We have all been hoping that this was going to be a bad nightmare. That with social distancing and even lock-downs, the virus would go away. Statistical analysis for countries that are supposed to be doing well, like South Korea and China, tell a different story though.

Yes, the truth is that both South Korea and China have been reporting  reduction of new incidents. But that's half of the truth. The whole truth is that we see reduction of new incidents compared to the peak of the spread. However, compared to just a few days ago, new incidents are being reported at a more or less steady pace.

Here is the diagram for South Korea

Blue line (right axis) shows new incidents (3-week average) and the orange line shows growth rate (left axis). See the pattern here? Despite the lock-down, growth rate turned negative for a while and then stabilised close to zero, with new incidents being reported every day, however in a steady pace.

Similarly in China - data are for Beijing that has not been locked-down, in order to get more western-like environment - things are not going as expected:

With China being the first country of the virus outbreak, and lock-down measures taken immediately, the peak of the spread happened quite early (this is why the 3-week average starts at the high levels). While for some time new incidents had been declining - and same was happening with the growth rate - after some time new incidents were stabilised, and then started growing again. At this stage, new incidents seem again to be on the decline, but at a much slower pace, compared to several weeks ago.

Germany seems to have been doing quite well, despite the virus took some time to reach them. They were prepared and took measures. However, it's still early to tell whether they were successful in controlling the spread:

As with South Korea, there is a sharp decline in the growth rate in the past few days, which means they are about to reach the peak of the spread, but if the pattern seen in Korea applies here too, this is going to change within the next month or so.

Italy that was late to take measures to control the spread, was hit hard:

Despite the lock-down measures taken some weeks ago, rate of growth has only briefly entered negative rates. It seems Italy is too approaching the peak of the spread, but it's not there yet.

The UK (and the US) have taken a different path. For different reasons, no measures were taken to control the spread early on, and now things seem to be out of control. Social distancing is too little, and came too late:

Hopefully, both countries will eventually find a way to control the spread, but the death toll will be huge, even compared to China. However, if the South Korea and Beijing patterns are proven to be the case for all western world, the virus will keep spreading among the population, even with strict lock-down measures - but at a lower pace.

If this is the case, CoViD-19 will stay with us for ever, just like H1N1, but will be less deadly, and will be seen as another seasonal flu.

P.S.: Sweden seems to also face the fate of the United Kingdom and the United States, with the careless stance of the Swedish government: