Monthly Archives: July 2020

Drug overdose deaths – another exceptional US epidemic

Earlier this week, CDC released provisional figures for drug overdose deaths in the USA in 2019. They estimate almost 72,000 deaths, the highest annual number yet seen. Initially driven by prescription opioid painkillers, users migrated first to heroin and then … Continue reading

Posted in Global health trends, World Health Organization | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Covid-19: which countries are succeeding and not succeeding?

There is now sufficient data on social distancing, lockdown, and other measures that researchers are starting to assess the effectiveness of these measures. The July 4th edition of The Economist has an article summarizing what is becoming clear.  Extensive testing … Continue reading

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An out-of-control pandemic in most world regions

I downloaded the Covid-19 data up to 5 July from the JHU Github today and plotted smoothed new cases per day (average over last 7 days) as rates per million population by world region. The dramatic difference in trajectories for … Continue reading

Posted in Global health trends | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments