Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted. Now he foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world.
While many epidemiologists are warning of months, or even years, of massive social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt says the data simply don’t support such a dire scenario — especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.
“What we need is to control the panic,” he said. In the grand scheme, “we’re going to be fine.” Here’s what Levitt noticed in China: On Jan. 31, the country had 46 new deaths due to the novel coronavirus, compared with 42 new deaths the day before. Although the number of daily deaths had increased, the rate of that increase had begun to ease off. Essentially, although the car was still speeding up, it was not accelerating as rapidly as before.
Now Levitt, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing complex models of chemical systems, is seeing turning points in other nations, even ones that did not instill the draconian isolation measures that China did. He analyzed 78 countries with more than 50 reported cases of COVID-19 every day and sees “signs of recovery.” He’s not looking at cumulative cases, but the number of new cases every day — and the percentage growth in that number from one day to the next.
“Numbers are still noisy but there are clear signs of slowed growth.”In Iran, for instance, the number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases remained relatively flat last week, from 1,133 on Monday to 1,148 on Friday. Of course, recovering from an initial outbreak doesn’t mean the virus won’t come back: China is now fighting to stop new waves of infection coming in from places where the virus is spreading out of control. Other countries are bound to face the same problem as well.
Levitt acknowledges that his figures are messy, and that the official case counts in many areas are too low because testing is spotty. But even with incomplete data, “a consistent decline means there’s some factor at work that is not just noise in the numbers,” he said.
The trajectory of deaths backs up his findings, he said. So do data from outbreaks in confined environments, such as the one on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Out of 3,711 people on board, 712 were infected and eight died. In his view, this unintended experiment in coronavirus spread will help researchers estimate the number of fatalities that would occur in a fully infected population.
Levitt said the social-distancing mandates are critical — particularly the ban on large gatherings — because the virus is so new that the population has no immunity to it and a vaccine is still many months away. “This is not the time to go out drinking with your buddies.”
The virus can grow exponentially only when it is undetected and no one is acting to control it, Levitt said. That’s what happened in South Korea, when it ripped through a closed-off cult that refused to report the illness. “People need to be considered heroes for announcing they have this virus,” he said. The goal needs to be better early detection — not just through testing but perhaps with body temperature surveillance, which China is implementing — and immediate social isolation. Based on the experience of the Diamond Princess, he estimates that being exposed to the new coronavirus doubles a person’s risk of dying in the next two months. However, most people have an extremely low risk of death in a two-month period, and that risk remains extremely low even when doubled. “The real situation is not as nearly as terrible as they make it out to be,” he said.