Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. continues to host over one-third of global new and total coronavirus cases and deaths. Although the curves have flattened, they continue to remain elevated resisting a decline. Following is a set of interactive graphs and tables for the world and individual states – as well as today’s headlines on coronavirus which include topics on years of pandemic misery and airborne particles that may carry the coronavirus
Several selections today in the coronavirus news have been contributed by Roger Erickson, GEI author and Biology Entrepreneur.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Expert report predicts up to two more years of pandemic misery – CNN
The new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for at least another 18 months to two years-until 60% to 70% of the population has been infected, a team of longstanding pandemic experts predicted in a report released Thursday.
They recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario that includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. Even in a best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus, they predicted.
“This thing’s not going to stop until it infects 60 to 70 percent of people,” Mike Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, told CNN.
“The idea that this is going to be done soon defies microbiology.”
FDA allows drug to be used for COVID-19 on an emergency basis – Roll Call
The Trump administration announced Friday that it has authorized physicians to use remdesivir, an experimental drug to combat COVID-19, before it has won Food and Drug Administration approval.
The FDA issued an emergency use authorization to drugmaker Gilead Sciences in a letter Friday. The drug has been authorized to be administered intravenously for patients with severe COVID-19 who require help to breathe.
The FDA has not approved remdesivir for any use, the agency said.
“We need final data from clinical trials included in an FDA application to determine whether remdesivir is safe and effective,” FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Janet Woodcock said in a tweet.
Don’t get TOO much exercise during your coronavirus quarantine. Here’s why. – USA Today
You might logically assume that more exercise is better because you have more time on your hands, but that’s not really the case. Benefits top out at about 300 minutes per week.
“Whatever your regular exercise routine was, I wouldn’t alter it because of COVID-19 per se,” says Linda S. Pescatello, a kinesiology professor at the University of Connecticut.
Chris Travers, an exercise physiologist at Cleveland Clinic Sports Health, points out that any amount of exercise is better than none. Research shows that even a five-minute walk or run is helping improve your cardiovascular system, and that you can do a total body strength program in seven minutes, he says.
New Zealand has ‘effectively eliminated’ coronavirus. Here’s what they did right. – National Geographic
If there is a bright spot in the global response to the pandemic, it is surely New Zealand. While governments worldwide have vacillated on how to respond and ensuing cases of the virus have soared, New Zealand has set an uncompromising, science-driven example. Though the country didn’t ban travel from China until February 3 (a day after the United States) and its trajectory of new cases looked out of control in mid-March, austerity measures seemingly have brought COVID-19 to heel.
The country began mandatory quarantines for all visitors on March 15, one of the strictest policies in the world at the time, even though there were just six cases nationwide. Just 10 days later, it instituted a complete, countrywide lockdown, including a moratorium on domestic travel. The Level 4 restrictions meant grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, and petrol stations were the only commerce allowed; vehicle travel was restricted; and social interaction was limited to within households.
… Although New Zealand is sounding confident about ridding itself of COVID-19, success isn’t guaranteed. Countries like Singapore that seemed to have the virus under control have since struggled with a second wave of infections. And China, which appeared to have stopped the spread completely, is now contending with flare-ups.
Tiny airborne particles may carry the new coronavirus – Medical News Today
A study in Wuhan, China, detected genetic material of the new coronavirus in airborne suspensions, or aerosols, in hospitals and public spaces. The finding reinforces the importance of thorough sterilization of infection hotspots, good ventilation, and avoidance of crowding.
To date, scientists have established three ways in which severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the virus that causes coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) – can be transmitted:
- inhalation of liquid droplets from the coughing or sneezing of a person with the infection
- close contact with a person who has the infection
- contact with surfaces that contain the virus
According to a recent study in China, aerosols may offer a fourth transmission route for the virus.
Aerosols are airborne particles that measure around 1 micrometer (one-thousandth of a millimeter) in diameter at most. Because they are much smaller than droplets, they remain suspended in the air for longer and can travel farther.
Common ingredient in cough medicine may help coronavirus grow, study finds – Today
A “blueprint” that reveals how the new coronavirus infects human cells and which drugs could impact that process has also led researchers to caution about a common ingredient in cough medicine.
Dextromethorphan – an over-the-counter cough suppressant found in more than 120 cough and cold products – was found to have “pro-viral activity” in lab experiments and “therefore its use should merit caution and further study in the context of COVID-19,” wrote the authors of the study, published in Nature on Thursday.
Since coughing is a key warning sign of the coronavirus infection, that would be extra worrisome for the many people trying to soothe their symptoms with cough syrup or lozenges.
… “I personally wouldn’t recommend that based on our data alone. It would stop people from taking almost all cough medications in the U.S. – and many people who would stop won’t even have COVID-19,” Shoichet told TODAY. “I do think the pro-viral activity observed in vitro merits further controlled clinical study.”
More than 4,000 workers in meatpacking plants have the coronavirus, the C.D.C. says. – The New York Times
At least 4,193 workers at 115 meatpacking plants in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Twenty of those workers have died, the report said. And the data almost certainly understates the scale of the problem, because not all states with infections at meat plants have reported figures to the C.D.C.
… In total, the meat and poultry processing industry employs about half a million people, many of whom work in cramped conditions in slaughterhouses where social distancing is practically impossible. Over the last month, dozens of meatpacking plants have been forced to close because of outbreaks, straining the country’s meat supply.
This week, President Trump issued an executive order that gave officials at the Department of Agriculture the authority to take some limited actions to keep plants running, even when local authorities call for them to close.
Eyeing ‘Unprecedented Level of Operating Stress,’ S&P Slashes Outlook for 127 Colleges – Inside Higher Ed
S&P Global Ratings dropped outlooks on more than a quarter of the colleges and universities it rates because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on higher education.
The ratings agency cut ratings on 117 colleges — 84 private institutions and 33 public institutions — from stable to negative. It changed outlooks for 10 more — seven private and three public — from positive to stable. And it left unchanged outlooks for 50 institutions that were already negative.
Those actions mean the share of colleges and universities that S&P rates with negative outlooks has more than quadrupled in just a few months. At the end of 2019, just 9.2 percent of its rated higher ed universe had negative outlooks. After the actions announced today, 38 percent does. The agency maintains public ratings on 436 public and private colleges and universities.
A negative outlook for a college or university means S&P sees at least a one-in-three chance operating and economic conditions will significantly affect the institution’s credit characteristics.
Aviation’s Crisis Just Became Permanent – Wall Street Journal
The airline industry has moved from temporary freezes to long-term downsizing as years of depressed demand loom.
Even in the best-case scenario of a sharp recovery for the global economy, there won’t be one for the aviation industry.
America the Victim: Are Enemies Lining Up for Revenge in the Wake of the Coronavirus? – Strategic Culture Foundation
When in trouble politically, governments have traditionally conjured up a foreign enemy to explain why things are going wrong. Whatever one chooses to believe about the coronavirus, the fact is that it has resulted in considerable political backlash against a number of governments whose behavior has been perceived as either too extreme or too dilatory. Donald Trump’s White House has taken shots from both directions and the response to the disease has also been pilloried due to repeated gaffes by the president himself. The latest mis-spoke, now being framed by Trump’s press secretary as sarcasm, involved a presidential suggestion that one might consider injecting or imbibing disinfectant to treat the disease, either of which could easily prove lethal.
So, the administration is desperate to change the narrative and has decided to hit on the old expedient, namely seeking out a foreign enemy to distract from what is going on in the nation’s hospitals. The tale of malevolent foreigners has been picked up by a number of mainstream media outlets and has proven especially titillating because there is not just one bad guy, but instead at least four: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The accepted narrative is that America’s enemies are now taking advantage of a moment of weakness due to the lockdown response to the coronavirus and have stepped up their attacks, both physical and metaphorical, on the Exceptional Nation Under God. The most recent claim that the United States is being targeted involves an incident in mid-April during which a swarm of Iranian gunboats allegedly harassed a group of American warships conducting a training exercise in the Persian Gulf by crossing the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at close range. The maneuvers were described by the Navy as “unsafe and unprofessional” but the tiny speedboats in no way threatened the much larger warships (note the photo in the link which illustrates the disparity in size between the two vessels).
Study Suggests a Third of COVID-19 Hospital Patients May Die – Medscape
A third of patients in hospital with COVID-19 may be dying, according to preliminary UK research.
The preprint also found that being male or obese reduced chances of survival from the disease.
More than half of patients mechanically ventilated are dying, the authors said.
… Of patients requiring mechanical ventilation:
20% were discharged alive
53% died
27% remained in hospital
The study also cast light on the role that age and sex might play in patient outcomes.
COVID-19: the case for health-care worker screening to prevent hospital transmission – The Lancet
The global approach to SARS-CoV-2 testing has been non-uniform. In South Korea, testing has been extensive, with emphasis on identifying individuals with respiratory illness, and tracing and testing any contacts. Other countries (eg, Spain) initially limited testing to individuals with severe symptoms or those at high risk of developing them.
Here we outline the case for mass testing of both symptomatic and asymptomatic health-care workers (HCWs) to: (1) mitigate workforce depletion by unnecessary quarantine; (2) reduce spread in atypical, mild, or asymptomatic cases; and (3) protect the health-care workforce.
Staff shortages in health care are significant amidst the global effort against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In the UK, guidance for staffing of intensive care units has changed drastically, permitting specialist critical care nurse-to-patient ratios of 1:6 when supported by non-specialists (normally 1:1) and one critical care consultant per 30 patients (formerly 1:8-1:15). Fears of the impact of this shortage have led to other measures that would, in normal circumstances, be considered extreme: junior doctors’ rotations have been temporarily halted during the outbreak; annual leave for staff has been delayed, and doctors undertaking research activities have been redeployed.
Workforce depletion will not only affect health care; the Independent Care Group, representing care homes in the UK, has suggested that social care is already “at full stretch”, with providers calling for compulsory testing of social and health workers to maintain staffing.
In spite of this, a lack of effective testing has meant that a large number of HCWs are self-isolating (125 000 HCWs, according to one report). In one small sample, only one in seven self-isolating HCWs were found to have the virus. A letter to National Health Service (NHS) Trust executives on April 12, 2020, outlined that priority is being given to staff in critical care, emergency departments, and ambulance services to prevent the impact of absenteeism in those areas. Increased testing capacity will enable all staff who are self-isolating unnecessarily to bolster a depleted workforce. Asymptomatic HCWs are an underappreciated potential source of infection and worthy of testing.
Atlanta Fed Launches Tool to Monitor Unemployment Claims – Atlanta Fed
The Atlanta Fed is launching a data tool to help users find timely information about initial and continued claims for unemployment insurance. The new Unemployment Claims Monitor captures demographic data on the gender, race, ethnicity, age, and industry of prior employment for unemployment insurance claimants nationally and for individual states.
The tool will be updated every Thursday morning to reflect the most recent unemployment insurance weekly claims report and other data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Unemployment Claims Monitor will also capture nonregular claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program created by the federal coronavirus relief bill that covers workers who do not qualify for regular unemployment compensation and are unable to continue working as a result of COVID-19, such as self-employed workers, independent contractors, and gig workers.
The Atlanta Fed will update the tool to include data from the Short-Time Compensation (Workshare), Extended Benefits, State Additional Benefits, Federal Employee, and Ex-Service Member programs as data become available. Future updates will also include county-level unemployment claims where available as well as other data points on unemployment insurance programs across the country.
U.S. Only | Global | U.S Percentage of Total | ||||
Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | |
New Cases | 29,917 | 1,070,000 | 83,466 | 3,210,000 | 35.8% | 33.3% |
Deaths | 2,040 | 63,006 | 5,519 | 232,570 | 37.0% | 27.1% |
Mortality Rate | 6.8% | 5.9% | 6.6% | 7.2% | ||
total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people | 0.62 | 18.82 |
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
How The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases Reached One Million In America
24 April 2020 ECRI’s WLI Improves Again But Remains Deep In Contraction
March 2020 Construction Spending Improved
April 2020 ISM and Markit Manufacturing Surveys Are In Recession Territory Thanks To The Coronavirus
Rail Week Ending 25 April 2020 – Rail Decline Continues To Worsen
Infographic Of The Day: An Economic Forecast For The COVID-19 Recovery 2020-21
May 2020 Economic Forecast Now In Coronavirus Contraction
Bottom Half Of Households: Ten Years To Recover
Market Rises As The Economy Reopens
Coronavirus: Greatest Economic Depression In History?
Top Football Recruits Bring In Big Money For Colleges COVID-19 Could Threaten Revenue
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].
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.
- 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 U.S. outsourced bat virus research to Wuhan after the U.S. shut down its testing due to containment issues.
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.
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. The most important issue will be an analysis of whether the federal government took a strong enough lead in dealing with the pandemic.
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