential Pearl of Dumbness: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280209106826125313?s=20. I have compiled some earlier summaries of the same here: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/05/2452020-trumpassery-of-coronavirus.html.

Accompanied by an academic institution's direct fact-checking:

And the actual facts, without the need for media interpreations:

Why are we focusing on countries with > 25,000 cases as in above, instead on looking at global (every country) comparatives? Because COVID19 pandemic is the large numbers case. Countries with fewer cases, especially cases per capita, are experiencing much more volatile dynamics in daily data, which can easily skew comparatives.

So here are the descriptive stats for the group of 51 countries, plus EU27 as a whole, that provide some decent comparatives for the U.S.:

Q1: Is the U.S.'s 'case-fatality rate', or the number of deaths per 1,000 of reported cases, the lowest in the world? 

A: No. Average case-fatality rate for 51 countries with highest number of total cases is 45.5. In the U.S. it is 44.34. Statistically, the U.S. is average in this metric. If we are to exclude the U.S. from the sample (to avoid 'double-counting') and exclude the UK and the EU27 - the set of countries with an earlier onset of the pandemic - the U.S. 'case-fatality rate' is above the average (36.5 is the upper bound for the confidence interval around the average). The U.S. 'case-fatality rate' ranks 20th highest in the group of 51 countries with more than 25,000 cases total.

Q2: Is U.S.'s death rate, or the number of deaths per 1 million of population, the lowest in the world?

A: No. Not by a mile. In fact, the U.S. death rate at 398.3 per 1 million is above the average for 51 countries (170.3) and above the upper boundary of the 95% confidence interval around the average (232.4).  The U.S. death rate' ranks 7th highest in the group of 51 countries with more than 25,000 cases total.

So, Mr. President is shooting the proverbial verbal porkies once again...  In fact, as the next post will show, the U.S. is a basket case when it comes to COVID19 outcomes even compared to the already basket case of the EU27. Alas, unlike the EU27, the U.S. does not have an excuse of being forced to deal with the pandemic in its earliest global development stages, when knowledge and better practices around the pandemic were not available to policymakers. Stay tuned... 

6/7/2020: Irish Services Sector Activity Index: May 2020

COVID19 impact on services sectors activity in Ireland, data through May 2020:

Huge adverse impact on the economy. Note precautionary purchasing effect on Retail sales in the difference between Wholesale & Retail index and Wholesale sub-index. And some recovery in May, compared to 1Q 2020. But overall, conditions are still dire. And we are not yet seeing the effects of consumer behavior changes on post-restrictions demand. That is still coming...

Forward industry view (ex-behavioral aspects) for June 2020, via Purchasing Managers Index:

6/7/20: Updated: 2Q 2020 Composite and Services PMIs for BRICs

As promised earlier (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/07/3720-services-composite-pmis-q2-2020.html), here are the BRIC Services and Composite PMIs for 2Q 2020 with updated Global PMIs. Note: my charts show quarterly PMIs, derived from the Markit's monthly data.

Services sectors:

As the above shows, 2Q 2020, Services sector growth in India and Russia lagged Global sector activity.

Manufacturing:

India, Russia and Brazil manufacturing sector activity lagged Global activity in 2Q 2020. The same three BRIC economies also lagged Global Composite PMI development:

Per Markit release, here are the main developments in Global PMIs on monthly basis:

Manufacturing Index Summary:

There are robust forward expectations in all sectors of the Global PMIs, per above. Input prices are rising, but output prices continue to contract, albeit at shallower rates. Employment is still falling in both sectors. New business is still contracting, albeit at a slower rate, with exports declining sharper than domestic orders.

Overall, the numbers are still indicating ongoing contraction through June for BRICs and for the Global economy.

Looking at monthly PMIs, China and Brazil posted above 50.0 readings in June for Manufacturing, and China also posted a highly robust growth signal for Services. Brazil posted deeply contractionary June Services PMI reading, while Russia shows contraction ongoing (but at a shallower rate than in May) in both sectors. India posted continued decline in Manufacturing and a sharp continued contraction in Services. These numbers put a question mark over the prospect for a V-shaped recovery. April 2020 marks the trough of PMIs-signalled growth in the BRICs. We now have second month in a row of rising PMIs readings, but the indices are still below 50 line. On a quarterly basis, however, 1Q 2020 marks the BRICs recession in terms of PMIs signals (Composite country indices), with 2Q 2020 posting shallower rates of decline compounding 1Q 2020 drops.

4/7/20: COVID19 Update: US vs EU27

Updating U.S. vs EU27 charts. Main conclusions in the charts, so click to enlarge these:

Death rates and deaths: key here, the U.S. is now within four-five days from completely overtaking the EU27 in the number of total fatalities, without even adjusting for the population size:

Of course, the U.S. already has higher death rates than the EU27, once we adjust for population differences.

And U.S. cases are roaring ahead. In fact, the U.S. leads the world in new cases additions, having overtaken this week its own abysmal record peak levels:

Daily death counts are not falling in the U.S. on-trend, despite what you hear from people focused solely on week-on-week comparatives:

The above two charts paint a painfully ugly picture for the U.S. pandemic developments:

1. EU27 are relaxing their COVID19 restrictions against the backdrop of new cases and deaths counts being below the levels when the restrictions were introduced. The U.S. is doing the same against the backdrop of severely elevated and rising new cases, well ahead of the numbers that prompted original restrictions introductions. The U.S. is also relaxing restrictions at the time when daily deaths counts are running well above those that warranted introduction of restrictions.
2. Notably, the U.S. deaths cases counts are of questionable quality at higher frequency analysis. What does this mean? U.S. local authorities report deaths with severe lags, especially for deaths that do not take place in the hospitals. Even hospitals have significant lags in reporting deaths data. This means that we cannot use daily frequency data for true insights into death rates dynamics. Looking at the data from mid-June through July 4, daily death rates are statistically static, not declining. 
3. U.S. death rates per capita are currently more than 30 percent higher than those in the EU27. This is a cumulative gap, and it is growing so far. As of July 4th data (this is ECDC data, so covers July 3), U.S. death rate per 1 million of population was 32 percent above that of the EU27. A week before, the same rate was 29 percent higher in the U.S. and two weeks ago, the gap was 23 percent. The U.S. moved six percentage points within two weeks.
4. U.S. public compliance with social distancing and other safety measures has been an unmitigated disaster. The reason is more than the lack of coordination between the local authorities. The U.S. has politicized masks and social distancing, thanks to Mr. Trump and his supporters. The U.S. has also politicized safety behavior. The same is not the case in Europe, although there are reports of lax compliance with safety norms in many parts of the continent. 

All of the above strongly implies that the U.S. is now well-set to witness a new and stronger wave of pandemic contagion. This is happening in the middle of the summer and with weather conditions that should be favoring reduction in contagion, as opposed to its acceleration.