COVID-19 day 150 : 📈 2,191,052 cases; 118,434 deaths : 18 June 2020
US reports 27,762 new cases, the largest number in a month; European research on blood types and COVID-19 suggest genetics affect severity; unemployment claims exceed Great Recession again
It’s day 150 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths continues its slight decline; daily cases, on the other hand, are rising.
For the thirteenth successive week, three full months, unemployment claims have been more than two times the claims submitted during the worst week of the Great Recession (2007–2009).
🦠 Thursday, Johns Hopkins reported 2,191,052 (2,163,290) cases and 118,434 (117,717 ) deaths, an increase of 1.28% (1.20 %) and 0.61% (0.64%), respectively, since Wednesday (Tuesday). A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.14% and 0.79%, respectively.
The seven-day average: 23,824 (22,985) cases and 689 (716) deaths
Percent of cases leading to death: 5.41% (5.44%).
Today’s case rate is 661.94 per 100,000; the death rate, 35.78 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 611.28 per 100,000; the death rate, 34.39 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.
🔬 Research and medical news
The research that led to a pre-print that I told you about earlier this month, which linked type A blood with more severe symptoms of COVID-19 and type O with less severe symptoms, has now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. There’s a flurry of news articles but few mention the pre-print.
Genes, Blood Type Tied to Risk of Severe COVID-19. NIH Director’s Blog, 18 June 2020.
Why do some COVID-19 patients get seriously sick? It may be blood type, study finds. Miami Herald, 18 June 2020.
Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure. New England Journal of Medicine, 17 June 2020. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2020283
Genes May Leave Some People More Vulnerable to Severe Covid-19. New York Times, 03 June 2020.
The ABO blood group locus and a chromosome 3 gene cluster associate with SARS-CoV-2 respiratory failure in an Italian-Spanish genome-wide association analysis. medRxiv, 02 June 2020. Pre-print.
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
From 19 May - 18 June, the US reported more than 25,000 new daily cases only five times. Four have been in the past seven days, with the greatest of the five (27,762) coming today ((Johns Hopkins data, 10.30 pm Pacific). Three states did not report data today: Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi (state health department website).
The top 10 state reports today and cases per 100,000 (state departments of health). The states are overwhelmingly located in the south.
California, 4,084 (408/100K)
Texas, 3,516 (296/100K)
Florida, 3,207 (400/100K)
Arizona, 2,519 (597/100K)
North Carolina, 1,333 (459/100K)
South Carolina, 992 (419/100K)
Alabama, 894 (575/100K)
Georgia, 882 (574/100K)
Ohio, 700 (369/100K)
Tennessee 686 (480/100K)
Each of these states has a per capita rate that is lower than the national average. However, that average is driven up dramatically by New York (1,983/100K), New Jersey (1,893/100K), Rhode Island (1,536/100K), Massachusetts (1,531/100K), DC (1,403/100K) and Connecticut (1,275/100K).
☆ Thirteen University of Texas football players have tested positive for coronavirus. An addition 10 players are in self-quarantine because they could have been exposed. This is contact tracing at work.
‼️ Reported cases in Oklahoma jumped from 259 to 450 on Thursday.
⓶ Around the world
▪️As of 18 June, 10AM CEST, China has reported 172 new, community spread cases of COVID-19 since 11 June; 158 of these are in Beijing. The city has ordered all hotels to close, as well as restaurants in high-risk areas.
▪️Brazil, with 97,8142 cases today, will likely cross the 1 million mark on Friday. It is the fourth most populous country in the world.
▪️India reported its greatest number of cases today, 13,586; it is likely to move past Russia into third place behind the US and Brazil on Saturday.
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal opened its paywall so that we can all read an op-ed from Vice President Mike Pence touting the administration’s leadership in curtailing COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Pence celebrates 500,000 daily tests (an exaggeration) which would be 3.5 million tests a week. Quoting myself from yesterday:
Beijing has tested about 326,000 people as it tries to contain an outbreak connected to a large market. Beijing, population 22 million, can currently run about 400,000 tests a day. Today, the US, population 330 million, reported running 449,488 tests today.
The self-congratulatory spectacle ignores unmet promises:
During a March 10 coronavirus press briefing, Vice President Mike Pence declared there would be “more than 4 million more tests” available across the country by the end of that week… Another White House official would go on to proclaim on March 21 that 27 million test kits would be available to patients before the end of the month. (emphasis added).
Today’s total test numbers since February: 25,403,498. This report may include antibody tests as well as viral check retests. The numbers are not an accurate reflection of the number of people tested, unique or otherwise.
On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci talked with McClatchy, and discussed the spike in cases which Pence had dismissed in his op-ed.
While Trump and Pence have said that the recent spikes in cases – in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas, among others – can be attributed to an increase in access to testing, Fauci said that “there are two dead giveaways that it’s more than just an increase in testing.” He pointed out that the percentage of positive cases and the percentage of hospitalizations are increasing in some regions, as well.
In addition, Fauci “pledged … to publicly oppose any effort by the Trump administration to rush an announcement of a COVID-19 vaccine by the November election unless the medicine has been proven ‘safe and scientifically sound’.”
“There is no chance in the world that I’m going to be forced into agreeing to something that I don’t think is safe and scientifically sound. I’ll guarantee you that.”
Speaking to the uncertainties about SARS-COV-2, Fauci said:
“I’ve never seen a pathogen that has such a wide range of manifestations with the same virus.”
“This is a virus that is totally unprecedented,” Fauci continued. “How do you explain the same virus replicating in somebody doing nothing, and that same virus in somebody else ravaging their body? There are still so many things that we don’t know about the pathogenesis.”
🆘 Turning to job losses, former chief economist, US Department of Labor:
And NYT/WSJ economics reporter:
⓸ 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 reports containing weekend data.
🌎 18 June
Globally: 8 242 999 cases (181 232 new) with 445 535 deaths (5 245 new)
The Americas: 4 015 386 cases (115 527 new) with 208 991 deaths (3 436 new)
US: 2 126 027 cases (27 921 new) with 116 702 deaths (722 new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 8,464,739 (8,331,135)
Total deaths: 453,289 (448,504)
Recovered: 4,142,540 (4,065,733)
🇺🇸 18 June
CDC: 2,155,572 (22,834) cases and 117,632 (754) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 2,191,052 (2,163,290) cases and 118,434 (117,717 ) deaths
State data*: 2,178,338 (2,150,932) identified cases and 112,174 (111,477) deaths
Total tests (US, Johns Hopkins): 25,403,498 (24,937,87)
Take with a grain of salt. Tests not necessarily people. The CDC and at least 11 other states have combined the data for active infections with data for antibodies, boosting total number of tests which can drop the percentage who test positive.
📣 View weekly state infographics
* 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 market in Wuhan, China, analyses of genomic data in January suggested that the virus might have developed elsewhere.
⓹ What you can do
Stay home as much as possible, period.
Wear a mask when near non-family members.
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
📊 Visualizations: US, World
🌐 Global news (at WiredPen)