COVID-19 day 104 : 📈 1,158,041 cases; 67,682 deaths : 03 May 2020

DHS, a rudderless ship, echoes Trump's claims that China wasn't forthcoming in January, but Vietnam's story provides a counterpoint; how science fiction can help us envision the future

May 04, 2020

It’s day 104 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. Some state governors are lifting their fingers from the “pause” button. This is the “what’s next” edition.

In a 2005 article in Foreign Affairs, Laurie Garrett told of “the catastrophe that the United States would face in a severe flu pandemic,” with millions dead and “unimaginable economic costs.” She warned us then that “[s]cientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 percent of the world's human population and killing unimaginable numbers.”

Garrett, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her coverage of Ebola, wrote The Coming Plague; in a review, The Boston Globe compared Garrett to Rachel Carson.

In an interview in the NY Times this weekend, Garrett points out that the miracle drug du jour, remdesivir, is not curative. Her answer to “what’s next” mirrors the STAT News analysis shared in an earlier newsletter.

“I’m quite certain that this is going to go in waves. It won’t be a tsunami that comes across America all at once and then retreats all at once. It will be micro-waves that shoot up in Des Moines and then in New Orleans and then in Houston and so on, and it’s going to affect how people think about all kinds of things.”

And she points out that we’ve already experienced a “new normal” this century: 9/11.

“Did we go ‘back to normal’ after 9/11? No. We created a whole new normal. We securitized the United States. We turned into an antiterror state. And it affected everything. We couldn’t go into a building without showing ID and walking through a metal detector, and couldn’t get on airplanes the same way ever again. That’s what’s going to happen with this.”

Garrett anticipated foot-dragging, but “never imagined” that “the paragon of sloppiness and sluggishness would be the United States.”

“I’ve heard from every C.D.C. in the world — the European C.D.C., the African C.D.C., China C.D.C. — and they say, ‘Normally our first call is to Atlanta, but we ain’t hearing back.’ There’s nothing going on down there. They’ve gutted that place. They’ve gagged that place. I can’t get calls returned anymore. Nobody down there is feeling like it’s safe to talk. Have you even seen anything important and vital coming out of the C.D.C.?”

Hope I’ve piqued your curiosity. She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next? NYT, Frank Bruni, 02 May 2020.

🦠Sunday, Johns Hopkins reported 1,158,041 (1,133,069) cases and 67,682 (66,385) deaths in the US, an increase of 2.20% and 1.95%, respectively, since Saturday. A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 2.84% and 1.75%, respectively.

The seven-day average: 27,447 (28,183) cases and 1,829 (2,026) deaths
That case rate is 349.86 per 100,000; the death rate, 20.45 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 291.81 per 100,000; the death rate, 16.58 per 100,000.

‼ There is an alarming and unexplained jump in reported deaths in today’s WHO report: 5,000 new deaths. Yesterday, seven-day average was 1,978. Hopefully this will be explained tomorrow.

🤓Recommended reading

Kim Stanley Robinson is “generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers.” From his essay in the New Yorker:

In mid-March, in a prior age, I spent a week rafting down the Grand Canyon. When I left for the trip, the United States was still beginning to grapple with the reality of the coronavirus pandemic. Italy was suffering; the N.B.A. had just suspended its season; Tom Hanks had been reported ill. When I hiked back up, on March 19th, it was into a different world. I’ve spent my life writing science-fiction novels that try to convey some of the strangeness of the future. But I was still shocked by how much had changed, and how quickly….

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations. What felt impossible has become thinkable. The spring of 2020 is suggestive of how much, and how quickly, we can change as a civilization. New Yorker, 01 May 2020.

🔬Research and medical news

👓In 2013, Mark Denison, who directs the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Ralph Baric, a coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “identified a vulnerable site on a protein common to all coronaviruses they had examined.” In 2017, they spotted a compound that acted on this protein in a library of compounds developed by biotech giant Gilead Biosciences.

A virus is an unusual beast. Essentially it is a cluster of genetic material that integrates itself into a cell and takes over some of the cell’s molecular machinery, using it to assemble an army of viral copies. Those clones burst out of the cell, destroying it, and go on to infect nearby cells. Viruses are hard to kill off completely because of their cellular integration—they hide within their hosts. And they have explosive reproductive rates. Because total eradication is so hard, antiviral drugs instead aim to limit replication to low levels that cannot hurt the body.

Three Ways to Make Coronavirus Drugs in a Hurry. Scientific American, 23 April 2020.

👓In the category of “if you believe this how can you ethically have a control group?”, I give you a report from NPR: Clinical Study Considers The Power Of Prayer To Combat COVID-19 (01 May 2020).

The four-month study, launched on May 1, will investigate "the role of remote intercessory multi-denominational prayer on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients," according to a description provided to the National Institutes of Health. Half of the patients, randomly chosen, will receive a "universal" prayer offered in five denominational forms, via Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. The other 500 patients will constitute the control group. All the patients will receive the standard of care prescribed by their medical providers.

Tip came from Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington. His book, Calling Bullshit, The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, will be published 04 August. I’m very much looking forward to it.

🎦Recommended viewing

What is it about this video from former President Bush that feels so … presidential?

In large part, it’s the contrast from current leadership of the GOP: it is a message of unity. Regardless of your feelings for the man as president (he’s not on my favorite list), this video is (a) a reminder of what we have lost since January 2017 and (b) that there are still Republicans of conscience in the country. They just don’t run the party anymore. [Facebook link]

George W. Bush Presidential Center @TheBushCenter

A Message from President George W. Bush @TheCallToUnite

Historical footnote: the Republican party was born (from a split) just prior to the Civil War. At that time, it supported policies that would be an anathema to today’s GOP. The Democrats were the party of Prohibition, for example, not the GOP. In broad strokes, party policies have reversed in the intervening 150+. years.

💃🏼Life hack

Symptom checkers

CDC, built with Apple
Emory University, based on their experience with the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak
Providence Health Centers
University of Southern California and AltaMed

⓵ Around the country

California: San Jose Airport to require staff as well as all members of the public to wear face coverings, starting Monday.

Acceptable coverings include a scarf or bandana; a neck gaiter; a homemade covering made from a T-shirt, sweatshirt, or towel held in place with rubber bands or other fasteners; or a non-medical grade mask.

Florida. Hospitals will also begin admitting patients for elective surgeries on Monday as restaurants, state parks, and other businesses will be open. The statewide lockdown began 01 April. Less than 2% of the population has been tested.

Michigan. Dr. Deborah Birx said on FOX that protests at the state legislature were "devastatingly worrisome to me personally." On CNN, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer characterized the protests as “some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country.”

Oregon: OHSU, the state of Oregon, and the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health will conduct a statewide COVID-19 research study to inform the approach for reopening the state. Science FTW!

Pennsylvania: Gov. Tom Wolf will begin opening rural areas of the state latest this week. (Pennsylvania has the largest rural population of any state, accounting for more than 1-in-4 rural Americans.)

More than half of Philadelphia’s deaths have come from nursing homes.

This first-ever picture of the havoc, how it spread, where and which homes were hit first and hardest is based on data the city inadvertently made available online that charted test results of residents at those homes from the start of the pandemic through April 23 (emphasis added).

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have identified COVID-19 cases and all have at least one death.

⓶ Around the world

From The Guardian: “no safe haven in sight”

Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.