We are all hoping for signs that the “curve is flattening” in each country where Coronavirus is spreading — especially in Italy, the United States, Spain, Germany, and France — just as it has already done in China, South Korea, and Iran.
For this to happen, the % growth rate of the total # of confirmed cases needs to start to decline so that there are fewer new cases each day relative to the size of the infected population.
In Italy, there are signs this is happening. The % daily growth rate has been slowly declining in recent days:
This means Italy’s number of new cases is slowing down. Covid is spreading less quickly than before. However for the curve to truly “flatten” this growth rate will need to continue to fall.
In the United States, the growth rate is still itself increasing, now at +20-30% new cases per day:
As a result in the US the overall # of new confirmed cases per day is still climbing as the spread appears to be accelerating — which could be partially explained by the increased testing efforts throughout the US, too.
In Spain, Coronavirus is still spreading with roughly the same growth rate of +20% per day:
And the same in Germany where the daily growth rate is fluctuating between +10-30%:
In France, the growth rates are approximately +20% per day, but fluctuating widely day-to-day:
In South Korea, the growth rates have already come down from ~30-40% per day down to ~0% as their curve flattened:
In Iran, the growth rate has been steadily declining, so their curve is now flattening too: