Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. and Global new cases 7-day rolling average continues to set new records – and this rolling average in the U.S. new cases are now 20 % higher than one week ago (yesterday it was 22 %). Death rates due to coronavirus have been holding relatively steady but some are saying we will see a spike in deaths soon (today deaths were near the upper end of the range seen in the last few weeks). At the end of this post is a set of interactive graphs and tables for the world and individual states – as well as today’s headlines which include;
- Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 produced an immune response in healthy adult volunteers and was mostly well-tolerated
- Florida Has Issues Counting New Coronavirus Cases
- CMS to deliver ‘point-of-care’ COVID-19 test kits to all nursing homes
- Coronavirus outbreak is already upending health insurance premiums and copays for next year
Repeating from past posts, deaths resulting from the coronavirus are relatively low even whilst we hit record highs in new cases. There are two possibilities put forth by the experts:
- Deaths lag new cases by 3 to 5 weeks, This would mean we should have begun to see a spike in deaths beginning 11 July 2020. [note: US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said on 04 July 2020 “We know deaths lag at least two weeks and can lag even more.” If this is true – deaths should have begun spiking beginning on 03 July]
- The current form of the coronavirus may be easier to transmit but not as deadly. This combined with better procedures in dealing with the more severe cases could result in little noticeable spike in deaths. It also should be realized that the U.S. now has one of the highest testing rates in the world which means a higher rate of identification of those who contracted COVID-19 but are not showing symptoms. Also, there is reason to believe that duplicate positive tests on a person will result in multiple new cases (and now we are seeing larger testing errors)..
My continuing advice is to continue to wash your hands, wear masks, and maintain social distancing. No handwashing, mask, or social distancing will guarantee you do not get infected – but it sure as hell lowers the risk in all situations. In addition, certain activities are believed to carry higher risk – like being inside in air conditioning and removing your mask (such as restaurants, bars and gyms).
The daily number of new cases in the U.S. is remaining stubbornly high, increasing, and the 7-day rolling average continues in record territory.
The following graph showing the 7-day rolling average for new coronavirus cases has been updated through 15 July 2020:
z coronavirus.png
Coronavirus Statistics For 15 July 2020 |
| U.S. Only | Global | U.S Percentage of Total | ||||
| Today*** | Cumulative | Today*** | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | |
| New Cases | 68,518 | 3,430,000 | 189,425 | 13,300,000 | 31.2% | 25.8% |
| Deaths** | 861 | 136,466 | 5,657 | 578,319 | 15.2% | 23.6% |
| Mortality Rate | 1.3% | 4.0% | 2.6% | 4.3% | ||
total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people | 2.20* | 121.70* | ||||
* as of 12 July 2020
** evidently several states included “probable” deaths today in the number
*** red color indicates record number
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
The failure to contain the virus in the U.S. is clouding hopes for a rapid economic rebound. – New York Times
The U.S. economy is headed for a tumultuous autumn, with the threat of closed schools, renewed government lockdowns, empty stadiums and an uncertain amount of federal support for businesses and unemployed workers all clouding hopes for a rapid rebound from recession.
For months, the prevailing wisdom among investors, Trump administration officials and many economic forecasters was that, after plunging into recession this spring, the country’s economy would accelerate in late summer and take off in the fall as the virus receded.
But failure to suppress a resurgence of confirmed infections is threatening to choke the recovery and push the country back into a recessionary spiral — one that could inflict long-term damage on workers and businesses, unless Congress reconsiders the scale of federal aid that may be required in the months to come.
The looming economic pain was evident on Tuesday as big companies forecast gloomy months ahead. Delta Air Lines said it was cutting back plans to add flights in August and beyond, citing flagging consumer demand. The nation’s biggest banks warned that they were setting aside billions of dollars to cover anticipated losses as customers fail to pay their mortgages and other loans in the months to come.
mRNA Vax Against COVID-19 Passes First Hurdle – MedPage
Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 produced an immune response in healthy adult volunteers and was mostly well-tolerated, interim findings from a phase I dose-escalation trial found.
Participants receiving the highest dose of three doses in the vaccine trial had higher antibody responses, and systemic adverse events were more common among the highest dose group, reported Lisa Jackson, MD, of Kaiser Permanente in Seattle, and colleagues, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The candidate vaccine, mRNA-1273, is described as a lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated nucleoside-modified mRNA-based vaccine. The mRNA “encodes the stabilized prefusion” of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, which “mediates host cell attachment and is required for viral entry.” This glycoprotein is believed to be the antigen target for neutralizing antibodies that infected individuals generate. When injected, the mRNA is translated and the viral protein expressed by the recipient’s own cells, in what is expected to be a more effective way to provoke immune responses than simply injecting a synthetic version of the spike protein.
But this approach remains breathtakingly experimental — no mRNA vaccines have been licensed in other infectious diseases anywhere in the world.
Florida’s recent record day for COVID-19 might not have been quite that high – WTSP
Over the weekend, Florida made international headlines when it reported a shocking number of positive COVID-19 test results: More than 15,000 in a single day.
But it turns out that report contained numbers gathered over several days by a single laboratory.
More than 7,000 of the 15,000 positive cases reported have been traced to GENETWORx in Richmond, Virginia. The company, which is Florida’s fourth-largest processor of tests, said in a statement it looks like the Florida Department of Health reported in a single day, lab results that had been collected over the course of four to five days.
That made Florida’s single-day caseload appear greater than it was. And why it’s important, say public health workers, to keep an eye on the positivity rate of those results, which were in line with the state average.
“It gives us a more balanced perspective on what’s happening in the community. We want to know what the numbers are so we can prepare for those numbers,” USF Health’s Dr. Jay Wolfson said.
[editor’s note: In hindsight, President Trump’s assertion that testing was the reason for high new cases may have been partially on target – read the next post]
Florida Department of Health says some labs have not reported negative COVID-19 results – FOX 35
After FOX 35 News noticed errors in the state’s report on positivity rates, the Florida Department of Health said that some laboratories have not been reporting negative test result data to the state.
Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive. Other labs had very high positivity rates. FOX 35 News found that testing sites like one local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then, NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported 88 percent of tests were positive.
How could that be? FOX 35 News investigated these astronomical numbers, contacting every local location mentioned in the report.
The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.
The report also showed that the Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had a positivity rate of 76 percent. A spokesperson for the VA told FOX 35 News on Tuesday that this does not reflect their numbers and that the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent.
FOX 35 News went on to speak with the Florida Department of Health on Tuesday. They confirmed that although private and public laboratories are required to report positive and negative results to the state immediately, some have not. Specifically, they said that some smaller, private labs were not reporting negative test result data to the state.
Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data – New York Times
The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.
The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.
Officials say the change will streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.
[editor’s note: Hello NYT – the CDC is a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services]
Four ex-CDC directors decry Trump administration effort to ‘cast public doubt’ on reopening guidelines – USA Today
Four former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sharply criticized the Trump administrationon Tuesday for undermining the federal health agency and casting doubt on its scientific guidelines in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“As America begins the formidable task of getting our kids back to school and all of us back to work safely amid a pandemic that is only getting worse, public health experts face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” wrote former CDC Directors Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher and Richard Besser in an op-ed published Tuesday by The Washington Post.
“As the debate last week around reopening schools more safely showed, these repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.”
[editor’s note: I usually do not publish posts which have a political bent as it is not information but is opinion. I personally believe the government’s entire health care system has been exposed as a ship of fools. So far, very few of their initial directions and forecasts have survived reality]
CMS to deliver ‘point-of-care’ COVID-19 test kits to all nursing homes – McKnights
“Every single” nursing home across the country will be given “point-of-care” COVID-19 tests by the administration starting next week, officials announced Tuesday.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma announced the development at a press conference in Baton Rouge, LA, where Vice President Pence and others had traveled to meet with the governor and also promote school reopenings this fall.
The testing devices initially are to be given to 2,000 nursing homes next week, said Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Admiral Brett Giroir. He described them as “rapid on the spot, 20 tests per hour” devices and said that the goal is to get them to “every single of the 15,400 nursing homes within this country.”
Nursing homes would receive the devices in an order “ranked by Administrator Verma and her team,” as determined by the rate of the virus’ spread in the surrounding community, Giroir added. The administration has said lately that it has been focusing certain efforts on “hotspot” areas.
Merck CEO Frazier says COVID-19 vaccine hype a ‘grave disservice’ to the public – Fierce Pharma
Politicians, government officials and pharma executives alike have been predicting a COVID-19 vaccine debut by year’s end, but Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier doubts that’s possible—and Merck has enough vaccine experience to know the obstacles ahead.
Instead, those who are promising vaccines later this year could be hurting the overall fight against the pandemic, Frazier figures.
In an interview with Tsedal Neeley, the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Frazier said officials are doing a “grave disservice” to the public by talking up the potential for vaccines later this year. There are massive scientific and logistical obstacles to achieving such a feat, he said.
… Wang thinks a version of the virus may have circulated earlier in humans in southern Asia, perhaps flying under the radar because it didn’t cause severe disease. “If it happens in a small or remote village, even with some people dying, nobody is going to know there’s a spillover,” Wang says. The virus could then have infected an animal that was brought to Wuhan and started the pandemic.
[editor’s note: it is hard to summarize this post – best if you read the entire post]
New Report Says Schools Should Try To Reopen In Person For Elementary Students – NPR
This fall, public school districts should prioritize full-time, in-person classes for grades K-5 and for students with special needs. That’s the top-line recommendation of a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The report includes an updated review of the evidence from around the world and a set of recommendations on mitigation strategies for the coronavirus in school settings. It adds to a hefty reading list of back-to-school guidance that now includes comprehensive recommendations from the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers and every U.S. state except Kansas. There’s a growing consensus on a few best practices across most of these reports, such as the importance of masking and social distancing.
What stands out from this particular report is its emphasis on collaboration with public health authorities and focus on not just recommendations for action now, but decision-making strategies for schools under conditions that will continue to change.
[editor’s note: another viewpoint – A Teacher Who Contracted COVID-19 Cautions Against In-Person Schooling]
The pandemic virus is slowly mutating. But is it getting more dangerous? – Science
It’s only a tiny change. At some point early in the pandemic, one of the 30,000 letters in the genome of SARS-CoV-2 changed from an A to a G. Today, that mutation, at position 23,403, has spread around the world. It is found in the vast majority of newly sequenced viruses and has become the center of a burning scientific question: Has the mutation become so common because it helps the virus spread faster? Or is it just coincidence?
… On average, the coronavirus accumulates about two changes per month in its genome. Sequencing SARS-CoV-2 genomes helps researchers follow how the virus spreads. Most of the changes don’t affect how the virus behaves, but a few may change the disease’s transmissibility or severity.
… Wang thinks a version of the virus may have circulated earlier in humans in southern Asia, perhaps flying under the radar because it didn’t cause severe disease. “If it happens in a small or remote village, even with some people dying, nobody is going to know there’s a spillover,” Wang says. The virus could then have infected an animal that was brought to Wuhan and started the pandemic.
[editor’s note: it is hard to summarize this post – best if you read the entire post]
Coronavirus outbreak is already upending health insurance premiums and copays for next year – CNBC
- The Covid crisis is causing so much disruption in nonemergency care that insurers and large employers can’t really estimate health spending for next year
- Analysts at PwC’s Health Research Institute say there’s so much uncertainty that it’s difficult to pinpoint whether medical-cost trends will be significantly lower or higher in 2021
- Employers are reporting premium rate increases of 3% to 4.5% for 2021 from major insurers, but they worry delayed care will result in more acute medical claims next year.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Tokyo’s governor warns of rising coronavirus infections
The virus complicates an ideological clash between China and the United States.
The following are additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
A Texas ICU nurse is hospitalized with Covid-19 after testing negative
Houston man accused of stealing $1.1 million in COVID small business relief
The debate over “airborne” coronavirus spread, explained
Ex-Harvard Medical School faculty member warns COVID-19 herd immunity is ‘wishful thinking’
Walmart Will Require Shoppers To Wear Masks; Other Retailers Urged To Follow
Coronavirus Costs Delta Air Lines Nearly $6 Billion In 2nd Quarter
ICE Agrees To Rescind Policy Barring Foreign Students From Online Study In The U.S.
Best Buy requiring all customers to wear face coverings at its stores
Alabama governor issues statewide mask order
Almost 8 in 10 college students say they wouldn’t attend parties in the fall: poll
Small businesses rehire staff but cut pay and hours, survey finds
Dr. Anthony Fauci says he hasn’t thought about resigning despite White House criticism
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
July 2020 Beige Book: Improvement Laced With Uncertainty
June 2020 Headline Industrial Production Improves But Remains Deep In Contraction
July 2020 Empire State Manufacturing Index Significantly Improves
June 2020 Import Year-over-Year Inflation Now -3.8%
Firms Do Not Anticipate Regaining Pre-COVID Employment Levels Through 2021
Almost Half Of U.S. Household Incomes Affected By COVID-19
Mask Resistance During A Pandemic Isn’t New – In 1918 Many Americans Were ‘Slackers’
Coronavirus INTERACTIVE Charts
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Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. For sure, COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19. At this point, herd immunity does not look like an option.
- Older population countries will have a higher death rate.
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus. New York may have a deadlier strain imported from Europe, compared to less deadly viruses elsewhere in the United States.
- Each publication uses different cutoff times for its coronavirus statistics. Our data uses 11:00 am London time. Also, there is an unexplained variation in the total numbers both globally and in the U.S.
- The real question remains if the U.S. is over-reacting to this virus. The following graphic from the CDC puts the annual flu burden in perspective [click on image to enlarge]. Note that using this data is dangerous as the actual flu cases are estimated and not counted – nobody knows how accurate these guesses are.
What we do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Do we develop lasting immunity to the coronavirus? Another coronavirus – the simple cold – does not develop long term immunity.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission?
- The US has scaled up coronavirus testing – and the accuracy of the tests has been improving. However, if one loses immunity – the coronavirus testing value is reduced.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus?
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- What effect will the weather have? At this point, it does not seem hot weather slows this coronavirus down – and it seems air conditioning contributes to its spread.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
- Can the world really push out an effective vaccine in 12 to 18 months?
- Will other medical treatments for Covid-19 ease symptoms and reduce deaths? So far only one drug (remdesivir) is approved for treatment.
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
Heavy breakouts of coronavirus have hit farmworkers. Farmworkers are essential to the food supply. They cannot shelter at home. Consider:
- they have high rates of the respiratory disease [occupational hazard]
- they travel on crowded buses chartered by their employers
- few have health insurance
- they cannot social distance and live two to four to a room – and they eat together
- some reports say half are undocumented
- they are low paid and cannot afford not to work – so they will go to work sick
- they do not have access to sanitation when working
- a coronavirus outbreak among farmworkers can potentially shutter entire farm
The bottom line is that COVID-19 so far has been shown to be much more deadly than the data on the flu. Using CDC data, the flu has a mortality rate between 0.06 % and 0.11 % Vs. the coronavirus which to date has a mortality rate of 4 % [the 4% is the average of overall statistics – however in the last few months it has been hovering around 1.0%] – which makes it between 10 and 80 times more deadly. The reason for ranges:
Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza.
There will be a commission set up after this pandemic ends to find fault [it is easy to find fault when a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs] and to produce recommendations for the next time a pandemic happens. Those that hate President Trump will conclude the virus is his fault.
Resources:
- Get the latest public health information from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov .
- Get the latest research from NIH: https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.
- Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/.
- List of studies: https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#search:searchId=5ee124ed70bb967c49672dad
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