A Statistical Look at the Spread of Covid-19: What it Means for the US

Reports on the continuing spread of the Covid-19 disease pervade the news media, but these reports are very impressionistic. Statistical material is rudimentary at best, consisting primarily of dramatic reports on rising numbers of cases and deaths. Even though daily statistics on numbers of cases of deaths, recovery rates, and mild vs serious cases are readily available, virtually no comprehensive statistical study has been done of these numbers to see what they can tell us about the nature of the spread of the disease in general, and the impact of the disease on the US in particular. This study is one of the first comprehensive statistical analyses of the daily spread of the disease. Although it uncovers several significant disparities between the statistics in the world and US, more significantly it demonstrates how the US has become integrated into a Global Virus Community, in which there now is a general synchronicity between the statistics in the world and the US. That means that if there is a trend worldwide, it also will be replicated in the US. This study predicts that the overall mortality rate will fall below 1.0%, and that by the end of December the total number of deaths worldwide will be between 1,350,000 and 1,500,000, and in the US will be between 317,000 and 450,000.