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The coronavirus ‘Doomsday’ clock: How close are we to midnight?

Britain has only just begun its battle with COVID-19, according to a new coronavirus clock which shows the various stages of pandemic faced by countries around the globe.

The ever-changing gauge reveals the journey to recovery of numerous states including China, America, Germany and the UK.

It shows periods of high infection (between noon and 3pm), increased recovery and fewer deaths (3pm – 6pm) and low-levels of illness (6pm – midnight).

Reaching midnight means the virus has been eradicated - with peak recovery time being between quarter past and quarter to the hour.

It does not necessarily give a prediction as to the amount of time it will take the pandemic to disappear for each nation.

However, China sits at 57.86 minutes and its journey began on November 17, 2019 – 134 days, or 4.5 months, ago.

The clock was created by Dr Jon Seaton, of Loughborough’s School of Business and Economics.

He said: “In good time, possibly around four months, the hand will get round the clock.

“The time taken could be longer for some countries, and certainly the hands can go backward, due to sudden surges in cases.

“But this does give us a great graphic to show how far we are getting, who is in front (China) and that we really are only at the beginning of the journey.

“It’s telling that us that Italy and Spain are only at around quarter past – where they are experiencing this surge in deaths - although Spain is also getting a lot of recoveries now.

“We should be mindful that this is not an accurate prediction of what will happen as early on the hands can go backward if cases spike.

“It’s more to give us an idea of the situation faced by the planet as a whole given the large amount of data we are faced with.”

Coronavirus clock times – March 30, 2020

Area/Region

Minutes passed

China

57.86

Diamond princess

51.66

South Korea

33.45

Iran

23.54

Spain

16.11

World

15.42

Japan

15.37

Singapore

15.28

Italy

14.62

France

14.49

Hong Kong

11.42

ROW excl China

9.99

Germany

9.37

Taiwan

8.63

Iceland

8.06

Switzerland

7.67

India

7.23

Netherlands

5.63

Canada

5.04

Greece

4.72

UK

4.19

Australia

3.73

Denmark

3.39

USA

3.09

Russia

2.82

Sweden

2.04

Brazil

2.00

Portugal

1.63

Formula: 60(mins)*(recoveries+deaths)/cases

The clock updates constantly.

It is based on data from the John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre.

‌China's coronavirus recovery clock

ENDS

Notes for editors

Press release reference number: 20/43

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