“The English patient had caught it on the beach. I should have stayed at home she said. Now she was in quarantine in the dark house of splendid isolation. Still …

“… hope springs eternal. With a little bit of luck, common sense, and personal hygiene, the Corona book of horror stories must end soon. Always remember, clean hands save lives: and, when in doubt, don’t go out!”

Phil Shaw, the artist, was born and raised in Huddersfield, in God’s own county. He studied painting at Leeds Polytechnic and then printmaking at the Royal College of Art. In 2000 he was awarded a Doctorate in Printmaking from Middlesex University, where he has taught since 1980.

In 2004, one of his works was chosen as Print of the Year by the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. Shaw regularly exhibits at the Royal Academy. Works by him are in the UK Government Art Collection and the Vulcan Collection. David Cameron commissioned Shaw to create the thought-provoking print presented to world leaders at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland in 2013. The original is in the National Art Collection.

Meanwhile, here are today’s daily charts. Since many countries have proven incapable of keeping a proper track of confirmed cases that have recovered, the Active-Cases chart is based on yesterday’s cumulative cases less cumulative cases for three weeks previously, on the assumption that people either die or recover 21 days after becoming confirmed cases.

On that assumption, several countries still show positive mean daily compound rates of growth in active cases, averaged over seven days. Among them are the United States, United Kingdom, France and the non-lockdown Sweden, whose active-case rate is now the highest among the countries we are following.

Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in estimated active cases of COVID-19 for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from April 1 to April 25, 2020.

Fig. 2. Mean compound daily growth rates in cumulative COVID-19 deaths for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from April 8 to April 25, 2020.

High resolution images here.