24 April 2020 Coronavirus Charts and News - New Case Trend Lines Continue To Improve

Written by Steven Hansen

Today, the charts continue to show a declining trend line for new cases in the U.S. Unfortunately, deaths increased today and were over 40% of the global number. Following is a set of interactive graphs and tables for the world and individual states – as well as today’s headlines on coronavirus.

As deaths generally follow weeks after contracting this virus, one would expect when on the backside of the curve that deaths would continue to be brutal.

Coronavirus News You May Have Missed

Econintersect contributor and Biology Entrepreneur Roger Erickson responded to my question “Is it possible to immunize? Is herd immunity possible?‘:

Herd immunity? Sure, that’ll be the survivors. Except for the real aged or seriously unhealthy, the death rate is really low. COVID-19 will be a chronic illness, just like measles or influenza.
A Vaccine? Not easily. It’s historically hard to make vaccines against viruses that invade mostly the respiratory system, simply because our immune response is best triggered from blood-borne cells. That may change if the virus always spreads to other parts of the body, as some are finding.
And again, we’re back to square one.
Forget ventilators. The game was lost by not testing early enough, not reacting with masks/gloves/cleaning, social isolation.
The better response in epidemics is to preclude spread and eradicate the pathogen.
That’s what we did with Ebola, SARS, MERS, etc, etc. We still don’t have commercial vaccines for those ills.
Letting this virus spread worldwide was criminal, and it was OUR RESPONSE, not anyone else’s failures. There’s something political going on, because nothing makes sense so far.
Lemme put it this way. Over 90% of biology is avoidance mechanisms, not expensive repair mechanisms. Ditto for culture and economics.
A vaccine is an incredibly expensive, last gap response, to be used ONLY if we’ve lost containment. That’s what scientists are so angry about. The epidemic wasn’t caused by anything other that our own refusal to respond.
Honestly, at this point (5 months), the majority of Americans have probably already been exposed to the virus. Without mass testing of asymptomatic people, we just can’t tell. In the USA, wearing masks is near pointless by this point. Everyone is gonna be exposed, it’s just a matter of time. IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY.
What should we do now? Unless the mortality rate worsens, just resign ourselves to the disaster, get back to work, and organize better for the next one. Maybe we can slow the spread, but only by hibernating and not working, and we can’t do that much longer. We’ve already painted ourselves into that corner, so if death rates increase, there are 2 main responses available.
Be healthier! Age & co-morbidity are reportedly factors in 90% of US cases. If we just cut our obesity rate in half, we’ll delay a lot of deaths.
Keep working on an effective vaccine.

US Navy finishes testing every sailor on aircraft carrier hit by coronavirus, with over 800 testing positive – Business Insider. In other words, 17% of the crew had the coronavirus. Looking at the U.S. 330 million people, this ratio means 55 million could have been exposed. Of course, an aircraft carrier is more like a cruise ship which would have higher transmission rates.

One month after the first coronavirus cases appeared on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the US Navy has finished testing all of the roughly 4,800 sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier.
The Navy reported Thursday that “100% of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) crewmembers have been tested for COVID-19” and 840 sailors aboard the deployed warship have tested positive. The service is still awaiting the results of about 10 tests.
Eighty-eight of those infected have recovered, the Navy said. Four of the sailors who have not yet recovered are currently in the hospital in Guam.
Since the outbreak began, the virus has claimed one life aboard the ship, that of 41-year-old Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr.

New York Finds Virus Marker in 13.9%, Suggesting Wide Spread – Bloomberg.

A New York study seeking to measure the spread of the new coronavirus found that 13.9% of 3,000 people tested across the state had signs of the virus, one of the biggest U.S. reviews to date.
That implies that about 2.7 million residents may have had Covid-19, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. That’s about 10 times more than the official count based on the state’s testing, which covered mostly very sick patients.
The pandemic was more intense in New York City, the hardest-hit area in the U.S. There, 21.2% of people tested positive for a blood marker showing that they had been infected at some point.

Coronavirus Made America’s Biggest Banks Even Bigger – Wall Street Journal

Some $1 trillion in deposits flooded in during the first quarter—with more than half going to JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup

COVID-19’s impact in China: Business activity shows deeper drop than GDP – Conference Board

The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) is a broad-based measure of economic activity. The CEI for China dropped 10.9 percent in Q1 of 2020 over the same quarter last year. This shows a faster drop in economic activity than reported GDP, which fell 6.8 percent over the same period. The CEI, based on monthly data, provides a better real-time picture of economic activity. It also shows greater volatility in China’s economy than indicated by GDP. Economic conditions in China improved in March, but gains were lower than the combined losses in January and February. China’s recovery is expected to continue at a slow pace for the rest of the year as domestic conditions and weak external demand weigh on production and consumption growth.

Apr 24, 2020: New York Fed Staff Nowcast – NY Fed

The New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at -0.4% for 2020:Q1 and -7.8% for 2020:Q2.
News from housing and manufacturing data left the nowcast for 2020:Q1 broadly unchanged and increased the nowcast for 2020:Q2 by 0.1 percentage point.

Iceland’s Plan To Stop Covid-19 Actually Works – YouTube

When it comes to Covid-19, Iceland has deployed what medical experts see as the best weapon against the pandemic: testing. Thanks to the work of the government and local bio-tech firm Decode Genetics, the island nation has managed to build out one of the most sophisticated looks at who has the novel coronavirus and how it spreads.

The Great Invader: How COVID-19 Attacks Every Organ – Medscape

We have underestimated and misunderstood COVID-19 since it first appeared.
And as we learn more, it’s clear that COVID-19 can be more than just a respiratory disease. It’s joined the ranks of other “great imitators” — diseases that can look like almost any condition.
It can be a gastrointestinal disease causing only diarrhea and abdominal pain. It can cause symptoms that may be confused with a cold or the flu. It can cause pinkeye, a runny nose, loss of taste and smell, muscle aches, fatigue, diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, whole-body rashes, and areas of swelling and redness in just a few spots.
In a more severe disease, doctors have also reported people having heart rhythm problems, heart failure, kidney damage, confusion, headaches, seizures, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and fainting spells, along with new sugar control problems.
It’s not just a fever and coughing, leading to shortness of breath, like everyone thought at first.
This makes it incredibly difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat.

**Coronavirus Statistics For 24 April 2020**
	U.S. Only		Global		U.S Percentage of Total
	Today	Cumulative	Today	Cumulative	Today	Cumulative
New Cases	26,543	869,172	80,071	2,670,000	33.1%	32.6%
Deaths	3,179	49,963	7,428	190,236	42.8%	26.3%
Mortality Rate	12.0%	5.7%	9.3%	7.1%
total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people	0.58	14.06

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.
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].

What we do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal – not backed by scientific studies:

Is social distancing at 6 feet correct? Some are saying 4 meters (13 feet). And what is the correct social distance if one rides a bike?
Will warm weather and higher humidity slow the coronavirus spread? Will September see another spike in cases? Next Winter may see more cases than seen previously.
Should we decontaminate products (such as food) that are brought into the house?
Does one develop immunity after recovering from coronavirus?
Is COVID-19 mutating? How will this impact the ability to create immunization or even immunity?
Are ventilators damaging patients – should oxygen be used instead?

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 over 5 % – which makes it between 45 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.