COVID-19 Update: May 12th, 2020
The US now has well over one million confirmed cases of COVID-19.
1,360,705 cases as of today to be exact. 76,617 people are now confirmed dead. However, there is some good news: at the national level, coronavirus testing has increased again (after getting stuck at around 150,000 tests per day for much of April due to bottlenecks in the system) while the percentage of tests that are positive has decreased, from around 30% in early April to under 10% now. There has also been a slow but steady decrease in the number of new cases per day from a plateau of around 30,000/day in mid-April to around 25,000/day now.
Here are the average new cases per day in the US over the past three weeks:
April 19th-25th: 30,136
April 26th-May 2nd: 27,717
May 3rd-May 9th: 25,054
Looking only at the overall US picture, however, masks significant fluctuation and heterogeneity among states. Some states which were originally hit hard, like New York and Massachusetts, are now seeing a decline in new cases per day, while others, such as Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, that were largely spared during the initial round of infections, have experienced recent outbreaks. Nebraska now has more daily cases per capita than New York.
As late as April 11th, Dakota County in northeastern Nebraska had no confirmed cases. By the end of the first week in May, it had the third-most cases per capita in the country. Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine says “If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down. If you exclude New York, it’s a plateau slowly moving up.”
The new outbreaks in originally less-affected midwestern states come as governors of those states have decided to ease coronavirus restrictions and stay-at-home orders. There have been several recent outbreaks at meat and poultry plants in those states (and around the world), where workers must typically stand very close to each other on assembly lines. In many plants, workers were not issued masks or protective equipment.
A few US states with smaller populations such as Wyoming (~10 cases/day), Vermont (~4 cases/day), Alaska (~1 case/day), Hawaii (~2 cases/day), and Montana (~0 cases/day) appear to be on track to nearly eliminating the virus.
Genetic research has revealed that the vast majority of US cases originated in New York City and spread when people traveled from NYC to other parts of the country. Partly because the US Constitution prohibits states from barring interstate travel, the US was not able to contain the major outbreak to the region where it originated, as China did in Hubei province. US states can stop travellers, screen them, and quarantine them, though this is often hard to enforce in practice. It is interesting to note that two of the states with very low cases, Hawai’i and Alaska, have a much easier time screening entrants because almost all US travellers to those states must come through an airport or a national border crossing.
The WHO recommends expanding coronavirus testing until positive rates are 10% or below. The US as a whole has achieved this, with testing having increased from where it was stuck at 150,000 tests/day for much of April to over 300,000 per day now.
However, there is great variety among states. On the bright side, 30 states have achieved a positive rate of less than 10%. But many states are still struggling. New Jersey, which has had an enormous outbreak, is at an abysmal 33%. Nebraska is at 25%. Connecticut, DC, Delaware, and Maryland are all still in the 20–30% range.
Experts recommend additional testing be put in place before social distancing can be eased. Fewer states meet this benchmark. This graphic shows where each state’s level of daily testing measures up against recommendations from Harvard’s Global Health Institute. As of May 6th, only seven states had met the benchmark, with many of the most severely affected states far from the goal.
The bottom line is that the majority of US states have a great deal of work to do in order to scale up testing capacity to prepare for reopening. Even states like California, that have achieved relatively low positive rates despite large populations and initial outbreaks, will need to scale up testing capacity very significantly to prepare for possible future outbreaks.
Contact-tracing staff will also need to be increased. There are currently about 11,000 contact tracers in the US. Estimates of the total need range from 100k-300k. Most states report that they are not on track to meet the recommended manning goal of 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
Most state governments have rejected contact tracing technologies like that developed by the Apple-Google partnership. A majority of Americans surveyed said they would not participate in voluntary contact tracing through mobile phones. It seems that the US will not be fielding a South Korea-style contact tracing capability any time soon.
The Hoover Institution’s John Cochrane has coined the term the “smart reopening” to describe policy that follows expert recommendations to build adequate test, trace, and quarantine capacity as a prerequisite to reopening. He and other commentators have expressed little faith that the US will execute a smart reopening, but Cochrane hopes that the impending “dumb reopening” might still keep the virus somewhat under control, as people may resume social distancing voluntarily in response to new outbreaks in their local areas. Data analysis by Cuebiq does indeed show that residents began social distancing and working from home before their states ordered it.
The Diné (Navajo) Nation has been hit hard by coronavirus. Many Irish people have donated to aid the Diné because of the cultural memory of donations made by another Native American nation, the Choctaw, during the Irish famine of 1847.
Italy and Spain, two of the most-affected European countries, have had some success reducing their coronavirus case counts. Both are slowly easing lockdown. Italy’s museums will reopen on May 18th.
There has been a massive outbreak in Ecuador, with bodies left in the streets in the city of Guayaquil, and an estimated death toll 15 times greater than the official figures.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have essentially got coronavirus under control, and have declared a “travel bubble” to take effect among them starting May 15th. Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia have begun talks on a “trans-Tasman” travel bubble between their two countries. The idea of including Taiwan, Singapore, and other Pacific nations like Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa in the bubble has been suggested. This suggests the world may soon divide into two zones: nations that have defeated the virus and those that have not. The former group could potentially also include countries like Vietnam, South Korea, Austria, Slovenia, and Iceland.
Now to lighter news:
The communist government of Vietnam released a PSA to the tune of the Min & Erik V-pop song “Ghen” (Jealous). Called “Ghen Cô Vy,” it instructs listeners in proper handwashing and physical distancing techniques. The original PSA video was just ok, but then so-hot-right-now Saigon-based choreographer Quang Đăng created some 🔥 dance moves to go with it, and it blew up on TikTok. John Oliver praised the PSA on his talk show, exclaiming (@ 06:20) that the song “absolutely slaps” and is “a genuine club banger.”
George Weah, former football (soccer) player and president of Liberia, has released his own music video coronavirus PSA, which is slightly less 🔥.
During a press conference on May 4th, Jim Justice, the governor of West Virginia, asked businesses to reopen, but “only if they fuckin’ follow the guidelines to keep West Virginia safe.” His ASL interpreter appeared unfazed. The governor later attributed his colorful language to an “audio glitch” and climbed farther out on a limb by assuring the public that, in fact, he had never, ever uttered the f-word in his life.
A dude who builds models for the NHL was presumably looking for something to do during the suspended hockey season, and decided to create a tool to grade coronavirus epidemiology projections after the fact against actual data. It identified flaws in some of the major models.
Stay safe and healthy everyone.
