by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
(If you are returning to this site just skip down to today's data table and comments below)
Welcome to the Daily Pandemic Diary for October 2020. The daily statistical tables below are divided into four parts, the U.S. daily global share of new cases in the prior 24 hour period, the U.S. daily global share of COVID-19 related deaths in the same 24 hour period, a commentary section, and a graphic of the raw data table from which the raw data is reported. The data comes from the international Worldometer.info website. The main purpose here is to provide a daily snapshot of how the U.S. is doing relative to the world as a whole. The twenty-four-hour lookback is based on Grenich Mean-time. The Total Tests/U.S. The population is the ratio of all COVID-19 tests given relative to the population of only one test was given per person.
This blog continues the daily collection of data begun in the Daily Update blog mentions below and the Daily Pandemic Diary for the past months.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 231 - OCTOBER 31, 2020
Comments: It's the last day of the week and the last day of a scary month. Fittingly, it is Holloween, the first day of the new year for any ancient Celts out there. Happy Samhaim! For the rest of us, let's hope this is the start of a new commitment to change our behaviors so we can slow the spread of this awful virus.
It is also the first time any country had over 100,000 new infections in a 24 hours period. The 7-day average for new cases this past week stands at 80,799. That is double what it was 42 days ago, which hints that the rate of change is still rising as well. If we do nothing to change the trajectory we might be looking at 160,000 new infections every day by mid-December. That is unthinkable. It would crush our healthcare systems. We have to do better, and we can do better. Stay safe and be a person who is safe to be around.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 230 - OCTOBER 30, 2020
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 229 - OCTOBER 29, 2020
This N95 cone mask, pictured here, fits comfortably over your face and nose. It filters our micron-size particles and has a double elastic strap with an adjustable nose piece and anti-fog foam to increase comfort and prevent leakage. It seals in and keeps out all particles and most aerosols. It comes in a regular size and a small size for smaller faces (think children). It costs 63¢ retail and much less if our national government were to purchase them in bulk for general distribution. A mask like this, properly worn and safely handled under a mask mandate order (and standard social distancing) could reduce transmission by 75%.
On the other hand, Eli Lilly’s experimental anti-viral drug proved completely ineffective in a level 3 clinical trial for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Two days later the Trump administration struck a deal to buy up to 950,000 doses of this useless drug at a cost of $1,247 per dose. The doses would be given free of charge to people with mild symptoms, who do not require hospitalization, in the hope that it might help them recover more quickly. That deal equals a total cost potential of $1.18 billion dollars in sales once the FDA issues an emergency use authorization.
The money spent on this proven ineffective therapeutic is enough to purchase 1.87 billion N95 cone masks for free in a targeted distribution plan where hotspots justify mask mandates. That number of masks is at the retail price of 63¢ each. The President has the power to invoke the Defense Production Act to purchase more than double that number of the same cost. This is another glaring example of why national leadership matters.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 228 - OCTOBER 28, 2020
The Trump administration is placing most of its efforts on vaccine development, which is an appropriate priority as long as it isn't a singular priority. Some potentially discouraging news on that front was reported by the BBC yesterday. Immunity conveyed by getting the virus may decline rapidly, especially in people who were asymptomatic or who had mild symptoms. The article reports that:
"More than 350,000 people in England have taken an antibody test as part of the REACT-2 study... at the end of June and the beginning of July, about 60 in 1,000 people had detectable antibodies... in September, only 44 per 1,000 people were positive [suggesting that] the number of people with antibodies fell by more than a quarter between summer and autumn."
While we can't make too much of this finding right now, it should be a factor considering a greater emphasis on prevention measures as we approach the winter months.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 227 - OCTOBER 27, 2020
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 226 - OCTOBER 26, 2020
Comments: With four states not reporting (MI, MS, CT, RH) and another six states not reporting deaths (HI, WY, OR, WA, AL, AB), The U.S. is still first in reported new cases of COVID-19 in the world. We are second in reported deaths behind India. France is getting clobbered with the virus, yet the economic impact there may be less severe than here. France has imposed strict travel restrictions as part of its COVID strategy. Anyone traveling there from here has to present a negative PCR test conducted within 72 hours prior to takeoff, for example, and when you get there you have to be off the streets between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am in most tourist destinations. In Ireland, there is a travel restriction that prevents most people from traveling between counties, which is reinforced by police roadblocks. The United Kingdom, like France, has three tiers of restrictions that are applied regionally, or locally, according to the size of the outbreak. A map of current restrictions and an example of tier 2 restrictions are captured in the screenshots below. It is helpful to see what a national strategy looks like since we have no similar guidance here to imagine it.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 225 - OCTOBER 25, 2020
Comments: Today's numbers are incomplete, it being a weekend. Louisiana, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have not reported. Other states haven't reported death totals although their numbers would suggest there may have been some deaths. They are Kansas, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Alaska. Despite the omission, the daily total of new cases is the second-highest recorded in the U.S. after yesterday's all-time high. Globally, the U.S. had to most new cases and most deaths in the past 24 hours. Note also that the U.S. test positivity rate is climbing daily and is now 6.17%, well above the point where certain states should be imposing the mandatory wearing of masks, limiting public gatherings, and even imposing some targeted lockdowns. Media reports suggest that hospital systems in many parts of the country are approaching breakdown levels. It is so important that governments take proactive measures because steering us away from disaster is like trying to turn a great ship. Momentum is our enemy.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
Day 224 - OCTOBER 24, 2020
Comments: We are 224 days into our national health emergency and we just hit the highest one day total for new virus infections, but we are still far from peaking in this latest wave. It is also 5,555 cases below the peak 7-day average in the last wave. That's because this number contains several thousand cases that were not reported over the last weekend.
The good news today is that COSTCO started selling a PCR COVID saliva test that you can take at home and mail into a certified laboratory. The results are returned in about three days. It costs $140 bucks. Apparently, you don't need a prescription, but it isn't reimbursable by your insurance. Also, it isn't available in PA, NV, or MD. The bad news is that the cost puts it out of reach for nearly half of all Americans who don't even have $500 in savings for an emergency. A national strategy to fight this pandemic should include free testing in addition to lost wage subsidies and temporary Medicare coverage for all who lost their employer-sponsored health benefits. In contrast, my cousin in Ireland (a former horse jockey) loves to play the horses. No one can go to the track without prior COVID testing, so he was tested 5 times at no cost in the past month. That's how you safely open up the economy (providing everyone is also wearing proper masks and social distancing).
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 223 - OCTOBER 23, 2020
Comments: New coronavirus infections in the U.S. hit the third-highest daily total since the pandemic began. Thirty-eight states and D.C. have over 500 new cases in the past 24 hours. More than 1 in 6 new cases globally are here in this country. The last time the 7-day average of new cases was this high was 12 days before the last peak, and an average of over 800 Americans are dying every day. At this rate, we will lose 50,000 Americans before Christmas! BUT, but we can save the lives of at least 25,000 loved ones by properly wearing a surgical or N95 mask in the presence of others.
This holiday season, give the gift of life.
Wear a mask!
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 222 - OCTOBER 22, 2020
Here is a link to explain how much COVID-19 testing we need in the United States. It reveals how inadequate our testing numbers are: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/what-testing-capacity-do-we-need/
Comments: Over 1,200 Americans died of COVID-19 yesterday. Our first thoughts and prayers should be with the loved ones they leave behind. The 7-day average is approaching 800 people dying every day. And for every two COVID-19 deaths that we count, there is another COVID death that doesn't get counted. That is the estimate made recently by the CDC. It was reported in STAT online magazine this way:
That means that the 227,000 COVID deaths reported so far are closer to 340,000 deaths, and yesterday's total may be closer to 1,800 deaths. Furthermore, because of a lack of COVID testing in the U.S. and the fact that there are so many untested asymptomatic people (spreading the infection) scientists have estimated that there may be up to 20 times more infections than is reported. We shouldn't let anyone try and tell us that the numbers are exaggerated.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 221 - OCTOBER 21, 2020
Comments: With all states reporting, the 62,072 new infections reported yesterday places the U.S. first in the world for new infections. Due to the extreme variance of the day to day numbers over the course of a week, I am adding the 7-day averages for new infections and deaths. For context, the record-high 7-day average for new infections is 69,922 on July 25, 2020. The record-high 7-day average for daily deaths is 2,256 from April 20, 2020. Note our slight decline in rank on the number of tests per million. In a follow-up to yesterday's diary, I still don't know where Worldometer.info obtains these testing numbers or which types of tests are included. I have written to them.
Also, note that the positivity rate is still rising. I take this number each day from the Johns Hopkins website As you know, I am in communications with them regarding anomalies in their reporting. Today, when I went to the sight to get today's positivity rate a message box appeared on the screen. It appears they are reassessing their data collection and analysis processes. Here is a screenshot of the notice:
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 220 - OCTOBER 20, 2020
Comments: Most states are reporting COVID statistics today, but it seems that some have not yet caught up with the missed daily new cases or daily death cases from over the weekend yet. This may be typical, but nine stated from whom we should expect some death statists are still not reporting any. Therefore, the New Covid-19 Deaths figure is significantly under-reported for today. The United States' new case numbers, while still undercounted from the weekend, is the highest in the world over the past 24 hours.
The New York Times recently reported on the status of the U.S. pandemic in which it claimed as a positive that the rising number of new cases was in part due to a substantial rise in testing. Maybe so, but the quickened pace of COVID testing has only brought the numbers up to where they would have been if there hadn't just been a nearly two-month decline in testing. Also, positivity rates are rising at a slower rate than the recent rise in testing rates. So what does all this mean? What is the relationship between testing and new cases and how is a new case of the virus defined?
To distinguish probable cases from suspected cases there are four categories of information to be considered. The first category of information is clinical data which involves a checklist of the symptoms and instructions as to how to weigh them clinically. Next, there are laboratory tests of which there are three basic types of testing, the aforementioned RT-PCR tests, antigen tests, and antibody tests. The third category of information is epidemiological linkage, including any history of exposure to people known to have COVID-19. The fourth category of information is from vital records, basically, death reports and autopsy reports. New cases not confirmed by an RT-PRC test are diagnosed and identified based on a combination of these other factors. An example of a suspected case might be a person who tests positive for antibodies but who never had any symptoms. They are NOT counted as a new case for statistical purposes. And when states report on the numbers tested, their figures may include rapid tests as well as the RT-PCR tests. And so:
1. Daily New Case data do not contain duplications for individuals with multiple positive testing.
2. While CDC positivity test results are only based on RT-PCR testing, some states may report testing numbers that include other types of laboratory testing.
3. When a probable (but not confirmed) diagnosis of COVID-19 is made according to established protocols, that person is reported as a new case.
4. When a person is suspected of having COVID-19 now or of having had it in the past, they are not counted as a new case.
And getting back to the New York Times question, the relationship between testing and new cases is NOT straight forward. First, it isn't clear that states are uniformly reporting testing numbers. Second, if only RT-PCR testing numbers are being reported by the states, then how many of the new cases reported are based on a probable diagnosis and not on a confirmed test?
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 219 - OCTOBER 19, 2020
Comments: Today's U.S. numbers are significantly undercounted. The states that have not yet given a complete report on their statistics from over the weekend are Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Oregan, Rhode Island, West Virginia, DC, Michigan, Mississippi, Connecticut, Nebraska, and Washington. This trend, of states not reporting their complete numbers over the weekend, is a curious new development in that changes made to how these reports are compiled changed a few months back. As I understand it, all COVID statistics are electronically inputted directly to privately owned data processing companies by hospital and medical center administrators, not by state health departments. Are local health services administrators suddenly not reporting over the weekend, or has something changed at Worldometer.info where I have been obtaining these global statistics. It is a question that I will try to research. Stay tuned.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 218 - OCTOBER 18, 2020
Comments: The number of new cases and deaths in the past 24 hours are incomplete as nine states have not reported. The COVID test positivity rate continues to slowly rise. Total daily tests are over a million per day, but we are still 20th in the world for the number of tests per million population. Accurate assessment of the community spread cannot be observed until the middle of next week.
There is new, well-confirmed research on the relationship between humidity and the spread of the virus that should help us prepare for the colder, dryer winter months. Low humidity levels facilitate the spread of the virus. One study in Australia found that a 1% decrease in relative humidity might increase by the transmission of the virus indoors by 7 to 8 percent. They estimate about a 2-fold increase in COVID-19 notifications for a 10 percent drop in relative humidity. Indoor humidity levels should be held between 40% and 60% during winter. So you may want to invest in humidifiers and humidity gages this year. We put inexpensive temperature /humidity gauges and humidifiers in every room for years now during the winter months after we discovered that our house was dangerously dry, with less than 16% humidity.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 217 - OCTOBER 17, 2020
Comments: The highest one-day total of new cases to date was 78,941on July 25th (A correction from yesterday). Today the new case total of 71,687 approaches that all-time high. This number will decline over the next few days as more states decline to report their statistics over the weekend, but it will rebound and it will likely set a new record high before next week is out. How many days did it take for newly reported infections to double in getting to this figure? On September 12th the 7-day running average was 35,584, nearly half of today's new cases, exactly six weeks ago (35 days). So what are the projections between now and the new year?
Worldometer.info calculates COVID-19 projections for the U.S. states, but not for countries. These projections (below) are based on three different trajectories, a trajectory for the current mandates in each state, the trajectory if current mandates are eased, and the trajectory of everyone is required to wear appropriate masks. Also, the base numbers are higher than the reported numbers to add in the estimated number of people who contract the virus but are not tested or diagnosed with the disease. Regardless of which number they use, the proportions would be unchanged. These state projections represent between about a 3 to 12 fold increase in cases between today and January. The point to be made here is that we have already entered into what will be the worst, most dangerous time period for this pandemic in this country and the time to prepare, to plan, to take extra precautions, and to reassess appropriate mandates is NOW.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 216 - OCTOBER 16, 2020
Comments: The U.S. total number of newly reported COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours has exceeded new cases in India for the first time in over a month. We are #1 in the world again with over 66 thousand new reports, except this time the building wave is not due to very high numbers in very few places. Twenty-six states (including New York) had more than 1,000 new reports and another 12 states (including New Jersey) had between 587 and 980 new cases. Resources need to treat the sick are spread out across the whole country for the first time. Scores of states and hundreds of local governments will have to grapple with how to strengthen restrictions to bring the numbers down, all without the benefit of a national policy or nationally managed resources. It's every state for itself. The last time we had numbers this high was on July 31, 2020. The highest one-day total of new cases to date was 78,941on July 25th. We are close to that already.
Note that the test positivity
rate has been climbing above 5%. Preliminary word has been received from John's
Hopkins University regarding their data discrepancies last month. As some of
you may know, there are three different methods recognized by the CDC to
calculate positivity rates. They are +test/total tests, +people/total test, and
+people/total people. It was suggested that a change in the source information
John's Hopkins receives and a change in how positivity is calculated might be
behind the observed discrepancy. John's Hopkins is exploring this issue
further. Stay tuned.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 215 - OCTOBER 15, 2020
Comments: The U.S. is still one of the hottest hotspots for COVID-19 in the world. No news there! New infections in the past 24 hours nearly totaled 60 thousand, and that is with all states reporting on new cases this time. COVID testing is consistently around a million tests a day, which is welcome news but still about 2 million per day short of what we need. And testing should be free or at low cost to all if we had a national emergency policy for this disease. I was at a test facility recently and noticed that people with insurance had to pay a $100 co-pay plus $100 uncovered cost for a rapid COVID test. We don't have a national strategy, but the current administration is formulating one now.
Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet are maneuvering to pursue a "Herd Immunity" strategy. This would mean doing nothing to prevent anyone from getting ill, or perhaps encouraging infections such as the President's mass rallies are doing already. It is a survival of the fittest idea that letting the virus run through the population will "cull the herd" of less healthy people while conveying immunity on enough of the survivors to protect everyone else from becoming exposed. If President Trump wins a second term, this is the pandemic policy we can expect from our government. So, what would that look like?
On 9/28/2020 a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine investigators reported that 9% of people nationwide have been infected with the COVID-19 virus. This was based on thousands of positive anti-bodies tests of blood samples taken from dialysis patients all around the country. They estimate that 60%-70% of the population must have antibodies to the coronavirus before the spread of COVID-19 begins to decline. This suggests another 50% to 60% of the population still has to get infected before herd immunity can start having an effect. Also, it reveals that about 28 million people have already gotten the virus, compared with about 8 million new cases officially reported. Do the math and that means 152 to182 million more people would need to catch the virus before herd immunity would start to kick in.
Let's make the very optimistic assumption that any amount of COVID anti-bodies conveys perfect and lasting immunity, and that only 175 million more people have to get infected for herd immunity to end the spread of the disease. Under these circumstances, the number of deaths it would take to achieve herd immunity would be 175,000,000 multiplied by the fatality rate. There are many ways to calculate the fatality rate and there is no perfect answer so far in this pandemic. Based strictly on reported new cases and deaths from COVID-19 in this country, the mortality rate would appear to be 2.7%. But, if over 28 million people have already been infected, 3.7 times more than new cases being reported every day, than the actual mortality rate must be much lower (and are the reported number of death accurate?)
In a June 16th article in Nature, researchers attempted to estimate the true mortality rate of this coronavirus worldwide, not an easy job. The best guess they could make would place the true mortality rate at 0.9%, midway between the highest and lowest estimates. With all the highly optomistic assumption mentioned above, with a mortality rate of 0.9%, and assuming a vaccine is not found in time, the number of Americans that would die under a herd immunity policy would be no less than 1,575,000 people. It this an acceptable loss of life for a very uncertain gain? If we take a less optomistic calculation the number of deaths could be well over two million people. Give this cost in human lives, do we really want our national policy to pursue herd immunity? The World Health Organization labels this approach as immoral, and that is my opinion as well. Each of us must decide for ourselves.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 214 - OCTOBER 14, 2020
Comments: Again, data is missing from several states. No death data were reported in Alabama, South Dakota, or Utah. No new case data or deaths were reported in Missouri, and no new case data were reported in Kansas. I am still waiting for word from John's Hopkins University regarding discrepancies in the testing positivity they reported last month. We reached a milestone of sorts. As of today, the total number of COVID-19 tests given to date is equal to one-third of the U.S. population.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 213 - OCTOBER 13, 2020
Comments: As reported yesterday, a number of states did not post any numbers, so we are looking for corrections going forward. A closer look into these states reveals that states such as Connecticut and Michigan stopped reporting their numbers on weekends and holidays. Their numbers following weekends are significantly higher, meaning they are corrected over the next day or two. This adds significantly to the overall pattern of lower numbers of cases on weekends generally.
In a follow-up to the discussion of masks from yesterday, the 100% leakage found by the Japanese researchers for cloth masks prompted some reasonable push-back. So, here is an April study conducted by the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Marine and Environmental Sciences Northeastern University, Boston. In short, it found that cloth masks were 30% to 60% effective (which translates to leakage rates of 40% to 70%). Those rectangular, pleated surgical masks are 75% effective (25% leakage rate), and N95 masks are 99% effective (1% leakage rate). Excellent quality surgical masks can be purchased for 24¢ each (Costco), maybe cheaper, and are very comfortable to wear. So, why would anyone insist on wearing cloth masks that are far less safe? We are 213 days into this emergency and surgical masks, at least, are now cheap and plentiful. We can all help reduce the expected surge in new infections over the next few months simply by switching to surgical masks and wearing them properly.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 212 - OCTOBER 12, 2020
Current projections indicate that if we don't change our collective behavior over the rest of the year the daily new infection rate and the daily death toll will double about every 30 days. Clearly, we need to redouble our efforts to keep from getting infected or infecting others. The best way to do that is to wear effective face masks and to wear them properly.
MASKS Holiday celebrations will be moving indoors where social distancing and masks are most urgently needed. The COVID-19 virus only spreads from person to person through our breath via moisture particles or the tiny aerosols we expel as we breathe. (Hand washing is to remove breath droplets that land on objects in a room). An N95 mask can stop all moisture particles and 95% of aerosols if they are worn properly. If you don't pinch the metal tops to keep it tight around your nose and face, they leak. If you wear glasses and they steam up, you are leaking aerosols into the air and taking in aerosols as you breathe.
Several new scientific studies have examined the effectiveness of wearing masks. Face mask-wearing is the strongest predictor for the number of deaths per million. It affects 70% of the death rates from the deadly disease. Almost 80% of the COVID-19 deaths reported in early June could be linked to the reluctance of people wearing a face mask in mid-March. Yet a YouGov survey of people from more than 20 countries revealed that only 21% of people 'in Britain said they wear them while over 90% in some Asian countries wear them. Japanese researchers also found that people with more body fat are less likely to wear face masks because they feel more uncomfortable. "An obese adult inhales an average of 50% more air per day than non-obese adults," they said. Although they are not close fitting, blue, disposable masks are fluid resistant and provide some protection against larger respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes. Primarily, they prevent the wearer from spreading infectious droplets to others. They are best used in settings where aerosol buildup isn’t an issue, such as outdoors.
A July study found that Cloth face masks offer essentially zero protection against the COVID-19 virus. Kazunari Onishi at St. Luke’s International University in Tokyo found that cloth masks had a 100-percent leakage rate in terms of airborne particles penetrating the fabric and through the gap between masks and faces. When worn properly, good quality blue procedural masks, the rectangular pleated ones, had a 52% leakage rate while some low-quality procedural masks had an 81% leakage rate. When casually worn, both procedural masks had a 100% leakage rate, meaning they were no better than not wearing them at all.
To be clear, the only reason the CDC recommended cloth masks is because procedural masks and N95 masks were in such short supply. It was more critical that healthcare professionals have them, otherwise high infection rates among them would incapacitate our hospitals. We are now 212 days into this national crisis. We should have an adequate supply of N95 masks by now, but we don’t. So buy them in modest quantities (no hoarding!), reuse them, put them in a rice cooker occasionally to sanitize them, but only use them when the situation requires that level of protection.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 211 - OCTOBER 11, 2020.
Comments: NOTE: The numbers reported in today's graphs are incomplete and therefore inaccurate. According to the data tables on Worldometer.info, no data was recorded from Florida, Lousiana, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. This absent data, coupled with the usual weekend lag in data reporting, probably means the number of new cases in the past 24 hours is somewhere north of 60,000. Also, no deaths data were recorded from Washington State, so the number of deaths is probably more than 900. We should see an upward correction in the next few days.
That said, the United States still has the most COVID-19 cases, the most deaths, the most currently active cases, and the most currently critical cases in the world.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 210 - OCTOBER 10, 2020.
Comments: This is the fifth straight day in which new infections have increased by thousands more each day, from 34,066 on the 5th of October to 60,588 in the past 24 hours. If new cases rise again tomorrow at the same rate if increase, the spread of infection will have doubled in just 6 days. 37 states have more than 600 new cases per day and 23 of them have more than 1,000 new cases per day. As mentioned in an earlier posting, this is happening in the context of an overall rise in infections worldwide. Our high percentage of the global total is relatively stable despite the rising cases. So, how are other countries responding to the rise in new infections within their borders?
France, Argentina, and the UK are among the nations with rising new cases. What is the response in France (to pick one).
Masks are a national mandate in France. They have divided the country into metropolis regions and adopted three levels of alerts based on the spread of infections in a region. Each alert has an escalating set of restrictions and local authorities may impose additional or stricter restrictions if necessary. Below is a screenshot of the French alerts and where they apply. There would be nothing stopping the United States government from adopting a similar system in cooperation with the states, but 210 days into our national emergency we still do not have a national policy to bring the virus under control.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 209 - OCTOBER 9, 2020.
Comments: I have no special comments today, but check out what is going on today due to new Covid19 virus restrictions in Ireland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 208 - OCTOBER 8, 2020.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 207 - OCTOBER 7, 2020.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 206 - OCTOBER 6, 2020
COMMENTS: Our President is out of the hospital and acting like conquering the COVID hero if only he would wear a mask. Everyone at his stage of the illness is still shedding virus. If you, or anyone you know, tested positive for COVID-19 pleases remember that you can still infect others for weeks after you have recovered from the symptoms.
Regarding U.S. positivity rates and the John’s Hopkins data anomaly, , I received a response to my inquiry from Mary Conway Vaughn, a Senior Program Coordinator. She apparently misunderstood the scope of my inquiry and offered an explanation for why there might have been a one-day anomaly in the data. (Texas apparently withdrew 300,000 tests due to some error they had made.) I have sent her a fuller account of the data anomaly and hope to hear back from her soon. Here below is a partial text of my letter back to her and a partial screenshot of the data table I send her.
"To illustrate my confusion, I am attaching a table comparing the positivity rates published on the two different pages in the John's Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Website. The International Comparison page data is listed in the second column. Between the 1st of September and the 16th, it is completely different from the data published on your State-by-State Comparison page data listed in the third column. On 17 September, a transition began to bring the numbers in sync, and from 24 September on they are the same values. That is how it appears. Where there two competing methods for calculating positivity rates prior to the 16th? What changed, and why?"
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 205 - OCTOBER 5, 2020
Comments: This is new... France is now third in the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours. Also, I'm still waiting for an explanation from John's Hopkins as to why the U.S. Positivity Rate dropped so dramatically last month. [CORRECTION - I did receive an email response that got lost in my inbox. My apologies to John's Hopkins. I will share their response tomorrow.]
That said, the 7-Day Average of New Cases is creeping back up in the U.S. (see below). Against this backdrop, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court of Michigan struck down a 1945 law giving its
governor's emergency powers, which the Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has used to impose mask-wearing and other measures to control community spread of the virus. Republicans in the state are joyous. Some municipalities, however, are stepping up to impose these restrictions locally. Others are not. This same scenario just played out in Wisconsin five-months ago. Today, Wisconsin has the 4th highest number of new infections in the country over the past 24 hours. Wisconsin cases are surging in the five months since the ruling with nearly 2,900 positive tests this past Saturday and a testing positivity rate of 20.5%. This is how the Republican politicizing of the pandemic in this country is fueling the epidemic.
[Editorial comment] - Ultimately, it is the ultra-wealthy corporate capitalists pushing the Republican Party to open up our economy. They won't wait for a more cautious, more effective approach that saves lives. Their primary interest is to protect their wealth, not our health. They have literally called on us to sacrifice our lives to secure their assets. They have always lived lives isolated from the rest of us, so they aren't concerned about getting infected. This is a form of class-warfare at its deadliest.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
DAY 204 - OCTOBER 4, 2020
Comments: If the United States was doing as well as other countries in controlling the Coronavirus, only 1 out of 25 new cases worldwide would be in the U.S., but our rate is four times higher. There were over 50 thousand new infections in the past 24 hours, and our President is himself in the hospital with COVID-19.
Nineteen other countries do more testing per million population. As of today, if all the testing we have administered so far was given on the basis of one person per test, two-thirds of our people would still be waiting for a test. As it is, a huge majority of our people have yet to be tested.
Yesterday 16 states had a thousand new cases in 24 hours. Today 21 states have a thousand new cases in 24 hours. In rank order, Lousiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, North Dakota, Georgia, and Arizona all have had more than 30.000 cases per million population, far outpacing New York and New Jersey, and California. Globally, we still have had the most cases and the most fatalities.
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
Day 203 - October 3, 2020
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
Day 202 - October 2, 2020
Comments: Today is the second day of October and the 202nd day of the U.S. National Health Emergency. Today we learned that among the 4,739 who tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in the past 24 hours are the President of the United States, Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and top aid to the President, Hope Hicks. Then we learned that both Ms. Hicks and the President is exhibiting minor symptoms. In the case of the President, he is fatigued, has a sore throat and a raspy sounding voice. Later this evening he spiked a fever and is now admitted to Walter Reid Hospital. We wish them all well, and a speedy recovery, of course. But what does the term “mild symptoms” mean and what does it say about prognosis and recovery from the virus. What questions should we be asking? Do all COVID-19 virus cases usually start with "mild" symptoms? And, what should we look for to assess the risk Donald Trump, and others, face given the early symptoms they exhibit?
A friend, who is a scientist in a medical lab and another friend, who is a medical doctor, offered the following insight into that question:
Do all COVID-19 virus cases usually start with "mild" symptoms? What should we look for to assess the risks that Donald Trump faces given what we know so far?
COVID-19 cases can start out with mild symptoms. But here’s the thing to look for, the symptoms tend to appear in a particular order. Which symptoms appear and in what order will tell a lot about the progression timeline and the risk of progression to more severe reactions.
In the case of President Trump, I would be curious to know his early blood pressure readings. This can tell if there is whole-body inflammation, which can signal that he is at a higher risk for a cytokine storm. This is a severe and life-threatening complication.
We know so little about President Trump’s actual health it’s so hard to know how to assess his risk factors. Assessing anyone’s prognosis has long been the tricky part with COVID-19 because it was incorrectly categorized as a respiratory disease in the beginning. People often think of it as producing a cough, a sore throat, and cold symptoms in general. It may, but the way it works is that the virus binds to one particular type of channel, or doorway, on some cell walls, and that doorway lets it into the cell where it wreaks havoc. In the lung, it can stop the body from clearing fluid.
But that same type of cell wall channel also exists in the intestine, spleen, blood vessels, heart, and brain. So, it can eventually infect cells in other areas. That’s when the infection can cause excessive inflammation and worsens the effect it has on the lungs. Initially, you might see an increase in blood pressure. If the infection isn’t brought under control after that, the vascular tissues in other affected places will begin to leak resulting in a sudden drop in blood pressure. If a patient has a history of metabolic syndrome or hypertension caused by atherosclerosis, these could actually add a significant risk of hemorrhagic stroke. For too long so much about this virus has been downplayed by comparing it to a “bad cold.”
The anesthesiologist added: I would also ask if they are monitoring his oxygen saturation. Asymptomatic hypoxia is a common symptom exhibited prior to hospital admission. [This is a condition where the blood oxygen level drops to dangerously low levels, usually below 90% saturation, without producing the expected symptoms, such as shortness of breath, headaches, rapid heart-beats, etc.]
We know less about the health fitness of this President than is usual, so it is anyone’s guess what we should expect next.
(PS: I am not shouting. Google BlogSpot, who hosts this site, recently completely updated this application and created a mess of formatting glitches that I have not yet been able to work around.)
Addendum: Vickie Cordero, who provided much of the information for this post, is a medical research facility on therapeutics for the treatment of metabolic syndrome and inflammatory conditions. She recently published an article on therapeutic approaches to sepsis, diabetes and has also published articles on how these approaches apply to COVID-19 applications.
Comments: Today is the second day of October and the 202nd day of the U.S. National Health Emergency. Today we learned that among the 4,739 who tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in the past 24 hours are the President of the United States, Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and top aid to the President, Hope Hicks. Then we learned that both Ms. Hicks and the President is exhibiting minor symptoms. In the case of the President, he is fatigued, has a sore throat and a raspy sounding voice. Later this evening he spiked a fever and is now admitted to Walter Reid Hospital. We wish them all well, and a speedy recovery, of course. But what does the term “mild symptoms” mean and what does it say about prognosis and recovery from the virus. What questions should we be asking? Do all COVID-19 virus cases usually start with "mild" symptoms? And, what should we look for to assess the risk Donald Trump, and others, face given the early symptoms they exhibit? A friend, who is a scientist in a medical lab and another friend, who is a medical doctor, offered the following insight into that question:
Do all COVID-19 virus cases usually start with "mild" symptoms? What should we look for to assess the risks that Donald Trump faces given what we know so far?
COVID-19 cases can start out with mild symptoms. But here’s the thing to look for, the symptoms tend to appear in a particular order. Which symptoms appear and in what order will tell a lot about the progression timeline and the risk of progression to more severe reactions.
In the case of President Trump, I would be curious to know his early blood pressure readings. This can tell if there is whole-body inflammation, which can signal that he is at a higher risk for a cytokine storm. This is a severe and life-threatening complication.
We know so little about President Trump’s actual health it’s so hard to know how to assess his risk factors. Assessing anyone’s prognosis has long been the tricky part with COVID-19 because it was incorrectly categorized as a respiratory disease in the beginning. People often think of it as producing a cough, a sore throat, and cold symptoms in general. It may, but the way it works is that the virus binds to one particular type of channel, or doorway, on some cell walls, and that doorway lets it into the cell where it wreaks havoc. In the lung, it can stop the body from clearing fluid.
But that same type of cell wall channel also exists in the intestine, spleen, blood vessels, heart, and brain. So, it can eventually infect cells in other areas. That’s when the infection can cause excessive inflammation and worsens the effect it has on the lungs. Initially, you might see an increase in blood pressure. If the infection isn’t brought under control after that, the vascular tissues in other affected places will begin to leak resulting in a sudden drop in blood pressure. If a patient has a history of metabolic syndrome or hypertension caused by atherosclerosis, these could actually add a significant risk of hemorrhagic stroke. For too long so much about this virus has been downplayed by comparing it to a “bad cold.”
The anesthesiologist added: I would also ask if they are monitoring his oxygen saturation. Asymptomatic hypoxia is a common symptom exhibited prior to hospital admission. [This is a condition where the blood oxygen level drops to dangerously low levels, usually below 90% saturation, without producing the expected symptoms, such as shortness of breath, headaches, rapid heart-beats, etc.]
We know less about the health fitness of this President than is usual, so it is anyone’s guess what we should expect next.
(PS: I am not shouting. Google BlogSpot, who hosts this site, recently completely updated this application and created a mess of formatting glitches that I have not yet been able to work around.)
NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
Day 201 - October 1, 2020
Comments: No comments today except welcome to October. May it be better than September.
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