Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 1.3 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago. U.S. hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are now 5.6 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 9.4 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are at an elevated 196,295
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at an elevated 2,571
- U.S. Coronavirus hospitalizations are at an elevated 113,929
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases improved, hospitalizations improved, and deaths worsened
- Like much about the virus, exactly how much Thanksgiving gatherings spread it and why the effects seem to have varied so much from place to place remains unclear.
- Operation Warp Speed chief: Pandemic will get worse due to Christmas gatherings
- 7.9 Million Doses Of Vaccine Ready For Distribution Next Week
- Wealthy countries secured a surplus of vaccines. Canada could receive 6 doses for each person
- Moderna vaccine shipments set to arrive in states on Monday
- CDC issues new guidance addressing allergic reactions to coronavirus vaccine
- The order in which different groups in the U.S. should be given the vaccine is disputed
- Stroke and altered mental state increase risk of death for COVID-19 patients
- States were left scrambling after finding out they’d get 20-40% less vaccine than they expected. Here’s why
- Thousands of internal documents reveal how China censored its internet in the early days of the pandemic
The recent worsening of the trendlines for new cases should be attributed to going back to college/university, cooler weather causing more indoor activities, possible mutation of the virus, fatigue from wearing masks / social distancing, holiday activities, political rallies / voting, and continued loosening of regulations designed to slow the coronavirus spread.
My continuing advice is to continue to wash your hands (especially after using the toilet as COVID first sheds in your stool), putting down the toilet seat (as flushing the toilet releases a plume), wear masks, avoid crowds, 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 – and the evidence to-date shows a lower severity of COVID-19. In addition, certain activities are believed to carry higher risk – like being inside in air conditioning and removing your mask (such as restaurants, around your children/grandchildren, bars, and gyms). It is all about viral load – and outdoor activities are generally safe if you can maintain social distance. Finally, studies show eating right (making sure you are supporting your immune system) and adequate sleep increase your ability to fight off COVID.
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Hospitalizations (grey line) and Mortality (green line)
source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
The Impact of Holidays
The 4 day Thanksgiving holiday period put a wobble in the trends. Over weekends and holidays, the number of new cases and deaths decline. Over weekends, this is not a problem for week-over-week rolling averages as weekends are compared against the previous weekend. But when a holiday falls within a working week, a non-working day is compared to a working day which causes havok in the trends. However, hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays – the daily counts do not vary significantly from day-to-day.
The hospitalization growth rate trend is growing at an ever slowing growth rate which is all good news as it means the number of beds needed is currently growing around 6 % every week.
The above graph demonstrates in the last week hospitalization rate of growth has been relatively steady. We are now seeing the size of the impact of commingling and travel over the Thanksgiving holiday period – roughly, it seems to have added around 5 % to the rate of growth of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.
As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.
The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked over one month ago and the rate of growth has been decelerating.
This graph is currently demonstrating that the actions to contain the pandemic are working – but the rate of growth improvement is too slow as we are still seeing record numbers. In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths.
It is up to each of our readers to protect themselves and others by washing your hands, wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, and maintaining social distancing.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Econintersect has published two summary articles for COVID news this past week:
As vaccines arrive, the virus continues to ravage the U.S. and Europe. – New York Times
… Wealthy countries like the United Kingdom and the United States have secured a surplus of vaccines. Canada, which could receive as much as six times the amount needed to vaccinate its entire population, said it would contribute its extra doses through Covax. France made a similar commitment.
The sharing would be welcome help for lower-middle-income countries like India, Egypt and El Salvador, which have not secured enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations. Even upper-middle-income nations like Argentina, Turkey and Thailand have not met the 100 percent threshold.
Nate Silver Draws Criticism for COVID Vaccine Report Interpretation – Newsweek
The clash concerns a report by a group of scientists working for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). That group gives vaccine-related advice to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC), which in turn advises the U.S. government.
The report, titled “Phased Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccines” and published on November 23, looked at the order in which different groups in the U.S. should be given the vaccine.
The CDC has already recommended initial supplies be given to healthcare workers and long-term care facility residents. Behind these two groups, the new report proposed prioritising both “adults with high-risk medical conditions” and those aged over 65.
Silver criticized the suggestion. He argued the elderly should get the vaccine earlier, citing higher death rates in that group, than those with health conditions.
In a tweet on Friday, Silver accused the report’s author of “NOT following the science.”
Next to a screenshot of part of the presentation, Silver said the report had used modeling which showed fewer deaths would come from vaccinating those aged over 65 ahead of those with health conditions.
He said prioritizing people with pre-existing conditions “isn’t projected to save nearly as many lives as prioritizing based on age. So they’re basically ignoring their own data.”
The reports author, Jo Walker, hit back by saying Silver had cited a slide which assumes use of a vaccine which still allows the virus to spread. “Differences in strategies are much smaller if you assume vaccine can also prevent infection and transmission,” they wrote.
States were left scrambling after finding out they’d get 20-40% less vaccine than they expected. Here’s why. – USA Today
In the first major hiccup of the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, states this week found themselves scrambling to adjust as they received word they would get between 20% and 40% less vaccine next week than they had been told as late as Dec. 9.
States were given estimates that turned out to be based on vaccine doses produced, not those that had completed quality control and were releasable. Only on Wednesday and later were states informed of the actual numbers.
“The ripple effect is huge,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. “The planning piece is critical. We cannot roll this vaccine out on the fly.”
After three days of confusion, the source of the problem was finally clarified Friday night by Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state. He tweeted he’d had a “very productive” conversation with Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer for Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s COVID-19 treatment and vaccine program.
“That discrepancy was the source of the change in allocations,” Inslee tweeted. “It appears this is not indicative of long-term challenges with vaccine production.”
During a news conference Saturday morning, Perna explained that he had not taken into consideration the time it would take for completed vaccine to go through the full, rigorous Food and Drug Administration quality control process. FDA must receive a certificate of analysis for each batch 48 hours before the manufacturer can ship that batch, HHS tweeted Saturday.
Perna apologized to governors, saying it was entirely his fault.
Moderna vaccine shipments set to arrive in states on Monday, Operation Warp Speed logistics chief says – Washington Post
Shipments of the second coronavirus vaccine approved by health regulators are set to arrive in states Monday, according to the Trump administration’s vaccine operations chief, one week after front-line health workers received the first shots in the U.S. government’s mass vaccination campaign.
Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, said Saturday that distribution was underway for the vaccine developed by Massachusetts biotechnology company Moderna in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, following the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to clear the shot late Friday.
Workers were packing the vials into boxes at distribution centers run by the medical wholesale giant McKesson, Perna said. FedEx and UPS trucks are slated to depart Sunday and carry the freezer-temperature containers to their destinations. The government has also begun shipping ancillary kits including needles, syringes and other supplies to help administer the shots, according to Perna.
Operation Warp Speed chief says “low” chance the vaccine does not work on new Covid-19 variants – CNN
It is “very unlikely” that the vaccines currently available will not be effective on the reported new variant of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom, Operation Warp Speed head Moncef Slaoui told CNN on Sunday.
“Up to now, I don’t think there has been a single variant that would be resistant to the vaccine,” Slaoui said. “We can’t exclude it, but it’s not there now.”
Slaoui said that Covid-19 may be prone to variance, as the RNA process the virus uses is more prone to mistakes. He added that critical aspects of the virus, like the spike protein involved in a vaccine, are very specific to Covid-19 and unlikely to mutate much.
“Because the vaccines are using antibodies against many different parts of the spike protein, the chances that all of them change, I think, are low,” said Slaoui.
CDC issues new guidance addressing allergic reactions to coronavirus vaccine – The Hill
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidelines on Saturday to address reported severe allergic reactions to the coronavirus vaccine.
The agency said it recently “learned of reports” of some people experiencing severe allergic reactions after getting inoculated. The agency defined a “severe reaction” as one where a person needs to be treated with epinephrine or requires hospitalization.
The CDC said that people who have a severe allergic reactions after the first dose should not get the second shot.
Those who have had severe allergic reactions to a component in a COVID-19 vaccine should not get that specific vaccine.
The agency also advises those who have had severe allergic reactions to other vaccines or therapies consult their doctor before getting inoculated. However, people with a history of severe allergic reactions not related to vaccines or injectable medicines may still get vaccinated, the CDC said.
The guidelines come after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was looking into five severe reactions to Pfizer’s vaccine reported this week. Two reactions were reported in Alaska, and the others have been reported in other states.
Peter Marks, who leads the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told reporters that the agency wasn’t sure what caused the reaction, but said a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which is present in Pfizer and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, “could be the culprit.”
Stroke and altered mental state increase risk of death for COVID-19 patients – AAAS
People hospitalized with COVID-19 and neurological problems including stroke and confusion, have a higher risk of dying than other COVID-19 patients, according to a study published online today by researchers at Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the journal Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. These findings have the potential to identify and focus treatment efforts on individuals most at risk and could decrease COVID-19 deaths.
The study looked at data from 4,711 COVID-19 patients who were admitted to Montefiore during the six-week period between March 1, 2020 and April 16, 2020. Of those patients, 581 (12%) had neurological problems serious enough to warrant brain imaging. These individuals were compared with 1,743 non-neurological COVID-19 patients of similar age and disease severity who were admitted during the same period.
“This study is the first to show that the presence of neurological symptoms, particularly stroke and confused or altered thinking, may indicate a more serious course of illness, even when pulmonary problems aren’t severe,” said David Altschul, M.D., chief of the division of neurovascular surgery at Einstein and Montefiore and associate professor in the Leo M. Davidoff Department of Neurological Surgery and of radiology at Einstein. “Hospitals can use this knowledge to prioritize treatment and, hopefully, save more lives during this pandemic.”
Among people who underwent brain imaging, 55 were diagnosed with stroke and 258 people exhibited confusion or altered thinking ability. Individuals with stroke were twice as likely to die (49% mortality) compared with their matched controls (24% mortality)–a statistically significant difference. People with confusion had a 40% mortality rate compared with 33% for their matched controls–also statistically significant.
As Christmas Nears, Virus Experts Look for Lessons From Thanksgiving – New York Times
In the days before Thanksgiving on Nov. 26, infectious-disease experts and elected officials repeatedly warned Americans to limit their travel and family gatherings, fearing the holiday would turn into a nationwide super-spreader event.
But experts and data suggest what happened was something like a micro-spreader, more a tornado picking its spots than a hurricane blowing down everything in its path.
Epidemiologists said coronavirus case numbers and other data show that in many parts of the country, Americans altered their routines during the holiday, staying home instead of traveling and canceling large family gatherings. But there have been regional and isolated surges that can be attributed in part to activity around those days in late November, including in areas of Texas and California.
Like much about the virus, exactly how much Thanksgiving gatherings spread it and why the effects seem to have varied so much from place to place remains unclear. But, with Christmas and New Year’s around the corner, holiday gatherings — and how much they can spread the virus — could be crucial in determining whether coronavirus surges even further over the next month.
In California, the worst days of the pandemic are hitting the state now, as a spike in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths has shocked the state. In Los Angeles County for a period last week, a coronavirus death was recorded every two hours, and infections have touched many families. On Thursday, Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, announced that his 9-year-old daughter had tested positive for Covid-19.
Epidemiologists in a handful of communities in and near Los Angeles are linking some of the surge to families who ignored warnings and decided to hold small gatherings during Thanksgiving. Cases in the region were spiking before the holiday, but the widespread transmission that occurred during Thanksgiving gatherings in Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara and other counties was contributing to the pace of spread, officials said.
[editor’s note: It is hard to quantify the impact of Thanksgiving (and now Christmas and New Years) on spreading the virus. In fact, the new higher contagious strains of the virus give rise to the thought that they could be the major driver of the surge. Anyway, the point here is that you need to protect yourself and your family by wearing masks when around people you do not live with, social distancing, etc. This post deserves a full read]
Warp Speed Official: 7.9 Million Doses Of Vaccine Ready For Distribution Next Week – NPR
With a second COVID-19 vaccine now authorized for emergency use, the top military official with Operation Warp Speed says a combined 7.9 million doses of vaccine are ready to be distributed next week.
U.S. Army General Gustave Perna, the chief operating officer of the federal vaccine effort, briefed reporters on Saturday, less than a day after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine developed by the biotech company Moderna. Perna said efforts to distribute the Moderna vaccine were already underway, with the first doses scheduled to arrive at sites across the U.S. on Monday.
Perna said the Moderna vaccine will be delivered alongside of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — which was authorized on Dec. 11 — and continue throughout the week.
“Just as we did last week with Pfizer, we are prepared,” Perna said, noting that Moderna had already moved its vaccine to distribution centers and that shipments would begin rolling out as early as Sunday.
“Jurisdictions have already ordered the vaccine and we know it is going to 3,700-plus locations with more requests coming in every day based on allocations,” Perna said.
England COVID Mutation ‘Out of Control’ Health Secretary Says – Newsweek
Anew strain of coronavirus is “out of control” in parts of southern England, the U.K. health secretary has warned, adding that it has also been found as far away as Australia.
Matt Hancock, was speaking the day after a stricter lockdown was announced for London and surrounding areas after scientists confirmed the existence of a new variant of the virus that could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.
Speaking on Sunday morning political shows, Hancock said that people needed to act as though they have the virus in order to stop it spreading.
“Unfortunately this virus, the new strain, was out of control, we’ve got to get it
under control and the way we can do that, the only way you can do that is by restricting social contact and essentially—especially in tier 4 areas—everybody needs to behave as though they might well have the virus,” he told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday.How far the new variant has spread is currently unknown, though the health secretary told Sky News it had been discovered in other countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia, on the other side of the planet to Britain.
The mutation, known as N501Y, means the new strain can spread faster, however, scientists say it does not appear to be deadlier and could still be stopped by vaccines.
On Friday, public health officials in South Africa said a new strain was driving a second wave of infections there. Scientists have said the strain is similar to the one found in the U.K.
Operation Warp Speed chief: Pandemic will get worse due to Christmas gatherings – The Hill
Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, warned Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. is likely headed for even higher numbers of new COVID-19 cases and daily deaths due to Christmas gatherings.
Slaoui told host Jake Tapper that the ongoing surge of cases was still a result of people gathering over the Thanksgiving holiday, adding that a similar surge from families gathering for Christmas would likely compound the issue in the weeks ahead.
“It will get worse, because we are still experiencing the outcome of the Thanksgiving holidays, and the gatherings, and unfortunately there might be more with the Christmas gathering…so there will be a continuing surge,” he said.
“It will be higher than it is today,” Slaoui said of the death rate after Christmas, adding that he could not make specific projections.
He said, however, that the emergency clearance granted to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine late last week meant that there is an end to the pandemic on the horizon.
Thousands of internal documents reveal how China censored its internet in the early days of the pandemic. – New York Times
In the early hours of Feb. 7, China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.
The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had become one of its victims. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Dr. Li’s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government’s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.
Yet China’s censors decided to double down. Warning of the “unprecedented challenge” Dr. Li’s death posed and the “butterfly effect” it might set off, officials got to work suppressing the inconvenient news and reclaiming the narrative, according to confidential directives sent to local propaganda workers and news outlets.
They ordered news websites not to issue push notifications alerting readers to his death. They told social platforms to gradually remove his name from trending topics pages. And they activated legions of fake online commenters to flood social sites with distracting chatter, stressing the need for discretion: “As commenters fight to guide public opinion, they must conceal their identity, avoid crude patriotism and sarcastic praise, and be sleek and silent in achieving results.”
The orders were among thousands of secret government directives and other documents that were reviewed by The New York Times and ProPublica. They lay bare in extraordinary detail the systems that helped the Chinese authorities shape online opinion during the pandemic.
[editor’s note: In the U.S. – the mass media is the censor deciding what is true or what they do not want you to know]
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
India surpasses 10M COVID-19 cases
Emmanuel Macron Working Despite COVID Symptoms Amid Claims He Broke Rules
Emmanuel Macron’s condition is stable ‘compared to Friday,’ according to his doctor.
Netanyahu becomes the first Israeli to be inoculated against Covid-19.
Coronavirus cases in Syria go uncounted amid shortages of critical supplies and medical personnel.
A Covid-19 surge and conspiracy theories roil Pakistan.
WHO: England’s new Covid-19 variant picked up in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia
Sydney to enforce pre-Christmas restrictions as mystery Covid-19 cluster grows
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Many undocumented immigrants fear getting vaccine
Cities with the fewest, most nurses in the U.S.
Travel industry readies for disappointing Christmas
Louisiana Rep.-elect hospitalized as a precaution for COVID-19 infection
Cuomo Warns Trump That Delay in Fed Aid Will Hamper Vaccine Distribution
Minnesota AG Files Lawsuits Against Restaurants Defying Indoor Dining Ban
Primates Used in Testing of Juvenile COVID Vaccine Show ‘Promising’ Results
Congress, grasping for a stimulus deal, resolves a dispute over the Federal Reserve’s power.
Apple closes all California stores as virus cases spike.
Restaurant chains are struggling to reach a unified approach, with varied rules across the U.S.
Senators reached an agreement on a final Republican sticking point in stimulus talks, a major step toward passing a $900 billion aid package. Working against a Sunday-night deadline to avoid a government shutdown, Republicans agreed to narrow an effort to curb the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers.
Lockdowns have stopped people moving. And fugitives are running out of hiding places
Advocate Condell to resume COVID-19 vaccinations after 4 workers have adverse reactions
Tennessee First Lady Maria Lee tests positive for COVID-19
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
Which Families Are Most Vulnerable To An Income Shock? A Look At Race And Ethnicity
Cyber Risk Is The New Threat To Financial Stability
Infographic Of The Day: Comparing Vaccine Development Timelines
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 20December 2020
Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 20December 2020
Many U.S. Hospitals Are Running Critically Short Of ICU Beds
COVID-19 Scammers Want Your Stimulus Check
Infrastructure And Unemployment Crises: The “American System” Solution
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues to increase. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore. A study usually cannot establish cause and effect – but only correlation. Be very careful what you believe about this pandemic.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
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 when recovering from COVID-19. Herd immunity does not look like an option without immunization although there is now a discussion of whether T-Cells play a part in immunity [which means one might have immunity without antibodies]
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
- 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.
What we do or 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?
- Masks do work.
- 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? Research early in the pandemic suggested that the rate of asymptomatic infections could be as high as 81%. But a meta-analysis, which included 13 studies involving 21,708 people, calculated the rate of asymptomatic presentation to be 17%.
- The accuracy of rapid testing is questioned – and the more accurate test results are not being given in a timely manner.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are a minor source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- Air conditioning contributes to the pandemic spread.
- It appears that there is increased risk of infection and mortality for those living in larger occupancy households.
- Male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission compared to females.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
- Will other medical treatments for Covid-19 ease symptoms and reduce deaths? So far only remdesivir, Bamlanivimab,
and Regeneron) are approved for treatment. What drugs work?
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
There is now a vaccine available – the questions remain:
- how effective it will be in the general population,
- will there be any permanent side effects that will appear months from now,
- how long immunity will last [we can currently say we do not know if it will last more than 4 months],
- there is no evidence the vaccine will block transmission
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 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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