COVID-19 day 119 : 📈 1,508,957 cases; 90,369 deaths : 18 May 2020
Another US milestone: 1.5 million cases; Pence bypasses CDC on data collection; Utah fell for Trump's rhetoric; the Americas account for 44% of known cases and 39.0% of COVID-19 deaths
It’s day 119 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. Globally, Monday saw the number of global cases cross 4.75 million; deaths, 318,000. We set another US milestone: 1.5 million cases; Tuesday we will cross 100,000 deaths.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) began today. More than 100 countries are reportedly supporting a WHA resolution to create an independent investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic.
After major outbreaks such as West Africa's 2014 Ebola epidemic, the WHO routinely conducts both internal and external reviews into its actions. However, a handful of countries, including the United States, have called for an earlier investigation, charging that the WHO didn't warn the world soon enough that that it has sided with China. The United States—with the world's highest number of cases and deaths— faces its own criticism for its slow and uneven response.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar:
We must be frank about one of the primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control: There was a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives.
To which I point out that the country with a 1300-kilometer border with China, Vietnam, has had zero deaths.
Zero deaths.
Japan: 749 deaths
Malaysia: 113 deaths
Singapore: 22 deaths
South Korea: 263 deaths
Taiwan: 7 deaths
Everyone got the same heads up at the same time.
Reminder that President Trump has not paid WHO dues even though Congress allocated the funds.
🦠Monday, Johns Hopkins reported 1,508,957 (1,486,757) cases and 90,369 (89,562) deaths in the US, an increase of 1.50% and 0.89%, respectively, since Sunday. A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.36% and 1.45%, respectively.
The seven-day average: 23,006 (22,423) cases and 1,384 (1,433) deaths
Percent of cases leading to death: 5.99% (6.02%).
Today’s case rate is 455.87 per 100,000; the death rate, 27.30 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 407.22 per 100,000; the death rate, 24.38 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, particularly over a weekend.
🤓 Recommended reading
Historical records show that there were rampant conspiracy theories going on in the Middle Ages when the plague hit Europe. It was anti-Semitism at the time. That tends to be part and parcel of pandemics. People engage in conspiracies that involve some sort of “othering” of people…
The hardcore conspiracy theorists are unlikely to change their minds. They will take what you say and display considerable ingenuity in twisting it and using it against you. On Twitter, I block them immediately because I’m concerned about my ability to have a rational conversation and I don’t want others to violate that right.
“Immune to Evidence”: How Dangerous Coronavirus Conspiracies Spread. ProPublica, 17 May 2020. This interview is with Stephan Lewandowsky, co-author of The Conspiracy Theory Handbook (free download). @STWorg
🔬 Research and medical news
😎 Brighten your day
Belgium has the highest per capita death rate of any country in the world. More than half of confirmed and suspected deaths have been individuals living in nursing homes. Tristan Van den Bosch is using equipment (cranes) designed to wash the windows of tall buildings to instead lift families “window high” so that they can see and talk with their relatives.
“Yes, OK, it costs money, the operators cost money but the machines are all used,” Van den Bosch said. And in the end, “we’re happy that we have been able to help people.”
Sections (no jump links, sorry!)
1, Around the country; 2, Around the world; 3, Politics, economics and COVID-19;
4, Case count; 5, What you can do and resources
⓵ Around the country
❌ Florida. On 05 May 5, Rebekah Jones, the “architect and manager” of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard was “removed from her post.” The data were managed by Florida Department of Health data scientists and public health officers.
In an email, Jones said her team was no longer involved in the management of the dashboard, citing “reasons beyond my division’s control.”
She warned that she does not know what the new team's intentions are for data access, including "what data they are now restricting."
The story out of Florida is confusing (to put it mildly).
Yahoo News reported that a 15 May “daily interagency update on the nation’s coronavirus response circulated by the Department of Homeland Security” stated that Palm Beach County “reported a 71% increase in new cases the last 7 days compared to the previous 7 days.”
Florida’s dashboard no longer reports data by county (even though there is a “county” tab), but Johns Hopkins does. The data that JH used from 01 May - 14 May show a 20.4% increase for that period for Palm Beach County.
01 - 07 May: 23,019 cases
08 - 14 May: 27,719 cases
While less than the Yahoo report, these data show that the county has opened in advance of federal recommendations. Like much of the US.
❌ Utah. The headline says it all: Utah went all-in on an unproven Covid-19 treatment, then scrambled to course-correct. I don’t have to tell you what the drug was, right? Would you be surprised to see a shadow of self-interest from the proponents?
Utah ordered $800,000 worth of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and “would have let pharmacies dispense the unproven medications to patients with Covid-19 without a prescription,” according to STAT News.
The saga of the drugs’ rise and fall in Utah, pieced together from documents STAT obtained through a public records request, provides a case study of what happens when hope and excitement about therapies outpace the evidence…
Driving much of the Utah officials’ interest in the drugs was [Dan] Richards, the CEO of a local pharmacy chain, Meds in Motion…
Richards also suggested the state pursue a standing order, essentially a blanket prescription that would allow pharmacies to ship compounded versions of the drugs directly to patients when they tested positive for the coronavirus…
… the records indicate [Kurt] Hegmann and Richards were part of a public-private initiative backed by some state senators to find ways to expedite the screening of Utahns for Covid-19 and refer them to treatment; Hegmann is president of a company that was helping develop an online screening tool. (The Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune separately obtained the records and reported on some of their contents earlier this month.)
✅ The CDC tracking map includes per capita data. CDC data lag Johns Hopkins data by about two days. (Nothing is properly centered below - it’s a screen cap!)
⓶ Around the world
‼️Beginning next month, Italy will allow European travelers to enter the country without requiring a quarantine.
The prime minister acknowledged that easing border controls — combined with other steps his country is taking to return to normalcy — could spark a surge in cases of the virus, but argued that doing so was necessary for the economy.
▪️#2 in cases. Russia is looking for aid from the United States for its outbreak, which may have peaked. Russia’s leading gold producer, Polyus, said the military “is setting up a mobile field hospital at the largest Siberian mine” in the country.
‼️#3 in cases. Brazil's largest city, São Paulo, is experiencing a health care system overload not unlike northern Italy or New York City. Reportedly, 90% of emergency beds at public hospitals are full.
São Paulo has a population of about 12 million, and official figures show most residents are ignoring social distancing rules.
Note that Russian (199.18, 1.87) and Brazilian (120.14, 7.93) case and death rates are far below the US (455.87 and 27.30 per 100,000). They are at an earlier stage in the virus lifecycle.
🏥 North and South America now account for 44% of known cases and 39.0% of COVID-19 deaths (WHO data, image at the top).
One month ago, we were 36.3% of cases and 24.5% of deaths
Two months ago, we were 2.6% of cases and 0.87% of deaths
These data show how woefully behind the Americas, particularly the United States, have been in testing. That lag in testing led to broad spread of the virus. Had we not implemented physical distancing measures, these numbers (cases and deaths) would be far worse. Just compare what happened in New York with California or Washington and then imagine no attempts to limit the spread of the virus.
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
It’s called “flooding the zone with shit.” A vaccine:
📣The Atlantic reported Sunday that state and federal testing data aren’t matching.
[A]n initial analysis of the CDC’s state-level data finds major discrepancies between what many states are reporting and what the federal government is reporting about them. In Florida, for example, the disparity is enormous. The state government reported on Friday that about 700,000 coronavirus tests have been conducted statewide since the beginning of the outbreak. This count should be authoritative: Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered hospitals and doctors to report their test results to the Florida Department of Health. Yet the CDC reported more than 919,000 tests in the state in that same period. That’s 31 percent more tests than Florida itself seems to think it has conducted (emphasis added).
One possible explanation: Mike Pence is trying to run the show.
Generally, disease-surveillance data flow from local public-health departments to state governments, and then on to the federal government. But in April, Vice President Mike Pence asked hospitals to start reporting their COVID-19 testing data directly to the federal government. In an email, a CDC spokesperson confirmed that the new website reflected test data from more sources than just states, saying it came from hospitals, private medical-testing companies, and state and local public-health labs (emphasis added).
The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic compiles official state data on COVID-19 daily.
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⓸ Case count
There is a lag between being contagious and showing symptoms, between having a test and getting its results. The virus was not created in a lab and the weight of evidence is it was not released intentionally. Although early reports tied the outbreak to a seafood (“wet”) market in Wuhan, China, analyses of genomic data in January suggested that the virus might have developed elsewhere.
🌎 18 May
Globally: 4 618 821 cases (93 324 new) with 311 847 deaths (4452 new)
The Americas: 2 017 811 cases (50 879 new) with 121 609 deaths (2810 new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 4,805,544 (4,716,931 - yesterday)
Total deaths: 318,596 (315,244 - yesterday)
Recovered: 1,787,595 (1,734,631 - yesterday)
🇺🇸 18 May
CDC: 1,480,349 (13,284 new) cases and 89,407 (698 new) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 1,508,957 (1,486,757) cases and 90,369 (89,562) deaths
State data*: 1,322,807 (1,479,856) identified cases and 84,640 (83,854) deaths
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): 11,834,508 (11,499,203)
View infographic and data online: total cases and cases and deaths/100,000.
* Johns Hopkins data, ~11.00 pm Pacific.
State data include DC, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands
⓹ What you can do
Stay home as much as possible, period.
Digestive problems may be a symptom.
Resources
👓 See COVID-19 resource collection at WiredPen.
📝 Subscribe to Kathy’s COVID-19 Memo :: COVID-19 Memo archives
🦠 COVID-19 @ WiredPen.com
🌐 Global news
📊 Visualizations: US, World