The number of diagnosed cases of COVID-19 worldwide has topped 3 million; the number of deaths due to the disease is over 212,000. Here in the U. S. more than 1 million cases have been diagnose and nearly 57,000 deaths are attributed to the disease.
Most of the U. S. remains under “stay at home” directives although they are being lifted or will soon be lifted in some states. Other states are extending those directives.
Although there are some signs in some places (New York) of “bending the curve”, it remains hard to assess the relative importance of varying causes in identifying why that might be. Post hoc propter hoc seems to dominate thinking.
IMO the “Holy Grail” of the struggle against COVID-19, a vaccine, will remain elusive for the foreseeable future. Although lots of things are being tried on an experimental basis, supportive care remains the primary treatment modality. There are some signs that strategies for supportive care are improving, illustrated by a leveling off of the use of ventilators.
Colorado went from the “stay at home” order to a “safe at home” policy yesterday and the data here do seem to support that change:
https://covid19.colorado.gov/hospital-data
Last week, my city had six patients split evenly btw/ two hospitals being treated for the virus, none of whom reside in this county. This was a decline, but there has never been any surge on the hospitals. And the state purchased a small hospital building (50 beds) that closed last year, but no efforts are being made to prepare it. There have been five people who died in the county, including the lady from Florida here on a visit.
Then last week, a suburban nursing home had an outbreak. Another five dead, and dozens of people, young and old, are infected. The owners say they complied with all rules and regulations, some of them before they were ordered by the State. There are 16 hospitalized in the city now, with probably more deaths coming.
Just noted a new comment edit feature – Thank You!
FYI, Pritzker’s stay-at-home order has been overturned:
ystateline.com/news/local-news/court-to-hear-lawsuit-against-pritzker-for-extending-states-stay-at-home-order/
We had a large surge of pts and had about the same number of deaths in 6 weeks as during a bad flu season. Even more we had many more hospitalizations and ICU admissions than during a bad flu season. Many more deaths of young people than in a typical bad flu season. But since we are over the worst I dont have much issue with opening up at different rates in different places. It will be one great big experiment.
If it reoccurs in the fall I will confess that here is a part of me that hopes some state or states decides to do nothing and we can see what happens. Ideally, the citizens also decide not to change their behaviors so we have a good test.
On the economic front I am totally unsure about what happens. Predictions are that Sweden will take as big a hit as we will. I suspect that a lot of people will be hesitant about going out even if we are open again. Even if people are not, how are our supply chains going to work? Assume that China is worse off than they say they are like most of us think. You can talk all you want about bringing business back to the US (though we know it will really go to Thailand, Nigeria or someplace else) but that wont happen overnight. I hope we have a V shaped recovery, but I am thinking that whenever we opened we were going to have a slow recovery.
Steve
Not over by a long shot. But, “Sacrifice the weak” is a bad campaign slogan. And herd immunity is where it’s going anyway, barring mutations.
Trump yesterday estimated we may get to 60-70,000 deaths by the end of august. End of the week is more like it. Even he knows better. He’s going to slow walk the bad numbers. This is now morphed into pandemic loss management. But there was never really any choice.
Watch for numbers to spike much higher 2-3 weeks after Cinco de Mayo.
I would never have guessed at the beginning of this crisis that the first person in my immediate family to draw unemployment would be my sister-in-law, a hospital RN. She is furloughed for the month of May.
My wife has enjoyed the great parking spots she’s gotten at the hospital complex, but for the last six weeks none of the work has been billed. They don’t have an insurance code for remote therapy.
An EMT was quoted in the newspaper last week saying that two people he tried to get to go to the hospital refused and later died. The details were missing, but similar stories are circulating at the hospital. Lifting the orders isn’t going to fix a lot of things directly as a lot of people will choose to reduce risk on their own terms.
On a hopeful note. I read there ARE vaccines for coronavirus in animals (dogs and cows).
So there is precedent that a vaccine against a coronavirus is possible.
CuriousOnlooker, I read a virologist working in finance state that he thought a vaccine was highly likely given that precedent, but he cautioned that it will probably not be as effective early as it will be later, and it may need to be administered regularly like a flu shot (but he thought they ultimately could be combined).
The explanation he gave of their not being any for humans is that coronavirus is the cause of about 20% of the common colds, and there simply is not a market for a vaccine that one could not know whether or not it worked for what is mainly an inconvenience.
“An EMT was quoted in the newspaper last week saying that two people he tried to get to go to the hospital refused and later died.”
They probably wont get tested. That was the norm early on and still pretty normal. How should we count those? Of note, Covid presents with a much wider array of symptoms, if they have any, than initially thought. They can be GI, neurological, chest pain. Its not just fever and a cough.
“my sister-in-law, a hospital RN. She is furloughed for the month of May.”
Early on Dave suggested hospitals might come out ahead with Covid. The problems is the hospitals lose money on ICU care. The areas where they are more likely to make money are some of those being shut down or limited. A good deal of that will never be made up. A lot of staff have been furloughed.
Steve
“How should we count those?”
The recent studies on “excess deaths” seems to be the only way that I know of, and it has the advantage of including secondary deaths. But obviously, counting that way also has a lot of problems.