COVID-19 Status & Updates
July 14, 2020
What have we learned since the outbreak began? How can we mitigate the loss of life and overall impact going forward? Many answers can now be uncovered by examining the data.
First of all, despite ongoing alarmist media reports, we have learned COVID-19 is not a 2020 version of the plague which will wipe out 30% of a population. It is a highly infectious virus that is relatively harmless for young people, and comparable to a bad cold for many. That being said, there are vulnerable older populations and people with existing diseases for which contracting COVID-19 may lead to hospitalization or death. By digging through the data, we can find solutions to combat the virus tactically – and allocate resources in an efficient manner to protect those in need, while minimizing the social and economic impacts to others.
Let’s start examining the scope of the problem by looking at the number of COVID-19 deaths. As of today, 139,000 people in the US have lost their lives to COVID-19. This is a tragic and concerning number to say the least. How does this compare to a “normal” flu season? Below is a chart from the US Center for Disease Control showing the “Excess Deaths”, or the number of deaths above the seasonal weekly rate.
The highlighted area shows a clear spike in deaths related to COVID-19. It was well above trend and much worse than the “Severe” 2017-2018 flu season. However, the extent to which COVID-19 impacts certain geographies and age group varies considerably. Let’s break this down by state for NY, NJ, FL, TX, AZ, and CA:
-TBD
July 10, 2020
Latest Developments:
- COVID-19 is transmitted via aerosol droplets per the World Health Organization
Per the WHO’s latest SARSSARS-CoV-2 update:
The physics of exhaled air and flow physics have generated hypotheses about possible mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through aerosols.(13-16) These theories suggest that 1) a number of respiratory droplets generate microscopic aerosols (<5 µm) by evaporating, and 2) normal breathing and talking results in exhaled aerosols. Thus, a susceptible person could inhale aerosols, and could become infected if the aerosols contain the virus in sufficient quantity to cause infection within the recipient. However, the proportion of exhaled droplet nuclei or of respiratory droplets that evaporate to generate aerosols, and the infectious dose of viable SARS-CoV-2 required to cause infection in another person are not known, but it has been studied for other respiratory viruses.(17)