COVID-19 day 177: 📈 3,497,847 (66,273 new) cases and 137,407 (941 new) deaths: 15 July 2020
In Florida, 31% of kids test positive: what are the risks and long-term impacts? The US, "the accidental Sweden," accounted for 32% of all new global cases today (WHO) with <5% of its population
It’s day 177 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. A light issue.
Sections (no jump links, sorry!)
1, One big thing; 2, Key metrics; 3, Recommendations; 4, Politics, economics & COVID; 5, Case counts and resources
⓵ One big thing
This is headline that broke Wednesday night:
Children (under 18) are not in school. Have not been in school. Many have not been in summer camp.
Yet they have been coming down with COVID-19.
Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County, says when some kids get coronavirus, the long-term effects are unknown. She’s worried enough about this that she shared her concerns with Palm Beach County commissioners…
“In the five to 14-year-olds, when those children are examined, there are changes in the lungs that have occurred,” she said. “We have no idea what the long-term effect of this will be.”
That rate for children in Florida - 31% - is almost three times today’s state positivity: 11.0%.
The state pediatric report from last week suggests that the infection is more prevalent in older age groups.
In late June, the New England Journal of Medicine published two studies about COVID-19 in children, describing multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a “severe inflammation affecting multiple organ systems.”
In both studies, many of the children developed cardiovascular and clotting problems and many had gastrointestinal symptoms. A high proportion also had skin rashes…
Manish Patel, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 response team, said the message to parents is they should be on the lookout for fever and rash in children who have recently had Covid-19.
Michael Levin, Imperial College London, points out that these children might be under-diagnosed: “There is concern that children meeting current diagnostic criteria for MIS-C are the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ and a bigger problem may be lurking below the waterline.”
In Florida, 13 children have been diagnosed with MIS-C.
“We've seen these kids get really sick, and get better and recover and go home, yet we don't know what the long-term outcomes are,” says Dr. Nadine Choueiter, a pediatric cardiologist at Montefiore. “So that's why we will be seeing them.”
In Pennsylvania, in April:
Over about five days in the pediatric ICU, Andrew's condition deteriorated rapidly, as doctors struggled to figure out what was wrong. Puzzled, they tried treatments for scarlet fever, strep throat, and toxic shock syndrome. Andrew's body broke out in rashes, then his heart began failing and he was put on a ventilator. Andrew's father, Ed Lis, says doctors told the family to brace for the worst: “We've got a healthy kid who a few days ago was just having these sort of strange symptoms. And now they're telling us that we could lose him.”
[…]
Although Andrew tested positive, the rest of the family – both parents, Andrew's twin brother, and two older siblings – all tested negative.
Measuring the impact of COVID-19 by total or percentage of deaths misses a much bigger - and longer term - cascade.
Another negative externality: impact on childhood vaccination rates.
Coverage is down across the world for “the number of children receiving all three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DPT3) vaccine.” According to the World Health Organization, this is the first drop in DPT3 coverage in 28 years.
⓶ Key metrics
🦠 Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported 3,497,847 (66,273 new) cases and 137,407 (941 new) deaths, an increase of 1.93% and 0.69%, respectively, since Monday. A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.96% and 0.62%, respectively.
Today
- seven-day average: 66,273 cases and 751 deaths
- 3.93% cases leading to death
- case rate, 1,056.74 per 100,000; death rate, 41.51 per 100,000One week ago
- seven-day average: 52,533 cases and 611 deaths
- 4.33% cases leading to death
- case rate, 922.86 per 100,000; death rate, 39.97 per 100,000
Note: the seven-day average is important because dailies vary due to factors other than actual case numbers, particularly over a weekend.
⓷ Recommendations
🤓 Recommended reading
Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy, adopted in March, emerged from the country’s top epidemiologist and other leaders’ evaluation of what little science about transmission there was at the time, factoring in economic considerations, and making a considered — albeit controversial — decision to stop well short of the full shutdown that other countries in western Europe (and many U.S. states) adopted.
In early summer, parts of the U.S. began following a very similar path — but one it has stumbled onto, not chosen based on science. Now, the next few weeks will show the consequences of being the accidental Sweden.
The U.S. is the accidental Sweden, which could make the fall ‘catastrophic’ for Covid-19. STAT News, 14 July 2020.
⓸ Politics, economics and COVID-19
🦠Sixteen states reported more than 1,000 cases on Wednesday; half have a case rate greater than the national average. Louisiana has the highest case and death rates; of the states listed, it has been fighting the virus the longest. Louisiana was also part of the initial spring outbreak.
🆘 On Wednesday, North Carolina again set a new record for number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients: 1,142 patients. This was the seventh-straight day with more than 1,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. ICU beds: 19% are available.
🏥 On Wednesday in Florida, 54 ICUs were at capacity and 40 reported ICU capacity of 10% or less.
✅ Missed in yesterday’s “mask issue”, WalMart has joined Costco in requiring customers to wear masks. That’s going to go down well in its home territories (not) unless someone’s loved one works retail.
Industry groups and unions had stepped up their calls around mask requirements for customers in recent days. Last week, the Retail Leaders Industry Association, an industry trade group, called on the nation's governors to pass statewide mandates requiring citizens to wear masks in public. The United Food and Commercial Workers' Union also urged government officials and business leaders to require masks for customers in an advertisement over the weekend.
CDC, Johns Hopkins, states, WHO
🇺🇸 15 July
CDC: 3,416,428 (60,971 new) cases and 135,991 (773 new) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 3,497,847 (66,273 new) cases and 137,407 (941 new) deaths
State data*: 3,479,437 (65,133 new) cases and 129,615 (865 new) deaths
KS reports only M-W-F; CT and RI report only M-F; also missing, COWHO Situation report, 177
3 344 783 cases (58 720 new) with 135 053 deaths (349 new)
🌎 15 July
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global cases: 13,554,477 (230,947 new)
Total deaths: 584,124 (5,496 new)
Global: 13 150 645 cases (185 836 new) with 574 464 deaths (4 176 new)
The Americas: 6 884 151 cases (103 723 new) with 290 674 deaths (2 244 new)
* 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.
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)