Top news, reports and insights for today:
- Daily headline summaries for Monday:
- Florida breaks state, and U.S. all-time record for highest daily cases with 15,300. The state-wide total including non-residents is 269,811 (Orlando Sentinel, see graph below)
- At least 26 members of Mississippi’s legislature have tested positive for the COVID-19 after weeks of working at the Capital, often absent face masks and social distancing (NPR)
- MIT has developed a robot that uses UV light to kill coronavirus in stores and warehouses (Yahoo/Finance)
- White House seeks to discredit Dr. Fauci as cases surge (The Guardian)
- U.S. COVID-19 daily cases doubling previous peak daily cases. 13 States adding 20 or more new daily cases per 100,000
The U.S. crossed the 3 million case threshold this weekend, adding more than 60,000 new cases in three of the last 4 days. We continue to set new daily records at an alarming pace. The most recent daily record of 66,660 came on July 10. That number is almost double the number of daily high cases set during the first peak on April 24. The middle graph below shows the number of days it took to reach each 500,000 new cumulative cases. We went from 2.5 to 3 million cases in a record 10 days, a week faster than the previous fastest interval and half the time it took to add 500,000 cases any previous period. The bottom graph shows what is happening in states. It shows new daily cases per 100,000 population. In the West, Midwest and South, the only 2 state with its epidemic under control (<5 new daily cases per 100K) were Wyoming and Hawaii. Thirteen states added more than 20 (4-times the benchmark) daily cases per 100,000; four in the West (Arizona, California, Idaho and Nevada) and 9 in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas). The Northeast, which was the sole focus of national attention for most of this spring, remained quiet with low growth in cases in all states except Delaware. Arizona (+50), Florida (+43), and Louisiana (+42) remain “off the charts”.
The Bottom Line: Uncontrolled community transmission is widespread throughout the South despite very hot and humid conditions. The South and West are losing ground as the epidemic surges across many states. More than a dozen states slow or reverse reopening as we enter a period of uncertainty and stagnation. There is no national leadership visible on the horizon.
- We were waiting to see if deaths would start rising. They just did
The post-reopening surge in cases took longer to arrive than we thought. But it came. As cases surged beyond the previous peak, we waited to see what would happen with hospitalizations. It took a bit longer than we thought, but the surge in sick patients came. Then we waited to see the numbers rise for deaths. For a moment, it seemed that something had changed, that the gap between cases and deaths was peculiarly large. This week, as the graphs below show, that has now shifted. Eric Topol called it on Twitter on July 13. In the last week, the 7-day moving average for daily reported COVID-19 deaths inflected upward (top graph). According to CNN, counties in Texas are running out of morgue space and asking FEMA for refrigerated trucks to hold the dead. The lower graph shows the story at the state level. Compared to 2 weeks ago, deaths last week rose in all Western states, all Midwest states except Minnesota and all Southern states except Virginia. While numbers were two small for stable estimates in several states (patterned bars), the trend in the south especially is clear where weekly deaths rose from a low of 19% in Alabama to more than doubling (208%) in Texas. Weekly deaths rose by 50% or more in Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.
What it means: The much-anticipated rise in daily deaths has begun and its not limited to a few high-profile states. Deaths are rising fast in 8 states. This trend should continue and accelerate. If hospital capacity is dramatically exceeded, deaths may spiral.
Thomas A. Glass, Ph.D. 