The difference is that you don't give heart disease or skin cancer to other people. https://t.co/r6PXt4EKxj
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 13, 2020
The number of U.S. residents who have died since March is now more than 200,000 higher than it would be in a normal year. This suggests that the official death counts may be substantially underestimating the overall effects of the coronavirus. https://t.co/S4nAauU1io
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 13, 2020
165,975 confirmed #covid19 deaths in the United States so far https://t.co/gadJKxkufH
— Carl Zimmer (@carlzimmer) August 13, 2020
remember, if we managed coronavirus competently like the rest of the developed world we would no longer be the greatest developed country in the world https://t.co/YuCGRUaV2n
— kilgore trout, new tone haver (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 12, 2020
A little over two weeks ago, about 820,000 new tests were being administered per day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. By Aug. 12, that had dropped to about 710,000 https://t.co/M0kxlWRfhF
— TIME (@TIME) August 13, 2020
The US had +54,345 new confirmed coronavirus cases today, bringing the total to 5,360,302. For the past several days, the 7-day moving average has leveled off at 55k/day. pic.twitter.com/gazk39upcE
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 13, 2020
"run the government like a business," they said https://t.co/IZ3Uh9zdHD
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) August 13, 2020
Two weeks ago, we took a first look at the hospitalization data from HHS.
Today, we’re revisiting that analysis. The upshot: we still can’t tell why the HHS data is so far off the data states report.https://t.co/EplF4n2YQX
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) August 11, 2020
We have a measles vaccine but 140k still died of measles in 2018.
We have multiple polio vaccines but still struggle to eradicate the disease.
Any COVID19 vaccine will only be another tool, not a panacea.
We need critical investments in good public health to end this pandemic.
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) August 12, 2020
======
Canada has contained #COVID19 largely through social distancing, testing/tracing, masks & travel restrictions. It has waited to open its economy. Canada doesn't have the COVID chaos that has consumed much of the US. JAMA. https://t.co/ZdA9KgO6zZ
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
'Hundreds dead' because of Covid-19 misinformation, many from drinking methanol or alcohol-based cleaning products https://t.co/0Z0qbxnDWh
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 12, 2020
China's Shenzhen says chicken imported from Brazil tests positive for coronavirus https://t.co/mM9SfAUMmb pic.twitter.com/thr6oPKvHK
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
India's coronavirus cases jump by 67,000, setting daily record https://t.co/bwcDH7ASav pic.twitter.com/WWMcB2Sbs8
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
As coronavirus infections surge in Germany and Spain, here's a look at how Europe is handling the pandemichttps://t.co/8fkxQi2CXA
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 12, 2020
Italy orders coronavirus tests for arrivals from four countries https://t.co/hJYG7eEVHJ pic.twitter.com/GjT5fhTHVk
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
Official figures show the United Kingdom has fallen into a deeper recession than any of the world's other leading industrial economies. https://t.co/43n1t1Jklk
— AP Business News (@APBusiness) August 12, 2020
Australia on course for lowest one-day rise in COVID-19 cases in more than three weeks https://t.co/Doq00wLUD6 pic.twitter.com/l5bnaXfTJq
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
It would be much more worrying if they weren't linked. Directionality of link is going to be key though! https://t.co/wAyjngALfX
— John B (@johnb78) August 13, 2020
?This Uganda-built smartphone lets you monitor #Covid19 fever, helping detect a potential symptom of Covid-19. It is claimed to be the first of its kind in Africa https://t.co/Qm9ua8wd8c (Video via @QuickTake) pic.twitter.com/sqWrSmQGw5
— Bloomberg (@business) August 13, 2020
Peru president bans family gatherings, extends lockdowns, as coronavirus infections spike https://t.co/vEzCnz4EVR pic.twitter.com/DM8UQZVUNk
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
Brazil registers 55,155 new cases of coronavirus https://t.co/shWLKGbnVG pic.twitter.com/ONaiqZdqPP
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
Mexico's confirmed coronavirus cases almost at 500,000 https://t.co/cIqP2mefrc pic.twitter.com/Clm2NmAT6F
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 13, 2020
======
The World Health Organization said it will review Russia's vaccine clinical trial data. Vladimir Putin declared Russia 1st to approve a #COVID19 vax despite skipping final-stage testing. 28 of 150+ vaccines being tested globally; 6 in final-stage trials https://t.co/5CaLdorgtf
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
Pre-orders for #COVID19 vaccines top 5 billion. The US is the biggest pre-order vaccine hog https://t.co/S3uM2d82bo via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
CDC: Pediatric hospitalizations for #COVID19 are increasing. While hospitalization rates for children remain low, they've been rising steadily, according to research in the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report https://t.co/AZc9NGcowD pic.twitter.com/zUIVg4hf9H
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
Patients w/ undiagnosed flu – but who actually had #COVID19 last winter- were among 1000s of undetected early coronavirus cases. New research in The Lancet's open-access journal EClinicalMedicine by team at Univ of Texas https://t.co/4zf9iyM4On
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
As many as 1 in 3 people who recover from #Covid19 may experience neurological & psychological after effects, including brain fog, anxiety, @cooney_liz reports. "We’re not talking about [only] older individuals, but people that are 30.”https://t.co/58qOTi62Lc
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) August 12, 2020
======
Boston Fed chief: States' push to reopen quickly has set back the US economic recovery. @ChrisRugaber reports. https://t.co/EpQmTtyS49
— AP Business News (@APBusiness) August 12, 2020
New analysis reveals worsening shortage of emergency physicians in rural communities, regions already hit by hospital closures and declining medical services. Annals of Emergency Medicine. https://t.co/zPm0FocsQb pic.twitter.com/Rw0DgMNw7v
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) August 12, 2020
All four states have GOP governors and all four refused to impose mask rules. Alabama and Mississippi belatedly imposed mask rules only after reaching crisis levels. https://t.co/8WFgET6veM
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) August 12, 2020
A Georgia school district that does not require masks has closed a high school and now has over 1,100 students and staff in quarantine due to the coronavirus. https://t.co/z5JoOsDcV9
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 13, 2020
This map-by-zip-code depicts wealth distribution in NYC — dark colors = poorest neighborhoods, while pale yellow = wealthiest.
Well, of course that's just a coincidence, right? Because actually this is a map of Aug. 1st #COVID19 prevalence.
But, yeah, it's also about wealth. pic.twitter.com/gSUElDFDBg
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) August 13, 2020
Seems…not ideal: "A server outage, combined with the failure to renew a certificate, blocked the collection of Quest Diagnostics test results for 5 days, creating a backlog of nearly 300,000 records." https://t.co/7Uyj8AKYP6 by @vcolliver
— Erin Brodwin⚡ (@erbrod) August 12, 2020
Reopening indoor dining was a folly, of Republican and Democratic governments at and below the state level and the employees are paying the price https://t.co/RabFGXbsiT
— staying home stan account (@Convolutedname) August 12, 2020
There is stupid, and then there is Florida stupid.https://t.co/onaCH1WwAi
— Benn Steil (@BennSteil) August 12, 2020
mrmoshpotato
Just… All the side-eye!
???
jl
Thanks for an informative post. The data on excess deaths is not surprising, people have been trying to estimate the excess deaths attributable to covid-19 for months now. Estimates have ranged from deaths being 25 to 50 percent higher than official stats, and this latest estimate comes in around 35 percent. So I dunno, yay statistics!, I guess is the most optimistic thing I can say.
I personally find the news articles a little too pessimistic. The nice thing about getting the count of new cases really low, and also have good testing and contact tracking programs running well, is that you can figure out what the heck is going on.
So, 16 middle and high income countries in Europe Asia and Pacific, with economies and resources comparable (per capita) to the US currently have sustained increases in prevalence of disease, measured as test confirmed cases. The big difference is that except for Spain, the increases would be undetectable blips in the US. Also, they understand where the cases came from and how they move through their societies.
A big culprit is non-retail worksite outbreaks (agriculture, mining, distribution, manufacturing, etc.) due to corporate negligence. Another is relaxation of social distancing policies by general population (social distancing fatigue) , and in Europe, many countries have weaker mask policies than I thought they had. Big mask fight going in the Netherlands, similar to what we have been going through here. Importation of cases is a big problem. And countries do admit to have made mistakes in their reopening policies, and they are trying to fix them. Croatia didn’t provide isolation facilities for infected poor people who lived in crowded housing, and they think that is a big factor in their resurgence, so they are building separate dedicated isolation facilities for their poor. Other countries had dropped their public info and health education campaigns
The US has cases coming out the woodwork and who knows what is going on (hint: nobody does). That is a big difference from the other countries. There is not a generalized resurgence all over Europe that no one has a clue about how to control. The US does have exactly that.
Will be interesting to see whether the recent drop in new cases in the US is due to reduced testing (so just a measurement issue), population response to increased perceived risk, or maybe some new work on cross-immunity to other coronavirus can somewhat limit the total size of an epidemic wave will turn out to be an explanatory factor.
Edit: though I forgot that some of the countries with increasing cases also increased their testing programs in response, so to get a real idea of how bad the increase really is, you need to figure out how to account for that.
And, big policy response in Europe is to strengthen masking regulations, which as I noted, have been relatively weak compared to S Korea and Taiwan.
NotMax
Oahu already announced this, now other islands get the go-ahead to pull back from in person attendance.
West of the Rockies
I hope DeSantis takes it in the shorts with a rusty jackhammer. I call bullshit on Florida’s declining numbers. About two weeks ago the WP had them (IIRC) at 58 per 100,000. Now, almost as if by magic, they’re at 30 despite no new regulations?!?
OzarkHillbilly
Blech. Been awake since 1:15. Feeling a little sleepy now. I’m going back to bed.
Cermet
But the stock market is doing great – so, all is well; not.
If ever one needed proof that stocks have zero real world relevance to true economic health this is it. Those parasites eat middle class & poor wealth and spite out nonsense. Its only about making money for the elite and scamming everone else.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers. 15 new cases. 11 cases from local infection: 10 Malaysians, nine from a new cluster related to a memorial service in Baling, Kedah, one in KL detected in pre-surgical screening. One non-Malaysian permanent resident detected in screening ahead of travel abroad. Four imported cases, all Malaysian students returning from Indonesia (three) and Yemen. Cumulative reported total 9,129 cases.
Four more patients recovered and were discharged. Total 8,821 patients recovered, 96.7% of the cumulative reported total. Active and contagious cases in hospital for isolation/treatment rose to 183 patients; two are in ICU, no one is on a respirator.
No new deaths since 31st July. Total is still at 125 deaths, 1.37% of the cumulative reported total and 1.40% of resolved cases.
In other news, the owner of a nasi kandar eatery in northern Kedah was sentenced today to five months jail and a RM12,000 (US$2,860) fine for violating his home quarantine order to visit his business. Nezar Mohamed Sabur Batcha, 57, was also failing to keep the required customer log at his restaurant, the epicentre of the Sivagangga cluster that resulted in several communities in two states going into lockdown. Nor did he require that customers use the national contact tracing phone app. The restaurant has been permanently closed.
Steeplejack
@Cermet:
I think the last statistic I saw said that the top 10% of the population owns 90% of stocks. It’s probably more lopsided than that (i.e., the top 1% owns a huge percentage of that 90%).
Wall Street is not Main Street.
YY_Sima Qian
Huh, my post keeps getting eaten…
Zinsky
@jl: Good post, jl! Very informative. I recently sent a letter to the editor of my local newspaper. It said simply:
History has shown that smart, disciplined societies can overcome pandemics readily. Unfortunately, the United States of America in 2020, under Donald Trump’s administration, is neither.
rikyrah
@West of the Rockies:
uh huh ??
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
Well well well.
He didn’t think that the rules applied to him?
Amir Khalid
16 days ago, a huge crowd of Umno supporters gathered at the KL Court Complex as former PM Najib Abdul Razak was sentenced in a 1MDB-related misappropriation of funds case. It was widely feared at the time that this could be the start of a big cluster, and the Health Ministry said it was monitoring.
The Health Ministry is now reporting that there have been no new cases attributable to this incident, and there is no cluster. As a not-fan of both Umno and Najib, I am relieved but vaguely disappoint.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
Yeah, everyone’s mad at him.
Robert Sneddon
@Amir Khalid:
Infections happening to people you don’t like are unequivocally bad even if the news of such might make you feel good since it’s yet another infection source that can spread to people you care about more.
Amir Khalid
@Robert Sneddon:
I know, I know, but I can’t help wishing ill on that vile bunch of racists and crooks.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — no new deaths of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported yet again today. 47 new cases were reported with a 1% positive test result rate. Over half of the new cases are in the Grampian area but not yet positively confirmed as part of the Aberdeen cluster which now has 182 linked cases.
An adult working at a primary school in Peterhead, near Aberdeen has tested positive and the school has been closed pre-emptively. There are reports of some pupils at a secondary school in Glasgow testing positive too, more details to come. A small outbreak in the Orkney islands has been reported, possibly linked to the Aberdeen outbreak. The figures for people in hospital in Scotland remain high at 258, indicating many of them may be “long-haul” sufferers being treated for chronic ongoing medical problems either caused or exacerbated by the disease.
NotMax
@Robert Sneddon
Back in the mid-70s I was among a small group loudly “banned for life” from the Peterhead Inn by the barkeep, who I assume was also the owner.
Our horrid crime? An impromptu round of kicking around a football in the parking area after we’d departed at closing hour. I wasn’t even playing, was standing and watching.
Fair Economist
@jl: Excess deaths is worse than in that report because excess deaths is a very lagged number. It take about a month on average for a death to get reported and numbers continue to climb until about two months out.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: Also social distancing and lock down measures actually reduced deaths from other communicable diseases, as well as accidents from human activity.
The Pale Scot
@Steeplejack:
1% owns 50%, obviously the distribution of the other 50% is similarly skewed
Seanly
We haven’t just passed 200k COVID deaths; we’re rapidly approaching potentially 400k based on that NYT piece. 170k confirmed from COVID plus 200k unknown above statistically expected = 370k. Far enough to say that maybe not all 200k excess deaths are from COVID.
This is bad. And now Trump wants to totally fuck over the election. While I think that Biden can pull this out, I worry about election fuckery from Trump abetted by the Republicans.
Seanly
Oops, I see that the deaths above normal includes those attributed already to COVID. So we are likely at just over 200k deaths. Still not good.
Jess
Focusing on the silver lining here: in the developed countries, people have taken functioning government that cares about its citizens for granted in recent decades. Especially in the US. Now we all see what happens when we don’t collectively take responsibility for ensuring that we have such a government. I’m hoping that this will be a wake up call for everybody to get their shit together and start voting in competent, science-respecting representatives, and maybe it will even be in time to do something about climate change. Fingers crossed.
WaterGirl
@YY_Sima Qian: WordPress flagged them as spam. The format was pretty similar to a lot of messages that are spam.
This morning I didn’t check spam for messages that don’t belong – as I usually do first thing in the morning. Just catching this now. Sorry about that!
If that happens again, know that after the first two don’t post, nothing will post, so please raise a flag or send me an email message.