Click HERE to access the FSInsight COVID-19 Daily Chartbook.
The Republican National Convention is this week and a week where the Republicans will control the message and the agenda. So, it is obviously an important week. Among the key messaging issues is the COVID-19 crisis. From my vantage point, I think the White House did make some smart moves early, including closing borders. And only history will tell us whether the actions of the US were appropriate. But given the surge in cases in Europe, I think those who think Europe did a “better job” will have to rethink that if Europe cases start to surpass the US.
Our Policy Strategist, Tom Block, gave us his perspective on the RNC night 1. He thinks the Republicans spent too much time appealing to the base, rather than reaching out to the middle. But this is only night 1.
There has been quite a lot of politicization of COVID-19 spread, with a lot of fingerpointing on each side. And issues like masks, economic restrictions, back to school and other issues at the heart of the political debate. Our data scientist, tireless Ken, decided to look at whether COVID-19 trends were truly different, based upon whether a county voted for Clinton (D) or Trump (R) in 2016. To normalize this data, we looked at daily cases per 1mm residents.
– daily cases per 1mm residents is currently identical, whether a county voted Trump or Clinton in 2016
– one can argue this means local policies did not have much effect on case trends (mask mandates, etc.).
– the decline in cases is also nearly identical and if cases fall at the pace we expect, then most counties will see vast improvements by late-Sept
Source: Fundstrat and Johns Hopkins
Of course, back to school is an unknown, and cases could surge. So, this remains an uncertainty.
POINT 1: Daily cases continue to fall and tracking to be below 30,000 by next week…
USA COVID-19 cases came in at 36,584, which is -3,601 lower vs 7D ago. This drop is pretty consistent with the drops seen over the past few days. There remain a few states reporting backlogs, including Texas, but the overall trend is still lower.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
Again, the daily change vs 7D ago, in our view, is the leading indicator as it is what influences the 7D moving average. And this is pointing to further declines. The good news is that there are few states reporting sizable jumps vs 7D ago.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
The only state with a sizable jump vs 7D ago is Iowa and we see much more modest increases vs 7D ago.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
POINT 2: Decline in cases similar across “hotspot” GA+NV+TN = F-CAT = NY tristate
We wanted to highlight how similar the declines in cases look across the different states. That is, after a state reaches a peak in cases, the subsequent declines in cases, both in magnitude and time look very similar.
Let’s assume the baseline is the NY tristate + MA + RI. The reason we choose this as the baseline is those 5 states were the first to see the massive outbreaks and they have all since seen sustained declines.
– as you can see, the charts below are the 5 states and as you can see, these are pretty identical for these 5 states.
– and none of these states has since seen a resurgence.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
For the 4 epicenter states, FL, CA, AZ, TX, or F-CAT, we plotted the daily case trends as the red line, with the NY tristate plotted for comparative purposes.
– as you can see below, the trajectory in cases looks very similar.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
But this is also true of other states which are considered “hotspots” or where there are a lot of cases. We have plotted:
– Georgia (GA)
– Nevada (NV)
– Tennessee (TN)
– Missouri (MO)
And as you can see, these lines are also very similar.
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
Source: COVID-19 Tracking and Fundstrat
POINT 3: COVID-19 case trends identical in counties regardless of party affiliation
Our head of data science, tireless Ken, decided to compile the impact of COVID-19 based on counties won either by Clinton (D) or Trump (R) in 2016. This chart shows the distribution of the ~6 million US cases, based upon whether counties were won by either Clinton or Trump in 2016.
– Clinton won counties –> 3.4 million
– Trump won counties –> 2.2 million
Source: Fundstrat and Johns Hopkins
So on the surface, COVID-19 seems to have hit Clinton-won counties harder. But this is a bit misleading to look simply at the overall case numbers for two reasons:
1. The counties do not necessarily reflect the distribution of the US population, but it is a good electoral proxy
2. Arguably, recent case trends matter more –> is COVID-19 accelerating or decelerating in those counties
To get a picture of the county skew, take a look at this map by Ryne Rohla which colored the US based upon counties won by either Clinton or Trump in 2016. As you can see, the vast majority of counties (based upon geography) voted Trump. But the major cities, particularly on the Coasts, voted Clinton.
http://rynerohla.com/index.html/election-maps/2016-presidential-general-election-maps/
And this map by the Washington Post shows the proportions of each state (pie slice) that voted either Trump or Clinton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/05/13/at-last-an-electoral-map-thats-to-the-proper-scale/
Case trends identical in either Clinton or Trump counties…
This might surprise most people, but the case trends, measured as daily cases per 1mm residents, are identical in Clinton or Trump counties. Tireless Ken again calculated the case trends and we have a 7D avg to smooth trends. This is interesting:
– Since mid-June, the daily case trends are virtually identical
– Clinton counties did worse from March to early June, but since are identical
Source: Fundstrat and Johns Hopkins
Arguably, the chart above tells us that neither Democratic nor Republican policymakers drove different outcomes…
There is another reason we find this interesting. Let’s assume the policymakers in these counties chose slightly different mitigation strategies, based upon being either Democratic or Republican.
– the fact the daily case trends are identical suggest variant policies might not have made a significant difference
Europe is losing its “enviable” status as Spain daily cases > USA, and France is about to exceed the US…
We wrote about this earlier but as you can see, Spain’s daily cases per 1mm residents is above the US currently. And France is seeing a spike and could soon surpass the US. So, this comes back to the question about whether a community needs to reach a certain level of cases (we are using ~12,500 cases per 1mm) before infections begin to more sustainably slow.
Source: Johns Hopkins and Fundstrat
