COVID-19 day 89 : 📈 735,242 cases; 39,089 deaths : 18 April 2020
"There will be no quick return to our previous lives"; South Korea reports single-digit increase in cases, the first time since February; COVID-19 job disruption varies greatly across the country
It’s day 89 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. This is the Saturday night light edition.
Dr. Fauci reminds us that models will change as we learn more about the virus. Models will change when their assumptions are validated (e.g., with and without physical distancing). Models will fluctuate for the foreseeable future.
About those protesters, demanding that states re-open. Take a look at this unemployment snapshot, then visit the AJC story because this map is interactive.
Colorado, 5,058% higher than last year
Georgia, 5,950%
Kentucky, 5,392%
Michigan, 3,831% (protests)
Ohio, 2,903% (protests)
South Dakota, 7,095%
Why the spike in unemployment so different across the states? The types of jobs differ greatly, that’s why. Amazon and Microsoft and other tech firms on the left coast quickly shifted employees to work-from-home (WFH) because they could. Boeing, on the other hand, had to be asked to shut down. Hard to manufacture planes from home (although many workers there, too, are information workers).
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Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 735,242 (706,779) cases and 39,089 (37,079) deaths in the US, an increase of 4.03% and 5.4%, respectively, since Friday. This is a significant decline in the rate of increase in deaths; it was 11.4% on Friday. Fluctuations are not unusual as the rates slow.
That case rate is 222.13 per 100,000; the death rate is 118.09 per million.
One week ago, the case rate was 160.10 per 100,000; the death rate, 62.26 per million.
🔬Research and medical news
In the United States, the case fatality rate has steadily ticked upward, from about 1.35 percent in late March to over 4 percent on Wednesday, according to figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate saw another spike to nearly 5 percent Thursday because of a large wave of “probable” deaths reported in New York City…
Without widespread testing to find out how many people have been infected, it remains impossible to determine precisely the lethality of the virus in any given community or demographic group…
“… the median age of patients in Italy is 63 or 64 years; the median age of patients in Germany is 47. The mortality is much lower [in Germany] because they avoided having the older population affected.”
As U.S. coronavirus fatality rate rises to 5 percent, experts are still trying to understand how deadly this virus is. Washington Post, 17 April 2020.
🎦Recommended viewing - laughter prescribed!
There is a LOT of southern here ... so liberal use of stop-rewind-play might be needed. I stoped at "does your church cookbook have a pandemic casserole?" and took this to the TV where Mike and I could laugh (a lot) together.
⓵ Around the country
If you read only one story today, it’s worth your while to make it this one. This is a long one, print it:
China did not allow Wuhan, Nanjing or other cities to reopen until intensive surveillance found zero new cases for 14 straight days, the virus’s incubation period. Compared with China or Italy, the United States is still a playground.
Americans can take domestic flights, drive where they want, and roam streets and parks. Despite restrictions, everyone seems to know someone discreetly arranging play dates for children, holding backyard barbecues or meeting people on dating apps.
Partly as a result, the country has seen up to 30,000 new case infections each day. “People need to realize that it's not safe to play poker wearing bandannas,” [Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University medical school] said.
The Coronavirus in America: The Year Ahead. NY Times, 18 April 2020.
There will be no quick return to our previous lives, according to nearly two dozen experts. But there is hope for managing the scourge now and in the long term.
DropBox PDFs: full-color; black-and-white
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.
⓶ Around the world
The top 10 line up differs slightly when we compare per capita cases and per capita deaths. Portugal and Germany are in the top 10 in cases, but not deaths. The UK and Sweden are in the top 10 in deaths, but not cases.
Sunday morning, South Korea reported a single-digit day-to-day increase in cases for the first time since February. A reminder that the first identified case of coronavirus, 21 January, was the same as in the United States.
South Korea: 51.3M people: 10,661 cases, 234 deaths
United States: 331M people; 194,416 cases; 20,639 deaths
To acknowledge the milestone, South Korea slightly relaxed its guidelines so that high-risk facilities like churches will no longer have to close. However, in general the country extended its social distancing policy for another 15 days. This is the policy recommended by epidemiologists for the United States as a whole.
This is what an epidemiological progression looks like (the daily bar chart). It takes a lot longer to bring it back down to the x-axis than it took to spike. You can see that the cumulative case curve is not yet flat. It, of course, will never go down. The best we can hope for is a perfectly horizontal line.
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.
⓷ Politics, economics and COVID-19
Earlier reporting tied the week’s protests against state stay-at-home orders with a political operative linked to Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education. The Michigan protest was organized in part by Michigan Freedom Fund; it was founded by Greg McNeilly, a political adviser to the DeVos family.
Now “Students for Trump” is calling for a “peaceful rebellion against governors” in Michigan, further linking these protests with the president.
Lady Gaga pulled together a concert carried live on all three networks. This was a highlight for me:
I did not realize President Carter had a Twitter account.
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.
🌎 18 April
Globally: 2 074 529 confirmed (82 967 - new) with 139 378 deaths (8493 - new)
The Americas: 743 607 confirmed (36 486 - new) with 33 028 deaths (2783 - new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (11.00 pm Pacific)
Global confirmed: 2,330,259 (2,249,662)
Total deaths: 160,721 (154,254)
Recovered: 598,228 (xxx)
🇺🇸 18 April
CDC: 690,714 (661,712) cases and 35,443 (xxx) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 735,242 (706,779) cases and 39,089 (37,079)
State data*: 724,926 (696,622) identified cases and 34,273 (32,494)
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): 3,723,634 (3,574,392)
View infographic and data online: total cases, cases/100,000 and deaths/million.
* Johns Hopkins data, ~11.00 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. As may purple toes.
📚 Resources
👓 See COVID-19 resource collection at WiredPen.
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🦠 COVID-19 @ WiredPen.com