NedNotes (not blog): weekly COVID round-up 28aug20

 ¡BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIAL!

INTRODUCTION. There is not too much to report this week. With Georgia's 7.5% growth in the death toll, the pace of the virus has definitely slowed in the many of the states in the South and Southwest (S./S.W.), specifically with the following improvements in the bellwether states of:

1. Arizona with a 26% marginal week-over-week decline in of new cases recorded during the last seven days and a 21% marginal reduction in deaths incurred;
2. California with a 20% marginal week-over-week reduction in confirmed cases during the last seven days, but a 9% marginal rise in deaths;
3. Florida with a 26% marginal week-over-week decline in confirmed cases recorded during the last seven days and a 24% marginal decline in deaths recorded;
4. Tejas with a 23% marginal week-over-week decline in reported cases during the last seven days and a 14% marginal reduction in deaths endured; as well as,
5. Oklahoma with a 5% marginal week-over-week increase in cases during the week with a marginal 1% growth in deaths recognised.

Other states quarantined two months ago by Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, principally in the Deep South and along the border with México, ran a 6.6% average growth rate in their death tolls. The mortality growth remained below the improved 8.9% increase in deaths for the bellwether states. States emerging as hot-spots also include Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Iowa. These states have a total population of 15.9 million people, less than 5% of the country's population. 

In the Eastern states, containment of the disease continued with the number of deaths growing 1.5%, or less, despite some hot-spots in specific cities in New York and Massachusetts. The national mortality run rate of 3.1% has been flat for a fortnight, while static pool rates (i.e., the death rate among resolved cases) continues to decline but not as quickly as hoped. Increasing deaths in the S./S.W. continue to off-set strong measures in the more urban Northern states for an overall 4% weekly growth in the death toll to 183,766.

Despite the improvement of the five bellwether states, the data of which follow in the table below, the nation could cross half a million deaths if the double digit historic growth rates continue in the South and Southwest (S./S.W.). Even with modest 1% weekly growth rates for all states outside the region, deaths could rise to levels approaching 500,000 by year-end. Most prognosticators believe the numbers will be lower. Yet trends may not yet be reversing quiggily enough. One basic problem is the lack of political will within the country that is exciting anti-social behaviours against wearing masks and practicing social distancing. 
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/the-path-out-united-states-coronavirus-mess-choose-to-take-it-cvd/
The Trump Admin. appears to be flummoxed and leans on actions taken toward incoming Chinese flights six months ago as its great accomplishment saving "millions of lives"; the President has also faulted various governors and state officials. Problems at these more local levels are compounded by the absence of national leadership, resourcing and planning. With the Republican National Convention of this week, the coronavirus contagion took on overtly political over-tones as indicated in the following controversies.

Plasma-spaz. The Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration had to apoplgise to the American people for over-stating the efficacy of a proposed ‘convalescent plasma therapy’ in which plasma of COVID-19 survivors, rich with anti-bodies, was placed into compatible recipients currently suffering from the disease.
https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-53911565
The Admin. sought an Emergency Use Authorisation to expedite distribution and use of this therapy pre-maturely, provoking scepticism that the rushed timing of the authorisation intended to bolster President Trump’s re-election prospects more than aid the ill reliably. The Commissioner claimed that the therapy had improved recovery rates among older people by 35%, but the sponsors of the underlying study backed no such claim.

Open sand, insert head. The Centres for Disease Control acceded to Trump Administration pressure to suspend testing for people showing no symptoms of full-blown COVID-19. The C.D.C. executed this adroit little manoeuvre while Dr Fauci was in surgery and was not around to resist the risky move. Though he works in another division, the physician running point on the U.S. government’s response took umbrage with the machination behind his back. Dr Fauci's paramount objection lies in evidence suggesting the transmissibility of the virus among asymptomatic cases.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dr-fauci-says-he-was-under-anesthesia-when-cdc-changed-covid-19-testing-guidelines
These passive carriers will no longer be tested. Dr Fauci later collected himself and lightened the tenor of his remarks. Nevertheless, the timing of the announcement and its bogus claims to being science-based is provoking widespread disbelief. Sceptics argue that the Trump team wants to suppress case numbers prior to the November election so it can claim progress in containing the epidemic.

Right-sizing right-wing vaccine expectations. Coming off the plasma-spaz and the Russian joke vaccine, Dr Fauci tempered expectations of a widely available vaccine before early-to-mid 2021 with little chance of medicines under development at Oxford University and an RNA-based rival developed by Moderna Pharmaceutical.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/fauci-warns-of-rushing-coronavirus-vaccine-onto-the-market-2020-08-25
Dr Fauci, head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is particularly concerned about the Trump Administration pressuring vaccine producers to distribute products pre-maturely under another Emergency Use Authorisation. Dr Fauci’s contention is that if an early vaccine fails due to President Trump pushing for an October surprise, the overall credibility of better made vaccines will be low. The lack of takers may then inhibit herd immunity.

The fight over data; neglect of contact tracing. Despite the cheering for all the actions taken by the Trump Administration during the Republican National Convention – at which events few people wore masks – the United States still has no plan for collecting relevant data from people tested and diagnosed let alone any type of tracing plan to build out from that data.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02478-z
With the suspension of tests of passive carriers and the slippage of data collection with the abrupt change in reporting channels and protocols, the U.S. will fall further behind South Korea, a country with one-sixth the American population but facing only one-three-thousandth the death toll from the coronavirus contagion over the past few weeks. This ‘Nature’ magazine article examines how the South Koreans kicked our ass.