Countdown to Dec 15: how is France doing?
In case you recently emerged from under a rock, last Tuesday President Macron told the nation that we would be set free allowed to move freely IF we manage to lower the numbers further by Dec 15.
These targets were under 5000 new daily cases, and fewer than 3000 Covid patients in ICU.
Decreases so far
How long to reach these targets?
Below are projections that simply use the average daily decrease since peak to estimate how many more days are needed.
NOTE: Testing numbers lag 2 days behind ICU numbers
New cases (7-day rolling average)
Data from 2020-11-24 | |
Max Covid cases 7-day avg (2020-11-02) | 47607 |
Num days since max | 22 |
Today’s Covid cases 7-day avg | 11367 |
Dec 15 target | 5000 |
Daily avg chg rate | -0.035 |
Days needed to reach target at this rate | 4 |
Projected date to reach target | 2020-11-28 |
Looking at the plot, decreases look like they’ve slowed in the past week. This makes me think it will take more than 4 days from Nov 24, which happens to be tonight (remember: there’s a reporting lag, so the most recent test data is from 3 days ago).
Next time I do an update, I’ll project days remaining with the 7-day rate of change instead.
Another thing to look at is whether the introduction of antigen tests is affecting these numbers, which are for PCR test results only.
Covid ICU patients
Data from 2020-11-26 | |
Max Covid ICU patients (2020-11-16) | 4867 |
Num days since max | 10 |
Today’s Covid ICU patients | 3980 |
Dec 15 target | 3000 |
Daily avg chg rate | -0.018 |
Days needed to reach target at this rate | 11 |
Projected date to reach target | 2020-12-07 |
In contrast to cases, the decrease seems to be speeding up in the last 3 days. Again, will use 7-day avg change rate next time I do an update.
Overall when you compare the y-axis scales for both plots, you can see just how much longer it takes for ICU numbers to go down.