COVID-19 day 107: 📈 1,228,603 cases; 73,431 deaths : 06 May 2020

Children are "falling ill" with "shock syndrome"; murder charge in mask case; Trump flip-flops on task force; what we can learn from Asian countries; comparing the outbreak among the top five nations

May 07, 2020

It’s day 107 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. The US is the third largest country in the world by population, but continues to lead the world in total cases. The entirety of Europe has a greater population than the US, but the top five European countries by COVID outbreak have a comparable population.

We have more cases per capita (371.18 v 302.26); they have more deaths per capita (36.65 v 22.18). Italy was the first western nation to be hard hit by the virus.

❌Context, context, context! Bloomberg argues that we are walking less because we aren’t asking Apple for directions.

⚡️Kathy E Gill | Staying at home @kegill

Sigh. It’s not that we aren’t walking. It’s that we are walking familiar terrain. No need to ask directions in our neighborhoods. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Bloomberg Opinion @bopinion

Apple has been tracking the world’s movements before and during the coronavirus pandemic by analyzing direction requests sent to Apple Maps. Here's the breakdown of walking behavior by country⬇️ https://t.co/OLEkaJb5he

🦠Wednesday, Johns Hopkins reported 1,228,603 (1,204,475) cases and 73,431 (71,078) deaths in the US, an increase of 2.00% and 5.73%, respectively, since Tuesday. A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 2.88% and 3.37%, respectively.

The seven-day average: 26,956 (27,413) cases and 1,781 (1,818) deaths
That case rate is 371.18 per 100,000; the death rate, 22.18 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 323.21 per 100,000; the death rate, 19.04 per 100,000.

Note: numbers in (.) are from the prior day and are provided for context. I include the seven-day average because dailies vary so much in the course of a week.

🤓Recommended reading

South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, were scarred by their recent experiences with two other deadly coronaviruses, Mers and Sars, and so reacted quickly to the coming threat…
We are now almost four months into this pandemic, and the lessons that can be drawn from east Asian countries on how best to control this coronavirus and keep daily new cases as low as possible are clear. Eight aspects in particular stand out as important for governments to recognise as they navigate difficult choices ahead. They also provide a guide for what the public should be expecting of and demanding from their governments.

This is what you should be demanding from your government to contain the virus. The Guardian, 04 May 2020. Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.

🔬Research and medical news

By Saturday night… hospitals worldwide had identified about 100 similar cases. About half are in the United States.
“Not in my lifetime have I seen anything remotely similar to what’s going on right now,” said [Jane] Newburger, medical director of the cardiac neurodevelopment program at Boston Children’s Hospital…
Newburger, considered one of the world’s leading experts on Kawasaki, said some of the children tested positive for an active infection with the novel coronavirus while others did not. A third group did not have an active infection but had antibodies showing previous exposure.

Children are falling ill with perplexing inflammatory syndrome thought to be linked to covid-19. Washington Post, 06 May 2020.

Ed Yong @edyong209

🚨I wrote about the issue of coronavirus “strains”. Despite the recent overblown stories, there’s no strong evidence that more dangerous strains have evolved—or even that there’s more than one strain. Here's a guide to making sense of it all. theatlantic.com/health/archive…

theatlantic.comThe Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus MutationsThere’s no clear evidence that the pandemic virus has evolved into significantly different forms—and there probably won’t be for months.

Reality check from STAT News:

…mounting promises that some vaccine may be available for emergency use as early as the autumn are fueling expectations that are simply unrealistic, experts warn.

🎦Recommended viewing

This explainer from STAT News provides insight into antibodies and immunity and what this means for COVID-19.

💃🏼Life hack

Medical practitioners sometimes prescribe breathing-control exercises for people with stress disorders. Similarly, the practice of pranayama — controlling breath in order to shift one’s consciousness from an aroused or even frantic state to a more meditative one — is a core component of virtually all varieties of yoga.
“This study is intriguing because it provides a cellular and molecular understanding of how that might work,” Krasnow said.

Study shows how slow breathing induces tranquility. Stanford Medicine News Center, 30 March 2017.

😎Brighten your day

NHL @NHL

In honor of National Nurses Day, we say #ThankYouNurses from the NHL family.

⓵ Around the country

🆘Arizona state officials told ASU to stop its work modeling coronavirus in the state. The University is ignoring the state health department.

"Moving forward, ASU will continue to perform its COVID-19 research, and will make these updates publicly available during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," ASU said.

✅California has launched a website to help people locate a testing location.

MayorOfLA @MayorOfLA

Starting Monday, all travelers at @flyLAXairport will be required to wear face coverings to help us save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19. LAWA employees are already required to wear face coverings. These are steps that will keep all of us safer.

❌In Flint, Michigan, three people have been charged with murder after killing a Dollar General security guard after “after telling a customer that her child had to wear a face mask.”

✅From Our World in Data: remember, focus on per capita charts, not absolute numbers. We’re behind Canada.

⓶ Around the world

The spike in mortality rates shows when and how hard the virus hits.

🧰Has the outbreak peaked in your country? Check out this customizable tracker at the Financial Times.

❌India, which has tested fewer samples than the US, has one of the lowest testing rates in the world.

Rather than relying on mass infection to build resistance to the coronavirus, the country needs a long-term, data-driven, decentralized approach.

✅The law of unintended consequences, writ large. The network effects of small individual actions shows us our collective impact on climate.

No war, recession or previous pandemic has had such an impact over the past 100 years, as coronavirus has in a few short months.

BBC News (World) @BBCWorld

Coronavirus has seen CO2 emissions fall dramatically No war, recession or previous pandemic has had such an impact over the past 100 years, as coronavirus has in a few short months [Thread] bbc.in/CoronavirusCli…

Not a Twitter fan? Read the full thread in your browser at ThreadReader.

⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19

🏥We’ve known for a while that COVID-19 would hit hospital profit-loss statements with a vengeance. Now we’re starting to see numbers.

The American Hospital Association (AHA), in a new report, projected a loss of $202.6 billion from COVID-19 expenses and lost revenue for US hospitals and health systems from Mar 1 to Jun 30—about $50 billion in losses each month.

❌On Tuesday, he was going to disband the task force. On Wednesday, he reversed course. And so it has gone for three years.

❌The refrain has not changed.

18 April 2020: