OXFORD | Covid-19 Tracker

May 7, 2020—If you aren't subscribing to the Oxford Covid-19 tracker, you are missing out on a user-friendly set of daily updated information on the progress of the Civid-19 disease and what governments are doing about it. It is a great contribution to global understanding of the disease by Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government.

For example, the tracker includes a Stringency Index showing what countries have done to prevent spread of the disease. The United States is about 70 out of 100, which is low compared with other countries, even though many Americans are expressing their frustration with the stringency. A scan of the Global Comparisons map shows that most countries are more stringent than the United States, with ratings above 80 out of 100.










However, the U.S. number of cases is soaring above a million whereas other countries after 100 days have stopped increasing. The stringency index, shown in red changing over time in the six-country response chart, can be seen to affecting the growth rates in every country. How early the stringency is applied is crucial, as we see with South Korea's success. However, Italy had to ramp up its stringency much higher to slow the spread of the virus. China did not have to be so stringent to flatten its curve. Both the United States and the U.K. were late in applying stringency. The size of the country is less important than being speedy about stringency, as we can see by comparing China or South Korea with the United States. China flattened out at about 100,000 cases even though its stringency was no higher than that of the United States.

We can continue to look for clues in other charts that Oxford is making freely available, provided sources are always clearly identified. European countries acted faster than the United States. China was slow to get started but it ramped up its stringency more steeply than other countries. Some epidemiologists (e.g., at the Los Alamos Labs) fear that the dominant variety of the coronavirus in the United States has mutated from the Chinese version.

Putting stringency and number of cases together on the same chart, the United States is at the far end of the number of cases, an outlier to the right. However, in terms of stringency it is in a  minority of countries below the 80/100 threshold. It raises the question whether policies to to open up the United States and relax disease prevention measures are wise at this point.

Or as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo just tweeted after his daily briefing about the coronavirus: "Stay the course. If you are going through hell, keep going."