COVID-19 day 96: 📈 939,235 cases; 53,934 deaths : 25 April 2020
Strokes show that COVID-19 is more than lungs; more on the controversial Stanford University study; Mexico's case rate wildly underestimated; what is the per capita case rate for your state?
It’s day 96 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. At this rate, we will see 1 million cases on Monday.
As we’ve learned more about the virus, early assumptions have been called into question, such as this being “just” a respiratory disease.
[Thomas] Oxley [of the department of neurosurgery, Mount Sinai Health System] gasped when he got to the patient’s age and covid-19 status: 44, positive.
The man was among several recent stroke patients in their 30s to 40s who were all infected with the coronavirus. The median age for that type of severe stroke is 74.
As Oxley, an interventional neurologist, began the procedure to remove the clot, he observed something he had never seen before. On the monitors, the brain typically shows up as a tangle of black squiggles — “like a can of spaghetti,” he said — that provide a map of blood vessels. A clot shows up as a blank spot. As he used a needlelike device to pull out the clot, he saw new clots forming in real-time around it.
“This is crazy,” he remembers telling his boss.
With that introduction, Ariana Eunjung Cha takes us on a journey of discovery, as doctors and researchers continue to learn how COVID-19 affects the human body. In this case, the patients are “among the least likely statistically to have a stroke.”
On 29 April, Oxley will report their experience with five cases of large vessel stroke in patients under age 50 in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This represents a sevenfold increase in what would normally be expected.”
Oxley and colleagues dedicate this report to "our inspiring colleague Gary Sclar, MD, a stroke physician who succumbed to COVID-19 while caring for his patients."
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Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 939,235 (905,358) cases and 53,934 (51,949) deaths in the US, an increase of 3.7% and 3.8%, respectively, since Friday. A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 4.03% and 5.4%, respectively.
That case rate is 273.51 per 100,000; the death rate is 162.94 per million.
One week ago, the case rate was 222.13 per 100,000; the death rate, 118.09 per million.
🤓Recommended reading
‘It is impossible to overstate the pain’: Fight against coronavirus will define our era, Bill Gates says. Seattle Times, 23 April 2020.
The first modern pandemic. Gates Notes, 23 April 2020.
Why The Warning That Coronavirus Was On The Move In U.S. Cities Came So Late. NPR Morning Edition, 24 April 2020 (read or listen)
🔬Research and medical news
🎦Recommended viewing
How do serological assays (antibody tests) and rapid diagnostic tests work? Watch The Science behind How Coronavirus Tests Work at Scientific American (24 April 2020). (Video not embeddable here.)
For a lovely spot of humor, Brad Pitt as Dr. Anthony Fauci. Earlier in April, Fauci had joked on CNN about Pitt playing him on SNL.
To the real Dr Fauci, thank you for your calm and your clarity in this unnerving time. Thank you to the medical workers, first responders, and their families, for being on the front line.
⓵ Around the country
If there’s a MOD Pizza in your neighborhood, consider giving them some of your money. On 27 February, the CEO cancelled the annual MOD meeting for general managers, franchise partners and vendors slated for 01 March at Seattle Center. There were no announced deaths in the US yet, no announced pandemic.
Employees can get free food for themselves and their family at the nearest MOD store at any time during the pandemic; no need to be working that day.
Furloughed employees are keeping benefits and health care, and laid-off workers have retained them through April.
MOD regularly hires people who have been incarcerated, who are homeless, and who have mental or physical disabilities
If you’re GF like me, there are two crust options; I prefer the cauliflower one but my hubby prefers the GF-friendly one.
Explore per capita or total case data for your state. Why are per capita data important? Because epidemiologists recommend waiting until COVID-19 infection rates are below 1-in-a-million to relax physical distancing. The current national average is 2,735 per million (which is currently expressed as per 100,000).
More on Georgia’s decision to open on Friday:
About 16% of state residents are uninsured, the fourth-highest rate in the nation
About 13% have diabetes, a COVID-19 risk factor
In southwest Georgia around Albany, since mid-March almost as many have died from coronavirus as all causes in the same period in 2018 [disclaimer: this is my native home]
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
France: Out of 11,000 patients analyzed in Paris hospitals, only 8.5% were smokers, yet more than one-in-four French people smoke.
A Chinese study found only 12.6% of patients analyzed were found to be smokers, yet more than one-in-four Chinese people smoke.
SO ... a French study will test nicotine patches with COVID-19 patients and healthcare workers, assuming the study is approved. This seems so ... WILD.
"Taking into account the age and sex of the patients, the researchers discovered the number of smokers was much lower than that in the general population estimated by the French health authority Santé Publique France at about 40% for those aged 44-53 and between 8.8% and 11.3% for those aged 65-75."
Mexico: Severe acute respiratory infections in Mexico have increased 50% this season compared with a year ago. “Of course that jump in cases is Covid-19, because influenza is on its way out this time of year,” according to Alejandro Macías, the former national commissioner for influenza in Mexico during the H1N1 outbreak.
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
Can you spell debacle?
As the USNS Comfort prepares to leave New York, I’ve been unsuccessful discovering current information about the USNS Mercy, which is in port in Los Angeles.
Twitter to the rescue. First, 1,000-bed hospital ship is not treating coronavirus patients.
So far, 65 patients from the community ranging in age from 20 to 90 have been treated aboard the ship. The medical crew has dealt with traumas, removed inflamed gallbladders, done amputation revisions, cared for bone infections and performed some plastic surgery [emphasis added].
But what about the sailors?
… the ship’s first sailor with a confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported on April 8. Since then, eight others from the medical team have tested positive… In all, 130 members of the medical team were removed from the ship at one point for possible exposure. Almost 100 have finished quarantine and returned to the Mercy.
In New York, the USNS Comfort was also intended to serve only non-coronavirus patients. It eventually halved its bed space to 500; it has treated only 182 patients since its arrival on Monday 30 March.
Can you spell debacle, part two?
Remember the Stanford “free” antibody testing study that got WSJ push, which was then interjected into conservative politician talking points because of its assertion that coronavirus is like the flu …
This should be the final nail, as far as scientists are concerned.
A Stanford University professor’s wife invited parents in a wealthy enclave of Northern California to sign up for her husband’s coronavirus antibody study this month, falsely claiming that an “FDA approved” test would tell them if they had immunity and could “return to work without fear,” according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.
The study flaws have already been discussed in science circles. Authorship is unique in that there is a venture capitalist in the list: Andrew A. Bogan. Two of the authors had already criticized lockdowns in a WSJ op-ed in March.
But the misinfo cat is on the loose ... was that the purpose?
Coronavirus was a Chinese hit-and-run followed by a cover-up that cost thousands of lives.
That’s straight from a memo that the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent to GOP political campaigns.
The memo includes advice on everything from how to tie Democratic candidates to the Chinese government to how to deal with accusations of racism. It stresses three main lines of assault: That China caused the virus “by covering it up,” that Democrats are “soft on China,” and that Republicans will “push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading this pandemic.”
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.
🌎 25 April
Globally: 2 719 897 confirmed (93 716 - new) with 187 705 deaths (5767 - new)
The Americas: 1 047 508 confirmed (52 138 - new) with 53 103 deaths (2520 - new)
Johns Hopkins interactive dashboard (~11.30 Pacific )
Global confirmed: 2,898,703 (2,809,979)
Total deaths: 203,043 (197,006)
Recovered: 822,264 (789,069)
🇺🇸 25 April
CDC: 895,766 (865,585) cases and 50,439 (48,816) deaths
Johns Hopkins*: 939,235 (905,358) cases and 53,934 (51,949) deaths
State data*: 931,698 (899,281) identified cases and 47,980 (46,204) deaths
Total tested (US, Johns Hopkins): 5,184,635 (4,940,376)
View infographic and data online: total cases, cases/100,000 and deaths/million.
* Johns Hopkins data, ~11.30 Pacific
State data from COVID-19 tracking project 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
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