COVID-19 day 131 : 📈 1,770,384 cases; 103,781 deaths : 30 May 2020
Globally, there are now more than 6 million cases; WHO reports 100,000 deaths for the US; Brazilian scientist faces death threats after questioning chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19
It’s day 131 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. The World Health Organization reported more than 100,000 deaths today.
It’s important to understand the source of data and to be consistent in comparing data from the same source for trends. A variance over time across official channels is to be expected because of reporting delays (government-to-organization). You can see the weekend data reported “dip” in a week’s worth of data, although the dip doesn’t fall on the same day of the week.
Although CDC data reporting has improved, its initial lack of leadership and transparency is why most US news organizations rely on the Johns Hopkins dashboard. Johns Hopkins is a private research university in Baltimore, MD, founded in 1876. Its medical school is globally a top-ranked university for both education and research.
COVID Tracking Project data are pulled directly from state departments of health public reports. Again, this project filled the information vacuum left by the CDC. I started this newsletter on 01 March; I pulled state data manually each night for more than a month.
🦠Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 1,770,384 (1,746,019) cases and 103,781 (102,809) deaths in the US, an increase of 1.38% (1.41%) and 0.94% (1.17%), respectively, since Friday (Thursday). A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.32% and 1.12%, respectively.
The seven-day average: 21,079 (20,655) cases and 956 (972) deaths
Percent of cases leading to death: 5.86% (5.89%).
Today’s case rate is 534.79 per 100,000; the death rate, 31.35 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 490.21 per 100,000; the death rate, 29.33 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
Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus' spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly.
Bad state data hides coronavirus threat as Trump pushes reopening. Test counts inflated, death tolls deflated, metrics shifted. Politico, 27 May 2020.
🔬 Research and medical news
The precise herd immunity threshold for the novel coronavirus is not yet clear; but several experts said they believed it would be higher than 60 percent… Even in some of the hardest-hit cities in the world, the studies suggest, the vast majority of people still remain vulnerable to the virus.
The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus. New York Times, 28 May 2020.
Sections (no jump links, sorry!)
1, Around the country and the world; 2, Politics, economics and COVID-19;
3, Case count; 4, What you can do and resources
⓵ Around the country and the world
I am in this camp, which will color the information that I share:
The three-tweet thread (no Twitter account/access required).
‼️Nevada casinos are reopening on 04 June 2020 after having been closed for more than two months.
Nevada gaming authorities released a set of rules Wednesday before Las Vegas Strip properties open, including temperature checks, mask requirements for employees (and encouraged for guests), occupancy limits in gaming areas and social distancing. Clubs remain shuttered until further notice.
🏥 On Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 6,064,778 cases of COVID-19, marking another milestone. Those reported case data suggest that 42% have recovered and 6.1% have died. Because “recovered cases” is not a universally reported data point, we cannot assume that more than half remain sick.
The first chart shows how the ranking by total cases has changed (or not) over the course of May. Note that the US is the third most populous country in the world; Brazil in the fourth.
The picture is very different when ranked by per capita cases with three exceptions: the US, Spain and Chile appear on both charts today.
This chart also makes it clear that there is not a one-to-one relationship between number of identified cases and deaths (see Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Singapore, Iceland and Belarus).
⓶ Politics, economics and COVID-19
As in the US, citizens in Brazil live with mixed messages about the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Despite the lack of scientific research to support their use, both President Trump and President Jair Bolsonaro have touted these drugs (modern use is for autoimmune disease; historical, malaria as a cure), with Trump calling it a “game changer” in March.
Brazil has the world’s second-largest number of casts of COVID-19.
When Brazilian infectologist Marcus Lacerda published research questioning the efficacy of the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on patients infected with the novel coronavirus, he received death threats from alleged followersof President Jair Bolsonaro…
The chloroquine issue is a justification for not adopting important measures of social distancing,” said Júlio Croda, a [Brazilian] epidemiologist who stepped down as head of the health ministry’s department of immunisation and transmissible diseases because he opposed the president’s stance.
Earlier this week, WHO temporarily suspended a large-scale trial involving hydroxychloroquine. Belgium, France and Italy subsequently banned the use of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment.
These actions were in response to a study published in The Lancet, 22 May 2020. This analysis of data from 671 hospitals in six continents focused on 96,032 patients (mean age 53·8 years, 46·3% women). Researchers compared these cases with a control group not treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine.
We were unable to confirm a benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19. Each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias (abnormal heartbeats) when used for treatment of COVID-19 (emphasis added).
Hospital staff and researchers have questioned the source of the data for the study, Surgisphere, a private firm. One error identified in The Guardian that has been corrected; a hospital had been placed in the incorrect geographic category, an error which did not affect study conclusions.
Dr Allen Cheng, an Australian epidemiologist and infectious disease doctor, “stressed that even if the paper proved to be problematic, it did not mean hydroxychloroquine was safe or effective in treating Covid-19. No strong studies to date have shown the drug is effective.”
🛑 What happens when the nurse recommends you go to ER to get assessed for COVID-19 … and your ER bill is in the stratosphere? A case study.
Insurers’ moves to waive costs associated with COVID testing and related treatment is vital to stemming the outbreak — but it works only if patients can trust they won’t get stuck with a large bill.
⓷ Case count
There is a lag between being contagious and showing symptoms, between having a test and getting its results. There is also a lag in reports of cases and deaths making their way into daily results; this lag is visible in predictable declines for both in weekend reports.
🌎 30 May
Globally: 5 817 385 cases (116 048 new) with 362 705 deaths (5 017 new)
The Americas: 2 677 500 cases (64 408 new) with 154 608 deaths (3 396 new)
US: 1 694 864 cases (19 606 new) with 100 304 deaths (1 415 new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 6,064,778 (5,930,096)
Total deaths: 369,254 (365,015)
Recovered: 2,566,084 (2,495,712)
🇺🇸 30 May
CDC: 1,737,950 (21,304 new) cases and 102,785 (1,265) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 1,770,384 (1,746,019) cases and 103,781 (102,809) deaths
State data*: 1,761,301 (1,737,124) identified cases and 97,915 (96,907) deaths
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): 1,6495,443 (16,099,51)
Take with a grain of salt. The CDC and at least 11 other states have begun combining the number of tests for active infections with the number of antibody tests, which boosts the total number of tests and thus drops the percentage who test positive. Note: some starting to come clean.
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
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.
⓸ 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