South Korea Coronavirus Outbreak Data Analysis Warning Rate of Infection is Exponential!

Politics / Pandemic Feb 26, 2020 - 06:09 PM GMT

The latest Coronavirus / COVID19 pandemic news has South Korea effectively declaring a national emergency as the nations Coronavirus cases continue to rocket ever higher, now totaling 1261 infected and 12 deaths, this despite deploying immense resources towards containment. Meanwhile the basket case north of the border with far greater cross border travel with China apparently has zero cases, whilst reports continue of mass cremations taking place.

Therefore given the reliability of South Korea's monitoring and systems, then the outbreak in this nation is likely a more accurately reflect of what for outbreaks in the West than China's statistics, that everyone now agrees have grossly under reported the true number of infections AND deaths by several magnitudes. Where my recent in-depth analysis concluded that Chinese reported cases are under reported by at least X7, and deaths by X2.

South Korea Coronavirus WARNING to the World!

Reliable South Korean data warns of literally exponential spread of the virus in the early days of outbreaks, where R0 rather than being 2 to 2.6 as being the consensus view instead South Korean data calculates R0 to 4.6 ! Literally explosive growth in the number of infections before a nations healthcare system is able to respond, this explosive early growth is likely as a consequence that those infected can be asymptomatic for between 3 and 7 days and a few super spreads for as many as 14 days! Who unbeknown are literally infecting dozens of people per day who themselves go onto infect several each..

South Korean data shows an initial explosive growth starting on the 19th of February that saw 20 new cases (new outbreak) testing positive, next day that number more than doubled to 53 as the authorities desperately attempted to track down contacts, doubling again on the 21st to 100, again on the 22nd, and only slowing by day 5 as huge deployment of resources including shutting down a whole city.

Thus South Korea is the model for the expected pattern of spread. Explosive growth that only slows when extreme actions are taken to shut down the movement of people within in infected areas.

So folks don't be lulled into any false sense of complacency because the initial outbreaks are EXPLOSIVE! The number of infected can literally go from zero to 1000 in days! And that is WITH an effective response to outbreaks to contain the rate of expansion of infected numbers. Another example of which we are already witnessing take place is in Italy which is experiencing a similar pattern of explosive growth soon following the detection of Coronavirus in a few small towns in Northern Italy.

If developed nations such as Italy and South Korea can barely manage to control outbreaks, then imagine what is likely to take place in nations without robust healthcare and emergency response systems and / or their political systems unable to respond to outbreaks in a timely manner, the case in point being IRAN!

IRAN both lacks the infrastructure and the systems to respond to Coronavirus outbreaks hence the disaster we are witnessing unfold where likely several thousands are infected, and many hundreds have died, all whilst the totalitarian state reports just 50 infected and 12 deaths.

And Iran is far from being considered the worst able to respond to the virus, to that we turn to Africa that likely already has major uncontrolled outbreaks underway that will only make the light of day when the body bags start piling up in their hundreds.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 79 - 25th Feb 2020 Update

My forecast for the total number of infections and deaths by 25th of Feb 2020 vs reported and estimated:

	Infections	Deaths
Forecast	737000	25000
Reported Actual	80997	2770
Probable	549391	5540
% Diff	75%	22%

Were this trend to continue into the end of February 2020 then the number of infected would total 745,000 , whilst the number of deaths would total 7,500. So the latest data implies a lower spread and mortality rate of about 1%, which is close to what South Korea is currently reporting.

Again for methodology behind the estimated probable number of infections and deaths see my recent video -

Coronavirus Pandemic Outside China Update - 25th Feb 2020

Whilst China's infection numbers cannot be trusted, meanwhile the developed worlds numbers should prove more accurate, at least in the early stages of the pandemic. Though we still have two gaping holes on the world Map i.e. Africa and Central & South America, to imagine that there is just 1 infection in Egypt and 1 in Brazil is delusional, given the comings and goings of upwards of 1 million chinese workers across the continents, instead the infected number in Africa and South America already likely runs into the several thousands that as of yet remain unrecorded, so expect a sharp spike in numbers at some point when the degree of infection is acknowledged.

Despite lack of recording of African and the America's numbers, the number of infections outside of China has leapt overnight by 504 to 2933, now above my trend forecast that total 129,250 infections by the end of March 2020.

UK Coronavirus Trend Forecast Day 29 - 25th Feb 2020 Update

The total number of infections recorded in the UK continues to hold steady at 13, which in my opinion is just the calm before the coronavirus storm as my forecast as of 14th Feb 2020 concluded in infected to trend to 5000 by the end of March resulting in 90 deaths. As analysis of what has happened in South Korea illustrates that outbreaks are explosive, soon jumping from 1 to 1000 infected in a matter of days..

The bottom line is that most western nations are still in the calm before the coronavirus storm change where outbreaks could spread a near r5.0 in the first few days of an outbreak, which means the uK having just 13 managed cases is nothing to get complacent about for there WILL be outbreaks in the UK that will be just as bad as in South Korea and closer still Italy, it is only a matter of time that should not be wasted but rather utilised to prepare for. Perhaps an app that warns citizens on whether they are entering a coronavirus risk area and how big the risks are.

Stock Market Implications

My stock market analysis and trend forecast BASED on my Coronavirus analysis as of late Janaury was first made available to Patrons who support my work. That basically WARNED to expect THIS decline on the 9th of February! Will CoronaVirus Pandemic Trigger a Stocks Bear Market 2020?

With several additional updates since -

22nd Feb Coronavirus Pandemic Stock Market Implications

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Nadeem Walayat

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Nadeem Walayat has over 30 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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