How close is the peak?

Pakistan’s daily Covid deaths on a 7-day rolling average is bettered only by Philippines, Romania and Poland with countries having reached 35 days of 5 daily deaths or as many deaths as Pakistan’s. This space talked about the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) yesterday and discussed why it may not be the best measure to assess death risk.

Deaths in absolute numbers on a 7-day rolling average since a sizeable number of daily deaths started, spread over a considerable period, sure does sound a much better way to look at mortality. While most eyes are still focused on the daily number of increases in confirmed cases, as that is a mightier number increasing rather briskly, some are closely following the death trajectory of the pandemic in Pakistan.

The pace of deaths remains well in control, not much changed from a week ago, which is an encouraging sign. The pace of doubling of deaths at 700, remains comfortably amongst the world’s slowest, bettered only by Philippines, Indonesia, and Poland. All these countries have slowed their pace of doubling deaths to every next 100 from 700 onwards.

Of the 27 countries with more reported deaths than Pakistan’s, 22 have achieved the peak at an average 31st day since first instance of 5 daily deaths. The other four including India and Russia are still witnessing rising trends at around 40^th day since first instance of 5 daily deaths. Unless the virus has decided to act completely differently, the peak for India and Russia must be not too far.

Where does this place Pakistan? Even if Pakistan follows the rather higher end of the peaks witnessed thus far, at day 35, Pakistan’s peak should be 10 or fewer days ahead. Even if the pace of daily deaths increases from hereon against the trend, and the doubling to 1000 deaths happens faster than previous hundreds, daily deaths are unlikely to exceed 50.

With the peak appearing not too far, flattening and then gradually bending the curve around 40-50 daily deaths, should be a job well done. All said, everything can go pear shaped if the upcoming peak is “a” peak and not “the” peak.