With China showing no new cases over the weekend, I thought
it might be useful to go through a few things so you can continue living free of panic. I've spent a huge amount of time reading lots of actual science and CDC reports to get these nuggets in one spot for you, so if you have any additional questions, please let me know. I put a few of the articles below the list if you want to read for yourselves. Things to keep in mind:
1.
Pandemic just means the condition is world-wide.
So even though COVID-19 is a pandemic, so are ALLERGIES, for example. “Epidemic”
is a title that is more reflective of a deadly condition. A death rate of 7.3% defines
a condition as “epidemic”. Flu falls just short of this at 7.1% this year.
Global death rate of COVID-19 is 4.1%. USA death rate of COVID-19? 1.4%.
2.
The Peak of Disease in the USA still looks like
it was on March 9th, according to the CDC reports of CONFIRMED
CASES. This was 3 weeks after the first cases appeared, which reflects the 14
day incubation period. We are now further out than that by nearly 2 more weeks.
Continue to be careful that you aren’t reading information on websites or the
news that are using estimates because they make the data look like it’s still
rising when the reported cases to the government (which hospitals are required
to report) do not support that.
3.
More than 80% of the cases reported in China
were MILD. This is the same observation made here. It probably also speaks to
the likelihood that most of us have already been infected, just never showed
signs that were concerning.
4.
In the USA, 508 people are sick enough to be
hospitalized right now. So while there are over 15,000 cases UNCONFIRMED to
date in the USA, that means around 3% of people showing symptoms are ending up
in the hospital.
5.
There are nearly nine thousand beds in intensive
care units in Texas ALONE. So even if all 508 COVID-19 patients hospitalized
right now in the USA were here in Texas, we would not be overrun.
6.
Of those ending up in the hospital, 80% of the
deaths are in people older than 65 WITH UNDERLYING MEDICAL CONDITIONS. These
are the folks that need to stay home without question and you should not go visit
them because it puts them at risk.
7.
Population density plays a huge role in the
spread. High density populations can expect higher spread. Korea, China and
Italy have some of the highest population densities in the world. Korea is at
1,366 people per square mile. Italy is at 532 people per square mile. China is
at 397 people per square mile. In the Wuhan Providence where the virus
originated, it’s 3,200 people per square mile. In the USA? 94 people per square
mile. The range is large however, as in New York, it’s 28,000 people per square
mile. No wonder the virus spread so fast there.
8.
The first clinical trial is active already. There
are 4 drugs being considered and early reports indicate they are working. One
of them, Chloroquine, is a tablet that people who are traveling to places where
malaria is prevalent take to prevent infection. It’s a pill they take once a
week. Chloroquine changes the ability of the young malaria parasites to digest
food properly, and so they die. Researchers showed last week that chloroquine
stops the Coronavirus from thriving in the cells they were infecting and stops the
Coronavirus from infecting new cells. This was NOT done in animals or humans,
but in a cell line. Still, the results are promising enough that major pharmaceutical
companies are donating their Chloroquine stocks to the government for use in patients
fighting COVID-19.
9.
Limitation: Testing is still not wide-spread, so
the confirmed cases may be low. However, as over 80% of those with the virus
probably don’t even realize they had it, there is no way to get a true estimate
of who was infected. It is likely then that the death rate is even lower than
what I calculated above.
10. Caution:
Continue to follow the CDC guidelines for how to operate. Wash your hands
because soap and water for 20 seconds kills the virus. Stay home when you are
sick so you don’t infect anyone else. Do not visit those at high risk because
you could be carrying the virus (but are fighting it successfully with your good
immune system and you probably didn’t even know you had it!). Hug those living
with you often.
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on COVID-19
The in vitro data that prompted USA off-label use of
Chloroquine and H-Chloroquine
Details of the 4 drugs in the Solidarity Trial by WHO
Can you explain where you are getting your flu mortality rate from? I haven’t seen numbers any where for the rate of 7.1%. Everything I have seen is .1% from CDC and others from scientific communities.
ReplyDeleteI sure will. Hang on, I'll put that in the next blog. Coming soon.
ReplyDelete