COVID-19 Monitoring

We monitor the number of confirmed cases and growth rate to understand how quickly we can expect the virus to spread. There are caveats with this last measure:

• It’s computed based on the number of confirmed cases reported. For global plots we use weekly data (Mondays), regional plots we use monthly data (last day of the month). Given that the virus has an estimated incubation period of 5 days, there are likely more sick people each day than accounted for. This is compounded by cases that simply haven’t been tested. This means we can expect the actual rate to be higher than the one reported here.
• The disease is spreading at different rates around the world. The growth chart on top aggregates cases from everywhere, so expect regional variances depending on where you are.

To better understand the impact of the growth rate, refer to the virality page. Basic guidance:

• \(\theta < 1.0\): means there are less new cases each day compared to the previous day.
• \(\theta > 1.0\): means there are more new cases each day compared to the previous day.
• \(\theta > 2.0\): means we have a very serious problem!

Note: data is pulled from the Johns Hopkins CSSE COVID-19 Data Repository, and updated daily. They have a geo dashboard with more information.