Wuhan Virus Watch: Over Half of All U.S. Deaths Have Occurred in Just Five States
FDA grants emergency use authorization antibody test. Johnson & Johnson aims for 1B doses of vaccine by next year. Sioux won’t close coronavirus checkpoints. Elon Musk says ‘arrest ME’ after he defies coronavirus lockdown restrictions and reopens Tesla plant.
Today’s update will start with a review of where the Wuhan Coronavirus deaths have occurred in this country.
Over half of all documented coronavirus deaths have occurred in just five states, following the trend seen in other nations that show heavily concentrated and very localize outbreaks.
Of the nearly 80,000 deaths from the virus in this country as of Saturday afternoon, nearly 48,700, or about 60 percent, had occurred in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
New York remains the hardest-hit state of any in the country by far, having logged nearly 27,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next-hardest-hit state, New Jersey, had recorded over 9,100.
Those numbers reflect a startling regionalism to the disease, which has brought much of the economic and social life of the United States to a grinding halt. New York and New Jersey also top the country’s list for number of deaths adjusted for population, while Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania also fall in the top ten.
Those concentrated numbers are reflective of a virus that seems to strike noticeably heavier in some locations than others, a pattern that has borne out in numerous countries around the world.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared a map of the total number of cases, which also reflects the same pattern.
It is quite clear that a one-size-fits-all pandemic approach was doomed to failures, and a smart governor will choose the response model that fits the nature of the disease outbreak in his or her state. On the other hand, unwise governors will make decisions based on the needs of party politics and the desire for future election glory on a national scale.
FDA grants emergency use authorization to Abbott Labs’ new coronavirus antibody test.
Antibody testing will be critical in firming the actual infection fatality rate and assessing how the coronavirus is spread.
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Abbott Laboratories’ new coronavirus test that detects Covid-19 antibodies, the company announced Monday.
Abbott said it plans to ship nearly 30 million tests this month and will have the capacity to ship 60 million tests in June.
The tests can indicate whether a person has had Covid-19 and was either asymptomatic or recovered.
“Having more options of highly reliable tests across our platforms will help healthcare workers and health officials as they conduct broad scale testing for Covid-19,” Abbott CEO Robert Ford said in a statement.
Johnson & Johnson aims to produce 1B doses of COVID-19 vaccine by next year.
The speed of vaccine development and production for the coronavirus is astounding.
Johnson & Johnson executives said the company is aiming to deliver a billion coronavirus vaccines by next year. Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels said the company is speeding up manufacturing and preparing clinical trials for a potential vaccine in September.
Dr. Stoffels noted that he doesn’t think COVID-19 will go away on its own and is spreading throughout the U.S. so quickly that drugs are urgently needed to control it. The chief scientific officer is not ruling out the possibility of distributing a vaccine before it advances out of clinical trials.
“Well clinical trials will need to be done to show that it is effective and that will take some time,” he explained. “We will have some vaccine available this year, but it all depends on….it will depend on the authorities, the FDA and others to decide whether it can be used earlier before clear efficacy data are available.”
South Dakota Sioux tribe refuses to take down coronavirus checkpoints despite the governor’s ultimatum.
Despite Gov. Kristi Noem’s demands for it to open highways running through the reservation, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota has refused to remove coronavirus checkpoints.
Noem, a Republican, sent letters to the tribe’s chairman, Harold Frazier, and to the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Julian Bear Runner, giving them 48 hours to take down what she called illegal checkpoints before she’d take “necessary legal action” in federal court.
Chairman Frazier said Sunday that the checkpoints set up by the tribe in April are meant to monitor and track the potential spread of COVID-19 onto tribal lands.
“We want to ensure that people coming from ‘hot spots’ or highly infected areas, we ask them to go around our land,” Frazier told CNN.
“With the lack of resources we have medically, this is our best tool we have right now” against the spread of the coronavirus, he said, adding that “the nearest health care, critical care is three hours away from where we live.”
Some 12,000 people live on the Cheyenne River Reservation covering about 4,267 square miles in Dewey and Ziebach counties. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe runs an eight-bed medical facility – with no intensive care unit – to serve their population.
U.S. Highway 212 and S.D. Highways 65, 63, and 20 pass through the reservation. South Dakota, along with only a handful of states, never issued a stay-at-home order. Though, both tribes have issued stay-at-home orders for their residents.
Elon Musk says ‘arrest ME’ after he defies coronavirus lockdown restrictions and reopens Tesla plant.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed his company has resumed operations at its main California plant in defiance of the state’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions and dared state authorities to arrest him for the violation.
The plant in Fremont, south of San Francisco, had been closed since March 23 in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
But early Monday evening Musk confirmed in a tweet that Tesla is restarting production at the facility ‘against Alameda County rules.’
‘I will be on the line with everyone else,’ he continued. ‘If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.’
The controversial move comes as the latest salvo in an ongoing war between Musk and Alameda County, after Tesla filed a lawsuit against local officials on Saturday for ordering the the Fremont facility to shutter until June.
Musk called the order ‘super messed up’ in a separate tweet Monday, claiming that ‘all other auto companies in US are approved to resume. Only Tesla has been singled out.’
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
In 2019, 8,025 died each day (average) with no-COVID-19
Is there a point to your seemingly irrelevant, out of context comment? Or, are you just incapable of understanding one iota of scientific knowledge?
I think a lot of Elon Musk is pure hype & bull3hit
but in this case – He is correct
When NASA astronauts finally get to Mars in another half century, they’ll be greeted by SpaceX employee astronauts who have been there for decades.
Which group do you intend to be in? Why?
It’s too early to compare cases reported state-by-state since some states, like CA, are aggressively performing tests for everyone for free while others are slower. Distorts the death rate too. CA actually looks pretty good.
CA looks good because the virus was circulating late last year on the west coast and deaths were lost in the noise of a “bad flu season” which was noted back in December. Now evidence is emerging that it was in Ohio in early January – which bolsters my thinking that 3 in my family, including me, had it already.
Here in Ohio as well; we’re certain my wife had it in Feb. I had a slight cold while she was in bad shape for a week. Shouldn’t rule out the fact that my family has already had it.
This is not true. CA has been hoarding tests in San Diego County, which does have community spread, I know, because I have been watching the numbers, and also the news stories about spread in the US navy, and its families.
That said, new cases peaked last month, as shown by the rolling average of positive test results.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/tracking-coronavirus-cases-san-diego-county
The remaining problem is denial of effective treatment for people with “minor” symptoms through denial of testing and denial of treatment outside the hospital. This disease is nasty, but very treatable, if the patient is not yet at death’s door.
We may be talking about two different things. The number of “new” infections is skyrocketing in CA because testing is now going full blast. I don’t know what “hoarding tests”. I agree that there is a lot of manipulation of how results are reported but CA is certainly in quick decline. But the more testing they do, the more infections they will find. In LA at least, they are testing everyone now, not just those with symptoms. They are very interested in getting a handle on how many people have had it and are now immune so I wonder if they are adding those who test positive for having been infected but recovered long ago.
Some wise guys always have to bring rational, well-reasoned facts into these discussions.
Especially compared to those two nitwit MDs in SoCal who called a panicky press conference to tell the world about their faulty statistical analysis and epidemiological conclusions that were probably induced by their heavy investment in crude oil futures that cratered at or below zero.
Quick check of worldometer indicates that 60 of 80000 deaths are along i95 corridor from Boston to NOVA and in Chi Detroit and NOLA.
In the “early days” of the virus spread, the counties along the I35, I40, I44 routes in OK were first to get cases/deaths and continue to be the most impacted counties.
Deaths continue to be white(76%),over the age of 65(79%) or over age 50 (96%). It’s about even on sex (52M 48F). LTC deaths are about 44% of the cases.
And of the states that have the highest death toll, we know for sure that the state governments in New York and Michigan both forced nursing homes and other senior living facilities to re-admit residents, and to admit new one, who were known to be infected with the Wuhan virus, with predictable and tragic consequences. In both cases, there were nearly empty facilities available to house these patients outside of the hospitals (USNS Mercy ship, Javits Center, and the TCF Center).
This is just another example of how big government/socialism kills its own citizens.
It’s a much better example of refusal by the autocratic Grifter In Chief to act on his morning intelligence reports beginning in December 2019 about something seriously bad going on in central Red China that was a looming threat to Americans and an obdurate refusal to accept epidemiologists’ science-based advice all along that could have saved thousands of lives. Heil Drumpf!
Can’t wait to see the Tidal wave of law suits against the nursing homes that listed Covid for every death. The 20% Medicaid bonus won’t look so good.
My long time neighbor died in a nursing home last month after suffering from stage 4 colon cancer. According to a nurse I talked to, the Nursing home listed his death as Covid.
The nurse said we will never know his exact cause of death. Release the Lawyers!
Wow. Bum magnet states. Who could have seen this happening?
Here in North Carolina – 97% of deaths were people over 50.
62% of deaths were in Congregate living areas which are locked down by definition.
Anybody under 50 without a compromised immune system should be unlocked IMMEDIATELY! They are under virtually no risk of death.
Anecdotal reports like this one, that utterly fail to address all investigatory paths, such as failure to test (and lack of tests to discover who had COVID-19 thanks to Trump’s narcissism, stupidity, ignoring reports in his morning intelligence briefings for two months, and magical, anti-science thinking), initial lack of scientific knowledge about asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 simply don’t provide support for your leaps of imagination.
I’d rather see a map showing death rates per 100,000 of population, and then maps of the same rates for different age cohorts.
Correlation between COVID-19 deaths per million and % Hillary vote in 2016: 0.46. And this w California having only 70 COVID-19 deaths per million compared to US 247.
I agree with the poster who speculated that California got it early, in the fall, as an explanation of why California’s death rate is so low.
One set of facts that justifies further scientific investigation of actual facts while trying to reduce rates of infection and fighting its effects. As opposed to the Olympic competition by anti-Americans with a cancerous selfish sense of personal entitlement, who’re all vying for the Gold Medal in the magical thinking long logical jump to a conclusion.
A few observations.
1. MR Musk isn’t John Galt. I am glad he is utilizing his prominent media platform to push for reopening his facility but his company’s viability seems tied to government subsidies.
2. The cute CDC map is totally misleading in that it is showing the number of cases without context; per million of population.
Total US deaths per million 251
Texas 40
California 70
N.Y. 1388
Florida 83
All numbers from the Real Clear politics tracker.
These are our most populous states. Obviously they differ in geographic size and terrain. Florida doesn’t have any mountains or hill country while the others do. California has a public transit system but no where close to the utilization that N.Y. does.
On the other side of the ledger is access to medical facilities where N.Y. would lead based on geographic proximity.
The point here is that every County much less state is different. The county level is where our public officials should be taking the lead on plans to reopen. If they are using statewide or national numbers as a guide or demanding a proven vaccine they are wasting everyone’s time.
I haven’t been able to find a database which shows every states deaths broken down by median age, comorbid medical factors or nursing homes. That would be much more instructive data.
Very true about the makeup of states being important in reopening. There’s a heckuva lot of open space out there.
Even in states like Virginia and Maryland the clusters of activity are in the major metro areas, DC and its surrounding suburbs in particular. There are large swaths of both states, especially Virginia, where the activity is minimal. As others have said, if they really want to keep restrictions in place in the northeast and mid-Atlantic focus it on the I-95 corridor.
And look at Kristi Noem: She took heat because she didn’t shut down all of South Dakota because of the Smithfield plant. It was obvious most of that criticism was coming from people who have never set foot anywhere in South Dakota.
Senator Barrasso pointed out a few weeks ago during a TV interview that Wyoming has been socially distancing since it joined the Union.
Of course it’s absolutely no indication of conditions in other states, but in Alabama the Wuhan virus death toll is overwhelmingly among those with serious underlying health conditions. The article contains more details but the headline catches the eye.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/05/95-of-alabama-coronavirus-deaths-among-people-with-underlying-conditions.html
My brother-in-law just turned 80 and he has COPD, renal failure, hypertension, and Alzheimers. His son has the house locked down.
.
EDIT:
That “95” isn’t number of cases; it’s percent. Read it “95% of Alabama Coronavirus Cases Among People With Underlying Conditions”.
.
60% of deaths are in just 5 states but that is only part of the story. In Michigan 85% of the deaths (75% of the cases) have been in Detroit and close-in surrounding areas, Saginaw, Flint and part of Kent County. Geographically about 2% of Michigan and population-wise maybe 25%.
.
Here in Washtenaw County 35 miles from downtown Detroit, there hasn’t been a death in 4 days and he University of Michigan Hospital has tested over 1,800 people in the last week and only 39 positive results. About half were admitted for treatment.
.
I’m sure this sampling plays out in the other 4 states and all across America. The 98% are being punished for the ills of the 2%. If we just concentrate on those pockets, the virus will fizzle out much as it has in Ann Arbor.
I forgot to mention. All those hard hit areas have something else in common besides being virus hotbeds. They all combined to elect Democratic governor Comrade Whitmer.
Is Telsa unionized?
Made in the USA.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lg4gGk53iY
“Dr. Stoffels noted that he doesn’t think COVID-19 will go away on its own and is spreading throughout the U.S. so quickly that drugs are urgently needed to control it.”
If the Wuhan Flu is spreading so quickly (and I believe that it is and I believe that testing will show this to be true), by the time a vaccine is released we will have herd immunity.
Can somebody explain why people are making maps showing “cases”? “Cases” are completely irrelevant since they are total dependent on how many tests have been done.
The maps should show “deaths per million population”.
Somewhat rural Cass County in IN exploded in the number of cases 2 weeks ago due to a packing plant finding several hundred infections
After 2 weeks, the confirmed cases is over 1500, yet the death ticker hasn’t moved off of 4
My small VERY rural county has inched up to 21 cases, but the only death happened 6 weeks ago
“Emergency Use Authorizations” for antibody tests are almost worse than useless.
As far as I can tell, we have no information as to how accurate the these tests are. Could the FDA perhaps deign to tell us what their criteria for EUA are?
A false positive on an antibody test is potentially disastrous. My physician will not order an antibody test for any of his patients, including himself and his wife. I think he is correct.
Has anyone here been tested?
If you test positive what do they do to you?
Send you to a New York Nursing Home?
I’m probably going for a test tomorrow. I’ve been tentatively offered a job, and the employer wants me to get tested.
And the nursing homes are no longer being compelled to accept positive patients. Even stupid has a limit.
That limit at the White House can’t be seen through the Hubble Telescope.
I “almost” think you and your non-epidemiologist doc are “almost” correct.
This is ridiculous.
“Those numbers reflect a startling regionalism to the disease…”
No. Come on.
What it reflects is where the major megapolitan rat warrens are located.
This suggests that the proper strategy is not for the “a smart governor [to] choose the [proper] response model,” but the smart mayor.
Of course, many of those states are blessed with neither.
The five states are America’s biggest shit holes–one might cynicaly say what was involved was a bit of trash removal.