COVID-19 day 169: 📈 2,993,760 cases; 131,457 deaths : 07 July 2020
On Tuesday, the US reported 60,021 cases, a new record high; we will hit 3 million cases Wednesday; Florida hospitals are running out of beds; Trump has notified WHO of 2021 withdrawal
It’s day 166 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. The largest number of reported cases during the April crisis in the northeast was 36,026 on 25 April. Tuesday, as the US reported a record 60,021 cases and approaches 3 million (2,996,098), Florida hospitals have begun running out of beds.
In a sign of intensifying trouble, 52 intensive care units across more than a third of the state’s counties had reached capacity by Tuesday, according to data released by the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration. Another 17 hospitals had also run out of regular beds…
Some nurses at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach have been working 18 hours instead of the usual 12 because of overnight staffing shortages, according to a nurse who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her job. Patients are being treated in an open area cordoned off by curtains that is typically used for quick medical consultations, she said.
A New York deja vu.
However Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken a different tact from New York on transparency. According to the Miami Herald, “the state has yet to make good on its promise” to report “daily hospitalization data for all 67 counties.”
Florida is an outlier among states in not reporting the number of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19… Instead, the Agency for Health Care Administration reports daily hospital bed capacity while the state Department of Health reports the total number of patients admitted to hospitals during the course of the pandemic, not the number of people actively in a hospital at a given time.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Jacksonville is in quarantine. Jacksonville is the site of the Republican National Convention and last week began requiring masks.
Although Alabama hasn’t been in the spotlight as much as other southern states, more than 30% of its total cases have been reported in the past two weeks and more than 1,000 people with the disease are in the hospital, an all-time high.
Dr. Anthony Fauci joined Sen. Doug Jones (D) for a Facebook live conference and touched on a point I’ve raised before: our focus on deaths as though it were the only negative measure of this disease is shortsighted. Sen Jones:
“… it disrupts education, disrupts businesses, disrupts lives, because it still is. It still will be deadly… I don’t want to get into a situation where we just accept a lower number of deaths as if this is the new normal.”
🦠 Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported 2,996,098 (60,021 new) cases and 131,480 (1,174 new) deaths, an increase of 2.04% (1.64%) and 0.90% (0.28%), respectively, since Monday (Sunday). A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.98% and 0.51%, respectively.
The seven-day average: 50,401 ⬆️(48,385) cases and 665 ⬆️ (563) deaths
Percent of cases leading to death: 4.39% ⬇️ (4.44%).
Today’s case rate is 905.16 per 100,000; the death rate, 39.72 per 100,000.
One week ago, the case rate was 811.55 per 100,000; the death rate, 38.69 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
“We’re five months into this and there are still shortages of gowns, hair covers, shoe covers, masks, N95 masks,” said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, who cited results from a survey of the union’s members. “They’re being doled out, and we’re still being told to reuse them.”
Protective gear for medical workers begins to run low again. AP, 07 July 2020.
🎦 Recommended viewing
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
Over the last two weeks, cases have risen in 37 states. Today’s seven-day average is 50,401 (Johns Hopkins), twice what it was on 19 June.
And at least four states set single-day records today:
Missouri, 773
Montana, 78
Oklahoma, 858
Texas, 10,028
On Monday, Arizona crossed the 100,000-case milestone; on 22 June, Arizona had only 54,586 cases. Talking with NPR, Mayor Kate Gallego (D) of Phoenix said: “We are in a crisis situation with our health care.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) lifted the state stay-at-home in May. He also “issued an executive order requiring Arizona cities and counties to abide by state-level guidelines and do nothing that ‘conflicts with or is in addition to’ those restrictions.” As cases rose, in mid-June, Ducey allowed local governments to set their own rules and regulations.
⓶ Around the world
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has tested positive for COVID-19. Brazil is the fourth most populous nation (the US is third) and has reported 1,668,589 cases as of Tuesday night (Johns Hopkins).
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
❌ On Tuesday, a United Nations spokesperson confirmed that President Trump has advised the World Health Organization of his intent to withdraw membership effective 06 July 2021.
To leave the organization, the U.S. is supposed to give a one-year notice and pay outstanding dues, according to language that the U.S. added to the WHO constitution when it joined the treaty in 1948. As of June 30, the U.S. owed $198 million in unpaid membership dues.
Last week, “750 scholars and experts in global public health, U.S. constitutional law, and international law and relations” called on Congress to oppose any attempt to withdraw from WHO. Read more about how Congress created that one-way notice clause under President Harry Truman.
In a small way, Trump’s bluster is a reflection of Boris Johnson and BREXIT.
❌ Trump is trying to arm twist local governments into opening schools this fall, part-and-parcel of the same effort to force colleges and universities to run face-to-face classes so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will allow international students to stay here.
In a daylong series of conference calls and public events at the White House on Tuesday, the president and other senior officials kicked off a concerted campaign to lean on governors, mayors and other local officials — who actually control the schools — to find ways to safely resume classes in person.
❌ It wasn’t just businesses tied to the White House that got COVID-19 money.
Churches connected to President Donald Trump and other organizations linked to current or former Trump evangelical advisers received at least $17.3 million in loans from a federal rescue package designed to aid small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
Reading these turned my stomach:
Kanye West’s clothing-and-sneaker brand Yeezy received a loan of between $2 million and $5 million, according to the data released by Treasury.
📣 In presidential politics and COVID-19 historian Heather Cox Richardson reports:
A number of Republican Senators have said they are skipping the Republican National Convention this year… Senators are using the dangers of the coronavirus to distance themselves from the president.
Senators who have stated they are bowing out: Chuck Grassley (R-IA), 86; Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Mitt Romney (R-UT); and Susan Collins (R-ME).
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.
🌎 07 July
Globally: 11 500 302 cases (172 512 new) with 535 759 deaths (3 419 new)
The Americas: 5 915 551 cases (94 711 new) with 266 736 deaths (1 712 new)
US: 2 877 238 cases (43 686 new) with 129 643 deaths (235 new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 11,799,443 (176,702 new)
Total deaths: 543,558 (5,479 new)
Recovered: 6,424,448 (121,759 new)
🇺🇸 07 July
CDC: 2,932,596 (46,329 new) cases and 130,133 (322 new) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 2,996,098 (60,021 new) cases and 131,480 (1,174 new) deaths
State data*: 2,980,324 (51,800 new) identified cases and 123,836 (920 new) deaths
KS reports only M-W-FTotal tests (US, Johns Hopkins): 36,878,106 (845,777 new)
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.
* 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)