Coronavirus Cases Up Deaths Down

Coronavirus infection numbers are going up worldwide.

India had over 60,000 new cases reported from 10/10 to 10/11. Europe is having a tsunami of new infections. As a whole, the continent reported 100,000 new infections last Friday with France having the largest increase - 20,000. The Spanish Prime Minister instituted a partial 15-day lockdown on Madrid after the city had an increase of 12,788 new covid cases. That is three times as many as Los Angeles. 

Speaking of Los Angeles, we had 970 new cases and 3 deaths yesterday.  This is compared to one of Los Angeles' worst reporting days - July 14 when there were 4,244 new cases and 73 deaths. 

This leads me to my second point, the number of deaths per the number of infections is down in the U.S.

According to worldometers.info, the worst daily death toll in the U.S. was April 21, with 2,748 deaths. The last day the U.S. reported over 1,000 coronavirus deaths in one day was on September 23 at 1,116. On October 10, the US reported 723. 

While the deaths have dropped by 2/3rds, unfortunately our infection rate remains high: April 21 26,875, September 23 41,868, October 10 54,235. It's not all bad. The worst day was July 24 with 78,893.

So if we look at new cases vs deaths for each of those 3 days: April 21 10.22%; September 23 2.67%; and October 10 .92%.

The good news (although none of this is really good news) is that more people are surviving who become infected. The bad news is over 50,000 people a day are still being infected with the Coronavirus across the country.

Whether the factor for decreasing death rate is medical professionals being more familiar with treating the disease, the disease becoming less virulent, or new medicines, it is good to know that if you do become infected, your chance of survival is pretty good.

In conclusion, the coronavirus is still running rampant. Even though people have a better chance of surviving an infection today than they did a couple of months ago, many people report long term mental and physical effects during what can be a lengthy recovery. Take care and be safe.

Here is an interesting side note I learned while I was researching this blog post:

Per John Hopkins University, the country with the most deaths per 100,000 people is not the U.S. We are number 6 even with the improved statistics above. Nor is it India, Brazil, or the United Kingdom. The dark title goes to Peru. To put their numbers in perspective, the U.S. mortality rate is 65.64 per 100,000, Peru is almost twice that at 104.11. Why?

The Associated Press reported that Peru's high numbers were due to using coronavirus rapid antibody tests the Peruvian government purchased from China. 

The government took this option because the test kits were cheaper and samples did not have to be sent to a lab to determine the results. It sounded like a good option, unfortunately it was too good to be true.

First, antibody tests are tests that determine whether or not a patient's body had developed antibodies to defeat the virus rather than a test that would determine if they were currently infected. The problem is that it can take days before a person's body develops antibodies to fight the virus. When these rapid antibody tests came back negative, patients would be sent home or let into work or school under the assumption they were not infected.

The other two issues with these tests were that some providers administered the test improperly and it was learned that many kits were faulty. 

Sad.

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