COVID-19 day 82 : 📈 529,951 cases; 20,608 deaths : 11 April 2020
US cases cross the half-million mark; reports of treatment success with Tocilizumab; watch Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli perform at the Milan cathedral on YouTube; join my CDC Foundation team
It’s day 82 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. There are beautiful celebrations taking place around the world; I’ll share two.
Some good news. Sometimes a COVID-19 patient experiences their immune system racing into overdrive, resulting in a “cytokine storm”. One of the experimental treatments for this features Tocilizumab (Actemra); 21 patients who had high levels of inflammation were successfully treated with the drug in China.
In Seattle, Dr. Ryan Padgett, an emergency room doctor at Evergreen Health who was one of the first physicians in the US to become critically ill, was treated at Swedish Medical Center with this drug. KOMO talked with his doctor:
“It would be fair to say we have treated patients with this medicine who have gotten quite ill and gotten better,” said Dr. Krish Patel who is the director of the lymphoma program at Swedish Cancer Institute First Hill.
A dermatologist in Richmond, VA, reports on his experience with COVID-19 and his treatment with two infusions of Tocilizumab. “Within two hours [of the first dose], I felt like a new person… I went from teetering on the brink of needing to be intubated and organ failure to walking out the door without needing those resources.”
Tocilizumab is an approved FDA treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which is side effect of certain types of immunotherapy. The FDA approved clinical trial in March.
Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 529,951 (501,609) cases and 20,608 (18,777) deaths in the US, an increase of 5.6% (7.6%) and 9.8% (12.5%), respectively, since Friday. The rate of increase appears to be slowing.
That case rate is 160.10 per 100,000; the death rate is 62.26 per million.
One week ago, the case rate was 94 per 100,000, and the death rate, 25.69 per million.
🤓Recommended reading
Black people should feel safe with a face mask, but we don’t. Houston Chronicle, 09 April 2020.
When will this end, and what comes next? Health officials and epidemiologists are working to figure out Washington’s coronavirus end game. Seattle Times, 11 April 2020.
🎦Recommended viewing
Sunday, 1 pm Eastern
The city of Milan and Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo invited Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli to perform solo on Easter Sunday. He chooses not to call this a performance but a prayer. Watch live on YouTube at 10 am LA, 1 pm NYC, 6pm UK, 7pm CET.
On the day in which we celebrate the trust in a life that triumphs, I’m honored and happy to answer ‘Sì’ to the invitation of the City and the Duomo of Milan. I believe in the strength of praying together; I believe in the Christian Easter, a universal symbol of rebirth that everyone – whether they are believers or not – truly needs right now.
Rewind: Who knew that the CDC had a foundation? (Charity Navigator: 4/4)
The CDC Foundation's Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund "Saturday Night Seder" was streamed at 8 pm Eastern on YouTube, and it is a delight. From the NY Times:
It’s an original telling of the Passover story meant to entertain and bring together a mainstream audience for a few laughs, a bit of joy and some unavoidable reflections on the human capacity for transcendence amid danger and chaos…
“At the Seder table, we ask ourselves, ‘What can you do for people who are suffering because you once suffered?’” [Benj Pasek] said. “We want to amplify that message because it is one of hope and also one that asks people to give of themselves however they can.”
It succeeded well at our house: I laughed and I cried. And I learned a bit, too. Four glasses of wine?!? Highly recommended.
Please consider donating to the Foundation. (I started a team.)
🌐Global news:
Financial Times /New Straits Times / New York Times / South China Morning Post / The Age / The Globe and Mail / The Guardian / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post // CIDRAP / STAT News // ProPublica / The Atlantic / The Conversation / The Economist // ABC News (Australia) / ABC News (US) / BBC News / CBC / CBS News / CNBC / CNN / C-SPAN / NBC News
⓵ Around the country
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have identified COVID-19 cases. The only state with no reported deaths is Wyoming.
The Miami Herald has filed a public records request to obtain the names of all Florida elder-care facilities that have tested positive for COVID-19. When the newspaper tried to do so through its traditional corporate counsel:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ general counsel called a representative of the Miami Herald’s law firm seeking to quash a public records lawsuit that would force the state to divulge the names of all elder-care facilities that have had a positive test for the coronavirus.
Moreover, the state has acknowledged to the Herald that it is “significantly under-reporting the state’s COVID-19 testing backlog.”
About 3-in-10 Americans believe that SARS-2-CoV was made in a lab. 🤦♀️
Arizona has received 100 ventilators. It has a per capita case rate of 46.6 per 100,000, which is significantly below the median of 66.
⓶ Around the world
The number of affected countries/territories/areas jumped from 29 at the end of February to 208 today (added Yemen). Although early reports tied the outbreak to a seafood (“wet”) market in Wuhan, China, analyses of genomic data suggest that the virus may have developed elsewhere.
It’s somewhat stunning to see the difference in the growth of COVID-19 deaths between Italy and the United States.
India is extending its lockdown, which was to expire on 14 April.
Both Singapore and Japan are experiencing an increase in cases, which may be community spread.
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
The quantity and variety of misinformation coming out of the White House is incredible. Not on Twitter? Read on ThreadReader.
Very important thread about the USPS and its current budget shortfall due to COVID-19. (No, it does not get money from Congress. Yes, it’s mandated in the Constitution.) Read on ThreadReader.
⓸ Case count
There is a lag between being contagious and showing symptoms, between having a test and getting its results. The virus was not created in a lab.
🌎 11 April
Globally: 1 610 909 confirmed (89 657 - new) with 99 690 deaths (6,892 - new)
The Americas: 536 664 confirmed (43 491 - new) with 19 294 deaths (2,256 - new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.45 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 1,777,666 (1,699,019)
Total deaths: 108,867 (102,774)
🇺🇸 11 April
CDC: 492,416 (459,165) cases and 18,559 (16,570) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 529,951 (501,609) cases and 20,608 (18,777) deaths
State data*: 525,497 (493,457) identified cases and 20,494 (18,562) deaths
View infographic and data online: total cases, cases/100,000 and deaths/million.
* Johns Hopkins data, ~11.30 pm Pacific.
State data include DC, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands
See US (state/territory) total cases, cases/100,000 and deaths/million as infographics.
⓹ 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 Daily Memo :: Daily Memo archives
🦠 COVID-19 @ WiredPen.com