Written by Steven Hansen
Total coronavirus cases in the U.S. hit 2,000,000 today. The talking heads are spouting that a second wave is hitting but our review of the data shows little movement in the seven-day rolling averages in June. Global new cases seven-day rolling average continues to accelerate. 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;
- Two hairstylists who had coronavirus saw 140 clients. No new infections have been linked to the salon
- Moderna Plans To Start Phase 3 Testing of its COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in July
- Mnuchin Backs New Stimulus Targeted To Stragglers In Reopening
- Lilly COVID-19 treatment could be authorized for use as soon as September
The U.S. continues to be a smaller and smaller portion of the new global coronavirus cases. It is interesting that although American’s believe they have the best health care system in the world, the mortality rate is little different than the world average.
It would seem that four forces are driving the recent modest increase in new coronavirus cases:
- the Memorial Day weekend brought people together
- the easing of the lockdown across the U.S.
- the protests bringing people in closer proximity
- as farmworkers work and live in close proximity, coronavirus cases have been raging
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Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
No cases of coronavirus have been linked to two Missouri hairstylists who saw 140 clients last month while symptomatic, county health officials said.
Both stylists worked at the same Great Clips location in Springfield. The clients and the stylists all wore face coverings, and the salon had set up other measures such as social distancing of chairs and staggered appointments, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department said this week.
Of the 140 clients and seven co-workers potentially exposed, 46 took tests that came back negative. All the others were quarantined for the duration of the coronavirus incubation period. The 14-day incubation period has now passed with no coronavirus cases linked to the salon beyond the two stylists, county health officials said.
During the quarantine, those who did not get tested got a call twice a day from health officials asking whether they had symptoms related to Covid-19, said Kathryn Wall, a spokeswoman for the Springfield-Green County Health Department.
Moderna Plans To Start Phase 3 Testing of its COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in July – Time
On June 11, biotech company Moderna announced it had finalized plans for phase 3 testing of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The late-stage trial will include 30,000 participants and is expected to begin in July.
The trial will test just one dose level of the vaccine, 100 micrograms, given in two shots. In the earlier phase 1 study involving 45 healthy volunteers, the company explored lower and higher doses, but preliminary results revealed by the company from this trial suggested that 100 micrograms provided the desired immune response safely. According to the company, the vaccine produced antibodies against the COVID-19 virus in those who were vaccinated, and in tests involving a handful of participants, those antibodies were able to neutralize the virus in the lab. The full details of that study aren’t available yet; that will soon be published by Moderna’s collaborators, a team of scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The phase 2 study is ongoing, and is enrolling 600 healthy people who will be followed for a year after their injections. This stage will continue to look at the vaccine’s safety as well as collect further data on its effectiveness. This study will include more people who might be a high risk of exposure to COVID-19, such as health care workers and residents in long-term care facilities.
In June, Moderna became one of five vaccine developers chosen to be part of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program to speed development of a COVID-19 vaccine. The selection qualifies Moderna to receive federal government funding to continue development of vaccine, conduct tests, as well as scale up manufacturing to meet the goal of beginning to inoculate 300 million people beginning early next year. Moderna said it plans to deliver 500 million to 1 billion doses a year beginning in 2021.
Mnuchin Backs New Stimulus Targeted To Stragglers In Reopening – Financial Advisor
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the U.S. needs additional fiscal stimulus — particularly for businesses struggling to reopen from coronavirus-related closures — even as he said the economy has started to recover.
“I do think the economy is going to rebound significantly, but there is still significant damage in parts of the economy,” Mnuchin told the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee on Wednesday.
A fourth round of fiscal stimulus should include help for travel, retail and leisure businesses, and possibly more cash for American families, Mnuchin said Wednesday. The Trump administration has discussed a capital gains tax cut but Mnuchin indicated it’s not the best approach.
Congress hasn’t yet reached any agreement on another round of stimulus as Democrats demand assistance for states whose budgets have been hit by declining revenue.
After social distancing to curb the pandemic collapsed the U.S. economy in March, lawmakers approved as much as $6 trillion in stimulus to help it recover. More than 40 million people lost their jobs through March and April as the government sought to contain the outbreak.
From Immediate Responses to Planning for the Reimagined Workplace: Human Capital Responses to COVID-19 – The Conference Board
In the early months of COVID-19, most organizations (66 percent) immediately restricted hiring to critical roles. Many organizations took other actions to reduce workforce costs, such as freezing all hiring, reducing hours, deferring compensation, or implementing furloughs. At the other end of the spectrum, 13 percent of organizations in our study increased hiring during the pandemic, likely in essential businesses. Whatever an individual organization’s circumstances, reopening doesn’t mean “going back to pre-COVID-19.”
In the next three months (May to July 2020), the most common expected actions are to require employees to take PTO or vacation time, defer pay, and implement furloughs. Few respondents indicated that they expect to implement furloughs without benefits or reduce 401(k) contributions. However, 16 percent of respondents expect permanent layoffs to come in the next three months, and 9 percent expect a major restructuring.
FDA Authorizes First Next Generation Sequence Test for Diagnosing COVID-19 – FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Illumina, Inc. for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test utilizing next generation sequence technology. The FDA authorized the Illumina COVIDSeq Test for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from respiratory specimens collected from individuals suspected of COVID-19 by their healthcare provider. Using next generation sequencing means that the test can generate information about the genomic sequence of the virus present in a sample, which can be also used for research purposes.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the ingenuity that results from the FDA working in partnership with the private sector. Having a next generation sequencing diagnostic tool available will continue to expand our testing capabilities. Additionally, genetic sequencing information will help us monitor if and how the virus mutates, which will be crucial to our efforts to continue to learn and fight this virus,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, M.D.
Next generation sequencing is a type of diagnostic technology that can determine, among other things, the genetic sequence of a virus. Comparing sequencing results over time can help scientists understand if and how viruses mutate.
Vaccine Makers Hedge Bets On Which One Will Emerge As Effective And Safe – NPR
Once upon a time, developing a new vaccine was a step-by-step process that went from concept, to design, to tests in humans, to regulatory approval, to manufacturing.
It was a process that could take a decade or more.
But the urgent need for a COVID-19 vaccine has radically changed all that. Now, the hope is the entire process can be completed in a year or less.
… But Novavax is in the vaccine development business. It doesn’t have the ability to manufacture those hundreds of millions of doses. So the company has turned to Emergent Biosolutions.
Lilly COVID-19 treatment could be authorized for use as soon as September – Reuters
Eli Lilly and Co could have a drug specifically designed to treat COVID-19 authorized for use as early as September if all goes well with either of two antibody therapies it is testing, its chief scientist told Reuters on Wednesday.
Lilly is also doing preclinical studies of a third antibody treatment for the illness caused by the new coronavirus that could enter human clinical trials in the coming weeks, Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skovronsky said in an interview.
Lilly has already launched human trials with two of the experimental therapies.
The drugs belong to a class of biotech medicines called monoclonal antibodies widely used to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and many other conditions. A monoclonal antibody drug developed against COVID-19 is likely to be more effective than repurposed medicines currently being tested against the virus.
Regeneron begins human testing of COVID-19 antibody cocktail – Reuters
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc on Thursday said it has begun human testing of its experimental antibody cocktail as a treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The trial has an “adaptive” design and could quickly move from dozens of patients to eventually include thousands, Chief Scientific Officer George Yancopoulos told Reuters.
“If it goes perfectly well, within a week or two we will move to the second phase. Within a month or so of that we will have clear data that this is or isn’t working. By the end of summer, we could have sufficient data for broad utilization.”
South Carolina virus chief ‘more concerned’ about virus now than ever – Associated Press
The top South Carolina health official overseeing efforts to fight the coronavirus outbreak in the state said Wednesday that she’s worried a lack of social distancing and adherence to other preventative measures are hampering efforts to fight the pandemic as infection numbers continue to rise.
“Today I am more concerned about COVID-19 in South Carolina than I have ever been before,” state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said during a news conference. “We are all eager to return to our normal lives … but it will take us that much longer to get there if we don’t stop the virus today.”
In the past two weeks, Bell said that South Carolina had posted its highest new daily case counts since the beginning of the pandemic. On Wednesday, Bell noted more than 500 new positive tests had been posted, for a total of more than 15,700 in the state. Thus far, she said, 575 people in the state have died.
Among her concerns, Bell noted a widespread lack of mask-wearing and social distancing, as some South Carolinians relax their attitudes toward restrictions surrounding the outbreak, now ongoing for months. She also cited a lack of self-isolation in new hotspot areas like Greenville, where some infected people have spread the virus to other members of their households.
Coronavirus spreads among fruit and vegetable packers, worrying U.S. officials – Reuters
[editor’s note: econintersect has been warning about this farmworker outbreak since last week]
From apple packing houses in Washington state to farm workers in Florida and a California county known as “the world’s salad bowl,” outbreaks of the novel coronavirus are emerging at U.S. fruit and vegetable farms and packing plants.
A rising number of sick farm and packing house workers comes after thousands of meat plant employees contracted the virus and could lead to more labor shortages and a fresh wave of disruption to U.S. food production.
The Trump administration said last month it may extend an executive order to keep meat plants operating to fruit and vegetable producers as well, a sign it is concerned fresh produce could be the next sector hit.
While social distancing can be more easily implemented for workers harvesting fruits and vegetables in fields and working outside may reduce some risks for virus spread, plants that package foods such as apples and carrots resemble the elbow-to-elbow conditions that contributed to outbreaks at U.S. meat packing plants.
Second U.S. Virus Wave Emerges as Cases Top 2 Million – Yahoo
[editor’s note: there is no evidence yet in the data of a second wave – the 7-day averages show a static growth rate of new coronavirus infections]
A second wave of coronavirus cases is emerging in the U.S., raising alarms as new infections push the overall count past 2 million Americans.
Texas on Wednesday reported 2,504 new coronavirus cases, the highest one-day total since the pandemic emerged.A month into its reopening, Florida this week reported 8,553 new cases — the most of any seven-day period.California’s hospitalizations are at their highest since May 13 and have risen in nine of the past 10 days.
A fresh onslaught of the novel coronavirus is bringing challenges for residents and the economy in pockets across the U.S. The localized surges have raised concerns among experts even as the nation’s overall case count early this week rose just under 1%, the smallest increase since March.
“There is a new wave coming in parts of the country,” said Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It’s small and it’s distant so far, but it’s coming.”
Bracing for the next phase of the coronavirus recession: Bankruptcies – CBS News
Art Van Furniture, Bar Louie and True Religion all sell different products, but they all have one thing in common: Each has gone bankrupt this year, as the coronavirus-induced recession that started in February flattens businesses large and small.
Recent data show 722 companies sought bankruptcy protection around the U.S. last month, a 48% increase from the year-ago period. Chapter 11 filings also jumped in April and March, as states started imposing business restrictions amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“This is a sign that already weak companies are succumbing to the lockdown recession,” Chris Kuehl, an economist with the National Association of Credit Management, which tracks bankruptcies, said in a research note. Businesses that were struggling before the pandemic “are starting to get in some real trouble,” he added
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
South Korea reports 45 new cases of COVID-19
Tokyo Olympics Organizers Aim To ‘Simplify’ Games
Ryanair rejects UK guidance for passengers to check in all luggage
EU’s external borders should reopen from July 1, says European Commission
New coronavirus cases in Africa are accelerating:
The following are additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Black and Latino churches offer prayers, hope, and coronavirus testing
An unintended consequence of COVID universal masking
Prices on the Bread Aisle Plunge the Most in 80 Years
United Airlines Adds A Step To Check-In: Stating You Don’t Have COVID-19 Symptoms
5 NY Regions Start Phase III Friday, Opening Indoor Dining; Cuomo Leaves Pool Call to Locals
Mortgage rates set new record low, falling below 3% as concerns rise about coronavirus second wave
Myrtle Beach is seeing an upward trend in new Covid-19 cases
Coronavirus Statistics For 11 June 2020 |
| U.S. Only | Global | U.S Percentage of Total | ||||
| Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | |
| New Cases | 20,614 | 2,000,000 | 132,786 | 7,340,000 | 15.5% | 27.2% |
| Deaths | 918 | 112,924 | 5,235 | 416,430 | 17.5% | 27.1% |
| Mortality Rate | 4.5% | 5.6% | 3.9% | 5.7% | ||
| total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people | 1.73* | 61.59* | ||||
* as of 06 June 2020
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
May 2020 Producer Price Final Demand Year-over-Year Growth Remains In Contraction
06 June 2020 Initial Unemployment Claims 1,542,000 This Week
May 2020 Sea Container Counts Remain Deep In Contraction
How Fragility Of Household Wealth Threatens The Economic Recovery
How Hard Will GDP Be Hit In 2020?
Uprisings After Pandemics Have Happened Before – Just Look At The English Peasant Revolt Of 1381
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 as many do not show symptoms?
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission?
- The US has scaled up coronavirus testing – but the accuracy of the tests is in question.
- What forms of social distancing work best?
- Can children widely spread coronavirus?
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- What effect will the weather have?
- Can we reopen parks and beaches safely – but outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
- Do we develop lasting immunity to the coronavirus? Another coronavirus – the simple cold – does not develop long term immunity.
- Can the world really push out a vaccine in 12 to 18 months?
- Will we get other medical treatments for Covid-19?
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 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!
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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