NedNotes (not blog): basic COVIData sweep 16oct20

B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front). Leading indicators continue to rise in the second wave but not yet rapidly enough to imply an acceleration. Case counts are rising, as community spreading extends slowly into more rural states.

ALERT #1
The Centers for Disease Control (the C.D.C.) estimate some 230,000 deaths by the week of the 2020 election and the University of Washington projects upwards of 400,000 deaths by February 2021. The base case guesstimated by me for the first year of the pandemic, ending 05mar21 (pushed back by a week to accommodate the timing of monthly cluster analyses), remains 336,000. (Please note that my predictive end product results from offsetting mis-estimates for penetration and mortality rates.)

BELLWETHER STATES
Infection growth rates remained manageable, though the rural spread accelerated confirmed cases in Tejas and Oklahoma. Deaths grew by 2.2% across the country; Oklahoma and Florida doubled that growth in fatalities with the spread into rural areas and Florida's growth rate parallelling that of hospitalizations. 

Positivity rates (i.e., percentage of tests administered returning positive results, or results confirming infections) remain largely unchanged though testing levels themselves are not satisfactory, except, importantly, for California. This lagging capacity typifies much of the country as rapid tests have yet to be rolled out en masse.

CLUSTER FLUX
Newsworthy items from across the family spectrum includes the following for the past week.

1. United States's possible mismanagement of the epidemic since the hard Spring of 2020 is becoming clearer when stacked up against the performance of other developed countries; positivity rates remain slightly above the level of 5% for two weeks prior to re-opening as recommended by the World Health Organization.
2. New York Metro is clamping down on the Big Apple under Democratic Governor Cuomo's Cluster Action Initiative since hospitalizations are rising to levels last seen in July. 
3. Pittsburgh metro is set to receive rapid test-kits to address rising infection rates and protect particularly hard hit elder care facilities; positivity rates exceed 8% across the Keystone State.
4. Detroit metro feels the effects of a second wave in full swing across Michigan, though the Great Lakes State has firmed up its supply chain and applies other lessons learned from last Spring.
5. Boston and the Cape continue to heat up, with the latter's second wave confined to Nantucket; testing indicates low positivity rates across the board and in keeping with the statewide 1.1% rate.
6. Baltimore-Annapolis join the rest of Maryland in pushing back financial hardship and pandemic fatigue in support of Republican Governor Hogan's response and policies.
7. Philly metro now confronts the cultural hardship attendant to Pennsylvania's high infection rates.
8. Colorado statewide proceeds with planning a vaccine distribution, phased toward targeted 'priority' groups, despite record infection and death rates as well as new public masking requirements.
9. Finally, Chicago struggles along with the rest of Illinois with record-setting pace in its second wave; Democratic Governor Pritzker seeks to keep a lid on positivity rates.

These trends indicate that the regional axis of the second wave has shifted from the South and Southwest to the Midwest and Northwest. The Pacific coast continues to manage down the new outbreak.

ALERT #2
Two disturbing studies, perhaps among others, circulate across news sites these days. First, Northwestern University establishes at least one longer-term effect of falling ill with the coronavirus: varying degrees of attenuated cognition. Left untreated, this condition can lead to permanent brain damage. Roughly a third of some five hundred hospitalized sufferers endure some level of brain weakening. To date, in excess of four hundred thousand COVID patients have landed in overnight medical care.

The second study, commissioned by the W.H.O., finds that remdesevir is not effective for people in the throes of COVID. The testing sample  totals 11,000 patients across thirty countries, a quarter of whom take the Gilead-sponsored medication. The study is less rigorous than its U.S. counterparts, leading academics overseeing those American studies to contest the results of the W.H.O. experiment. Bottom line? One likely does not know the ultimate course of, and exit from, the coronavirus pandemic.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT

Though still anecdotal, a recent case points toward reinfection in as little as three months after exiting a bout of the coronavirus. The second time around may well turn out to be significantly worse than the first. Tentative good news for those with 'Type-O' blood: preliminary studies indicate that those with Type-O blood tend to fare better, not only in infection, but also with hospitalization.