Written by Steven Hansen
New cases continue to decline in the U.S. today. 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;
- German Official Leaks Report Denouncing COVID-19 As “A Global False Alarm”
- First human trial of coronavirus antibody treatment begins
- N.Y.’s top officials urge caution and warn that protests could set off a second wave of infections
- WHO’s plea to Trump: We ‘wish’ for collaboration with U.S. to continue
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
German Official Leaks Report Denouncing COVID-19 As “A Global False Alarm” – ZeroHedge
[editor’s note: this is a thought provoking post which one must read more than this summary. How much truth it contains depends on one’s perspective.]
The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.
The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).
Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.
The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.
First human trial of coronavirus antibody treatment begins – New York Post
An Indiana-based pharmaceutical company announced Monday it has started the world’s first human trial of an antibody therapy designed to treat the coronavirus.
Eli Lilly and Co. said its potential treatment, known as LY-CoV555, is modeled after the antibodies found in the plasma of people who have recovered from the virus.
The experimental treatment doesn’t contain plasma, but uses clones of the antibodies for the therapy, which is taken intravenously, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The treatment is designed to target the spike-shaped protein structures of the virus and block it from locking on to human cells, thus neutralizing the bug.
N.Y.’s top officials urge caution and warn that protests could set off a second wave of infections. – New York Times
After a fourth night of crowded and chaotic protests against racism and deadly police brutality in New York City, both the mayor and the state’s governor voiced strong concerns Monday that the demonstrations could set off a second wave of coronavirus infections.
“You turn on the TV, and you see mass gatherings that could potentially be infecting hundreds and hundreds of people after everything we have done,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.
He noted that the state had just hit a big milestone: On Sunday, under 1,000 people tested positive for the virus, for the first time since March 16. The percentage of daily positive tests has fallen from over 50 percent to under 2 percent, and the latest daily death toll was 54, down from nearly 800 in April.
“How many super-spreaders were in that crowd?” Mr. Cuomo asked. “How many young people went home and kissed their mother hello, or shook hands with their father, or hugged their father or their grandfather or their grandmother or their brother or their sister, and spread a virus?”
WHO’s plea to Trump: We ‘wish’ for collaboration with U.S. to continue – CNBC
The World Health Organization’s top official said Monday that he hopes the agency’s partnership with the United States can continue, even after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will cut ties with the international aid group.
“The world has long benefited from the strong collaborative engagement with the government and the people of the United States,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “The U.S. government and its people’s contribution and generosity over many decades have been immense.”
“It is WHO’s wish for this collaborations to continue,” he added.
The Americas are seeing a rapid increase in coronavirus cases, WHO says – CNN
The Americas, especially Latin America and the Caribbean, are seeing a rapid increase in the number of new coronavirus cases, the World Health Organization said Monday.
“Five of the 10 countries worldwide reporting the highest new number of cases in the past 24 hours are in the Americas: Brazil, USA, Peru, Chile and Mexico,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO executive director of Health Emergencies Program.
The countries reporting the biggest increases in new numbers: Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Argentina and Bolivia.
Ryan said “many many weeks ago” the world was focused on South Asia and Africa as potential hot spots. Now, “to a certain extent, the situation in those two settings are still difficult, but it’s stable. Clearly the situation in many South American countries is far from stable. There’s been a rapid increase in cases, and those systems are coming under increasing pressure,” he said.
Gilead: Short Course Remdesivir Tops Standard COVID-19 Tx – Medpage Today
[editor’s note: WTF – “remdesivir plus standard of care were modestly more likely to show clinical improvement“. Modest improvement is not much of an improvement]
Hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19 pneumonia treated with antiviral remdesivir plus standard of care were modestly more likely to show clinical improvement in a specified period than patients treated with standard of care alone, topline results from a randomized phase III open-label trial found.
In COVID-19 patients receiving treatment with intravenous remdesivir for 5 days in addition to standard treatment, odds of showing clinical improvement at day 11 were 65% higher (95% CI 9%-148%, P=0.017) versus those receiving standard of care, reported manufacturer Gilead Sciences in a press release on Monday.
Venous Thrombosis Among Critically Ill Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) – JAMA
When one French ICU went looking for deep vein thrombosis prospectively at admission, 65% of the 34 consecutive COVID-19 patients had it. That rose to 79% at 48 hours.
Scientists Predict ‘Busy’ Atlantic Hurricane Season Amid Virus Crisis – New York Times
The coming Atlantic hurricane season is “expected to be a busy one,” with the likelihood of as many as 19 named storms, including as many as six major hurricanes, a federal weather scientist said Thursday. That worrisome forecast could be further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, which is hobbling relief agencies and could turn evacuation shelters into disease hot spots.
Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane season forecaster with the climate prediction center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, delivered the forecast as part of the annual announcement of the agency’s hurricane season outlook.
In the probabilistic language the agency uses to describe the season ahead, there is a 60 percent chance of an above-normal season, and just a 10 percent chance of a below-normal season. Agency scientists also estimated a 70 percent chance of between 13 to 19 named storms. Of those, NOAA predicted between three and six would be major hurricanes.
In an average hurricane season there are 12 named storms (those with winds of 39 miles per hour or higher) and three major hurricanes (when winds reach 111 m.p.h. or more). The Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, though the emergence of Tropical Storm Arthur this month made this the sixth year in a row in which a named storm has slipped in before the official beginning of the season.
U.S. sends Brazil 2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine and 1,000 ventilators – AXIOS
The White House announced on Sunday that the U.S. has sent 2 million doses of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to Brazil and that 1,000 ventilators will soon be delivered as well as the South American country becomes the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
The big picture: The situation in Brazil, which has reported over 498,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 28,000 deaths, is threatening to spiral out of control as far-right President Jair Bolsonaro faces mounting criticism for downplaying the severity of the virus.
Saturated hospitals, airlifts as California border region virus cases surge – Reuters
Coronavirus cases are surging in a scorching hot desert region straddling south California and a city near Mexico’s Tijuana, leading to saturated hospitals, a cross-border overspill of patients and airlifts from rural U.S. clinics.
Mexicali, capital of the Mexican state of Baja California, has the third-highest number of confirmed COVID cases in Mexico, with its main hospitals at four-fifths capacity, state health department data shows.
Wuhan’s mass testing may have eradicated the coronavirus – Bangkok Post
Wuhan authorities said they found no new cases of “silent spreaders” for the first time in nearly two months as the city’s aggressive push to test its entire population appears to have succeeded in breaking hidden chains of transmission.
Of the 60,000 people tested on Sunday, no cases of asymptomatic infections were found, said the Wuhan municipal health commission on Monday. In an ambitious effort to guard against a resurgence of cases, Wuhan is testing its entire 11 million population for the virus and has found some 200 asymptomatic cases in the past two weeks.
The presence of infected people who show no outward signs of being sick but can nonetheless infect others has been an obstacle in worldwide efforts to contain the coronavirus, and a major reason why the pandemic spread so widely and quickly. In countries where testing remains inadequate, there is no way to detect such carriers and isolate them before they infect others.
New coronavirus cases decreasing among troops, but deaths are up across DoD – Military Times
The Defense Department had one of its lowest increases in COVID-19 cases since early March this week, though it also saw its second consecutive week of deaths, according to data released Friday.
Following the Memorial Day weekend death of Sgt. Simon Zamudio, a 34-year-old Illinois-based Army reservist, a DoD civilian passed away Wednesday, bringing DoD’s toll to 36.
To date, 9,449 service members, civilians, dependents and contractors have tested positive for COVID-19, an increase this week of 6 percent. Of those, 428 have been hospitalized and 5,316 have recovered, with a mortality rate of 0.4 percent.
As deaths nationwide crossed 100,000 this week, the mortality rate among U.S. residents is holding steady at 6 percent.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Coronavirus: South Korea closes schools again after biggest spike in weeks
New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says
WHO says coronavirus isn’t losing potency: ‘This is still a killer virus’
Belgian prince tests positive for coronavirus, apologizes for traveling to social event in Spain
‘I have coronavirus’: Armenian PM tests positive as pandemic tightens grip on the country
Europe eases lockdown: Which countries are lifting coronavirus restrictions today?
The following are state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
New York Officials Urge Protesters to Get Tested to Control Virus
Hard Hit NYC Hospital Has First Day Without Coronavirus Death
Protests may derail what was expected to be a strong reopening for Las Vegas casinos
Western New York expected to move to Phase 2 of reopening tomorrow, Gov. Cuomo said
Coronavirus Statistics For 01 June 2020 |
| U.S. Only | Global | U.S Percentage of Total | ||||
| Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | |
| New Cases | 19,807 | 1,790,000 | 107,759 | 6,140,000 | 18.4% | 29.2% |
| Deaths | 602 | 104,383 | 2,911 | 371,857 | 20.7% | 28.1% |
| Mortality Rate | 3.0% | 5.8% | 2.7% | 6.1% | ||
| total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people | 1.49* | 48.64* | ||||
* as of 29 May 2020
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
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.
- How many people have been infected?
- Can the US really scale up coronavirus testing and tracing?
- What forms of social distancing work best?
- Can children widely spread coronavirus?
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks?
- What effect will the weather have?
- Can we reopen parks and beaches? [we will find out soon as many beaches and parks have reopened]
- Do we develop lasting immunity to the coronavirus?
- Can the world really push out a vaccine in 12 to 18 months?
- Will we get other medical treatments for Covid-19?
- Do we need all these ventilators?
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 – and that includes every single politician!
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