COVID-19 day 85 : 📈 609,422 cases; 26,056 deaths : 14 April 2020
Global cases will cross 2 million on Wed.; 1-in-5 Americans would return to normal activities immediately when things open; Trump slams WHO, freezes funding, but US is $200 million in arrears
It’s day 85 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. By the time you read this, more than 2 million people on the planet will have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Tonight: more on the food supply system and President Trump acts on his threat to the World Health Organization.
The Smithfield plant profiled Monday produces five percent of the pork in the US food system. David Preisler, CEO of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association, told NPR that pork producers in Minnesota are losing $2.5 million per day. Why? Lost sales and lost value of the stock on hand.
Americans normally eat out a lot. A lot! In 2018, we spent an average of 5.0% of our disposable income food consumed at home and 4.7% on food away from home.
Restaurant closings and limited offerings has throttled that away-from-home demand.
For example, before coronavirus, Americans ate about 1.1 billion servings of bacon annually; bacon is served in 7-of-10 restaurants. Not surprising that 60 percent of all bacon produced here goes to “food service”, also known as restaurants and cafeterias.
This mismatch of supply and demand is happening across the food supply and is particularly perilous for farmers with perishable products, like milk. Dairy Farmers of America (a farmer-owned cooperative) has had to ask members to dump their milk.
Feeding America and the American Farm Bureau are asking USDA to help connect food banks to the farmers who have been destroying crops. If you’ve not heard of Imperfect Produce, that is their business model (affiliate link). And they take SNAP payment, like many farmer’s markets.
Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported 609,422 (582,468) cases and 26,056 (23,621) deaths in the US, an increase of 4.6% and 10.3%, respectively, since Monday.
Our case rate is 184.11 per 100,000; the death rate, 78.72 per million.
One week ago, the case rate was 120.81 per 100,000; the death rate, 38.99 per million.
The US accounts for 4% of the world’s population but 31% of the reported cases.
Why it is important to look at case rate rather than gross numbers.
🔬Research news
In Brazil, researchers have stopped recruiting for half of a double-blind study after enrolling 81 of 440 patients. High dose patients received 600 milligrams of chloroquine two times per day; chloroquine is related to hydroxychloroquine. Not only did the drug not appear to help with respiratory secretions, more patients in the high dose group experienced heart rhythm problems compared with those in the low dose group. Two patients in the high dose group developed a fast, abnormal heart rate before they died.
Preliminary findings suggest that the higher CQ dosage (10-day regimen) should not be recommended for COVID-19 treatment because of its potential safety hazards. Such results forced us to prematurely halt patient recruitment to this arm.
In New York, 215 women delivered infants at one hospital between 22 March and 04 April 2020. Of this sample, 33 (15%) tested positive for COVID-19, and 29 (88%) of these women were asymptomatic.
Although this prevalence has limited generalizability to geographic regions with lower rates of infection, it underscores the risk of Covid-19 among asymptomatic obstetrical patients. Moreover, the true prevalence of infection may be underreported because of false negative results of tests to detect SARS-CoV-2.
💃🏼Life hack
Headspace is offering five free guided meditations for adults and three for kids as well as five sleep audio files in a series called “A New York state of mind.” The series includes a message from co-founder Andy Puddicombe and “Reframing Anxiety” video with Headspace instructor and British Olympic diver Leon Taylor.
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 and all have at least one death.
We seem more rational, at least when answering a survey, than I had imagined. From Gallup, which conducted polls in March and April.
When asked how quickly they will return to their normal activities once the government lifts restrictions and businesses and schools start to reopen, the vast majority of Americans say they would wait and see what happens with the spread of the virus (71%) and another 10% would wait indefinitely. Just 20% say they would return to their normal activities immediately…
Republicans (31%), residents of small towns/rural areas (23%) and men (22%) are more likely to forecast that they'll resume their normal activities immediately…
The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error for subgroups are higher.
That’s good, because STAT News reports that a modeling study published in the journal Science suggests some form of physical distancing may be needed into 2022.
[The model] predicts that a one-time social distancing effort of the type currently being employed in most parts of the country will not stop transmission of the virus. If treatments are developed that can prevent Covid-19 patients from progressing to severe disease or if a vaccine is developed, movement restrictions could be loosened without health care capacity being overwhelmed.
So many unknowns.
From Florida: who knew that pro wrestling was an essential business?
In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution documents “out-of-date, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate data” that is being used to report on and guide responses to the COVID-19 outbreak.
In Kirkland, WA, 60-65 volunteers from Microsoft’s dining and catering services work a makeshift assembly-line to organize and pack 6,420 lunches daily. The boxed lunches remain in a refrigerated space overnight before being delivered to communities in need the next day. Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft contractor.
Monday I mentioned that two coalitions of governors are collaborating on how to re-open their economies. The west coast coalition of states (California, Oregon and Washington) and the east coast coalition (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island) together accounted for 38% of the country’s gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2019 according to Reuters.
⓶ Around the world
The number of affected countries/territories/areas jumped from 29 at the end of February to 208 today. 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.
France will remain in lockdown until 11 May.
India will remain in lockdown until at least 03 May.
South Koreans are heading to the polls. Like Wisconsin, no acknowledgment of the coronavirus.
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
The US has likely lost more jobs in the last four weeks than it gained in 11, and the International Monetary Fund projects “worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.” The IMF projects economic growth in the U.S. will fall by 5.9% this year, and the global economy to contract by 3%.
I’m having a hard grasping how stating the obvious can possibly be surprising to anyone.
The Treasury Department has ordered staff to add Trump’s name to the $1,200 stimulus checks being sent to 70 million Americans (in weekly increments of 5 million). Some IRS officials have said could delay delivery of this first batch by several days. He wanted his signature on the checks. This is unprecedented and smacks of authoritarianism.
Gates was responding to President Trump’s announcement that he was freezing payments to WHO.
Context: The US is the third largest country in the world by population. If we paid our bills on time, if we weren’t in arrears, we would be contributing about 24% of the World Health Organization 2020-2021 membership assessment budget. The budget also consists of donations.
As of 1 January 2020, the US is about $200 million in arrears due to failure to pay in 2019 and 2020; the Administration has not paid the bill that Trump says he’s “freezing.” I have not seen this accounting in any US report; this tip (with links to primary sources) is from The Guardian. (WHO assessments are paid in US and Swiss currency.)
More context: on 10 February, Trump released his 2021 budget proposal.
Trump’s proposed budget slashed the line item about in half, from about $123 million in fiscal 2020 to $58 million in fiscal 2021. Note: the 2020 and 2021 annual assessments are just under $100 million each.
Trump’s proposed budget slashed the CDC budget by 16% and the Health and Human Service budget by 10%.
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.
🌎 14 April
Globally: 1 844 863 confirmed (71 779 - new) with 117 021 deaths (5369 - new)
The Americas: 644 986 confirmed (34 244 - new) with 25 551 deaths (1792 - new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.30 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 1,982,552 (1,920,918)
Total deaths: 126,753 (119,686)
🇺🇸 14 April
CDC: 579,005 (554,849) cases and 22,252 (21,942) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 609,422 (582,468) cases and 26,056 (23,621) deaths
State data*: 604,147 (578,146) identified cases and 25,829 (23,459) deaths
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): xx (2,964,726)
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
🌐Global news
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