COVID-19 day 134 : 📈 1,831,821 cases; 106,180 deaths : 02 June 2020
Survey participants in 11 countries trust government more than business when the issue is COVID-19; protests lead to closed testing centers; state data now show 100,000 deaths
It’s day 133 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. A second week of protests over the murder of George Floyd has begun; major cities still have curfews; and the National Guard, deployed to states to help with COVID-19, has been pulled away due to protests and violence.
In April, Edelman interviewed more than 13,000 people in 11 countries on issues related trust and COVID-19 (1,200 per market; Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, S. Korea, U.K. and U.S) .
They found that “government trust [had reached] an all-time high of 65 percent, making it the most trusted institution for the first time in our 20 years of study.”
The interviews also revealed that there was a “growing sense of unfairness” and “systemic inequity,” possibly triggered by COVID-19. This was particularly true in attitudes towards business: 62% believe business puts profits before people; 61% do not think businesses protect employee jobs; and 62% don’t think larger businesses are helping their small business supply chain.
When it comes to who should take the lead in deciding when it’s OK to return to work, guess which people landed near the bottom?
In the US, both Democrats and Republicans named local government their most trusted institution. For their number two choice, Democrats picked NGOs and Republicans picked business.
Trust in institutions is critical to managing the virus. Collective action is imperative to our being able to juggle competing interests while living with no vaccine and no cure.
What might those 1,200 Americans say about local and federal government, 6+ weeks later? How much trust in government has evaporated due to ongoing uncertainty over COVID-19 coupled with the manner in which these protests are being handled?
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials are comparing current events in the US with “the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other nations.”
Former intelligence officials said the unrest and the administration’s militaristic response are among many measures of decay they would flag if writing assessments about the United States for another country’s intelligence service.
They cited the country’s struggle to contain the novel coronavirus, the president’s attempt to pressure Ukraine for political favors, his attacks on the news media and the increasingly polarized political climate as other signs of dysfunction.
I would rather not be living in “interesting times” right now.
Thanks to Corey Gil for the tip about Edelman.
🦠Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported 1,831,821 (1,811,360) cases and 106,180 (105,165) deaths in the US, an increase of 1.13% (1.18%) and 1.17 (1.13%), respectively, since Monday (Sunday). A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.12% and 0.71%, respectively.
The seven-day average: 21,190 (21,014) cases and 1,290 (1,127) deaths
Percent of cases leading to death: 5.80% (5.81%).
Today’s case rate is 553.42 per 100,000; the death rate, 32.08 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 507.82 per 100,000; the death rate, 29.88 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
The epidemic spread with startling speed. It appeared first in London and within weeks had swept Britain. Thousands died of respiratory illness, the prime minister was laid low, and employees’ sickness disrupted industry and transport.
It sounds familiar. Yet this epidemic erupted in 1891 when waves of disease swept round the globe, eventually killing more than a million people. The outbreak was later attributed to flu and dubbed the Great Russian Flu pandemic.
Did a coronavirus cause the pandemic that killed Queen Victoria's heir? The Guardian, 31 May 2020.
🎦 Recommended viewing
Sections (no jump links, sorry!)
1, Around the country; 2, Case count; 4, What you can do and resources
⓵ Around the country
🏥 From the east coast to the west coast, protests are interfering with COVID-19 testing. In Florida, one test site closed because the National Guard unit running the site was called away to help law enforcement elsewhere.
In some large cities, testing sites were closed or had reduced hours because of active protests. Half of the tests sites in Los Angeles closed on Monday due to safety concerns. All community testing sites were closed in Illinois.
❌ Trump’s plan to get corporations to host drive-up COVID-19 testing has gone about as well as that website we were also promised on 13 March. PolitiFact checked in on 09 April; not much to report.
NPR brought us up-to-date on 01 June:
The president, speaking from the White House Rose Garden, promised that "stores in virtually every location" would be rolling out testing, including some of the "greatest retailers anywhere in the world" that "cover this country in large part," such as CVS, Target, Walgreens and Walmart.
The results have been modest at best. NPR reviewed the number of sites these retailers set up and found they are small in quantity compared to their national reach. On average, only 4% of the companies' stores are currently hosting drive-through testing sites.
🏥 In Louisiana, three-out-of-four patients who tested positive for coronavirus in the Ochsner Health System hospitals were black. Yet the Ochsner Health population is 31% black non-Hispanic and 65% white non-Hispanic. New England Journal of Medicine.
❌ CNN seems to have followed up from that STAT News interview I told you about yesterday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most prominent members of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Monday that he has not spoken to or met with President Donald Trump in two weeks.
📣 Data from state departments of health have now crossed 100,000 deaths. Let this be a reminder that these almost-real-time data are squishy. Unless your job is forecasting how many supplies or staff you might need at a hospital, the data are most useful for trends. And remember to consider rolling averages.
⓶ 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. There may be a drop in test numbers in June due to protests.
🌎 02 June
Globally: 6 194 533 cases (113 198 new) with 376 320 deaths (4 242 new)
The Americas: 2 905 432 cases (64 718 new) with 163 248 deaths (1 820 new)
US: 1 783 638 (26 116 new) with 104 247 (693 new) deaths
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 6,382,951 (6,271,577)
Total deaths: 380,318 (375,632)
Recovered: 2,731,340 (2,697,094)
🇺🇸 02 June
CDC: 1,802,470 (14,790 new) cases and 105,157 (761) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 1,831,821 (1,811,360) cases and 106,180 (105,165) deaths
State data*: 1,823,647 (1,799,761) identified cases and 100,200 (99,005) deaths
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): 17,757,838 (17,340,682)
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.
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.
⓷ 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