Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2020 Breaking News

[Bootb]

@ThelmaLou

One hospital in TWELVE THOUSAND SQUARE MILES?? That give new meaning to the term “rural.”

Going off the top of my head, I think that that’s one of the most sparsely populated areas in the Lower 48.

[JaneDoe42]

Things aren’t looking too great here in AZ.

Deaths due to COVID-19 in Arizona surpassed 7,000 as the state reported more than 4,400 new COVID-19 cases and 108 new known deaths on Wednesday, with hospitalizations for the disease still on the rise.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

69,239,671 total cases
1,575,810 dead
47,994,611 recovered

In the US:

15,820,042 total cases
296,698 dead
9,226,411 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

@Snowboarder_Bo

68,567,527 total cases
1,563,130 dead
47,462,104 recovered

In the US:

15,591,709 total cases
293,398 dead
9,087,069 recovered

The US saw a new record with over 3200 covid-19 deaths today.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@Dr.Drake

I keep seeing sporadic snapshot articles, but is there any good overview of the situation with US hospitals as a whole right now?

reposted from post #5985 in this thread

Business Advancement Center for Health Covid Tracking

In other news, the FDA has approved a home test kit for the coronavirus that doesn’t require a prescription. It does need to be sent to a lab for testing, but people have said it takes about 48 hours for results.

There’s also a home test kit for covid-19 that gives results at home quickly, but that one requires a prescription.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/health/fda-over-counter-covid-test/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_content=2020-12-10T01%3A46%3A05&utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=link

Also, the restaurant industry is struggling with 10K more restaurants expected to close in the next 3 weeks. For many of these restaurants (48% of those surveyed), they don’t plan to return once the pandemic is over.

10,000 American Restaurants Could Close in the Next 3 Weeks, a New Study Says

According to research conducted by the National Restaurant Association, a whopping 17 percent of American restaurants have shuttered permanently or long-term since the pandemic began. That figure equals 110,000 establishments across the nation, and includes everything from diners to high-profile fine dining spots like Gotham Bar & Grill and TAK Room in New York, Chicago’s Blackbird and the two-Michelin star Somni in Los Angeles. What’s worse is that the group estimates an additional 10,000 restaurants will join those ill-fated ranks in the next three weeks if immediate action isn’t taken.

“In short, the restaurant industry simply cannot wait for relief any longer,” wrote Sean Kennedy, executive vice president for Public Affairs, in a letter to congress.
. . .
With no certainty of government support, the far future appears just as precarious as the current climate. Only 48 percent of the former restaurant owners surveyed said they will remain in the field in the coming months or years at all. This figure could suggest a significant loss of talent and skilled labor that won’t be easy to recover once the pandemic has run its course.

[Ann_Hedonia]

When I heard predictions last week of reaching 300,000 deaths by Christmas, I thought it was way too conservative and I thought we’d reach 300,000 by this weekend. Unfortunately, it looks like I might be right.

[CalMeacham]

States reporting new daily highs (seven day average) on December 8 and 9 2020

Maine
New Hampshire
Washington
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Ohio
California
West Virginia
Virginia
Delaware
North Carolina
Tennessee
Arizona
Louisiana
(Puerto Rico)

Fourteen States and Puerto Rico. I would have a considerably longer list if I let the time period extend back to the weekend, or even just to Monday, Dec 7, but it’s daunting enough over just the two-day period.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

US experts convene to decide whether to OK Pfizer vaccine

US panel endorses widespread use of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

[eschrodinger]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but, does anyone know why Oklahoma’s numbers are messed up on the CDC Data Tracker page? Are they not reporting numbers in a way that 7 day rates can be determined? The 7 day numbers say N/A, and (misleadingly, I think) the color coding seems to default to the lowest/lightest.

[squeegee]

@Ann_Hedonia

When I heard predictions last week of reaching 300,000 deaths by Christmas, I thought it was way too conservative and I thought we’d reach 300,000 by this weekend. Unfortunately, it looks like I might be right.

Could be today, 669 to go.

[asahi]

@aurora_maire

The problem is finding people to staff it.

Indeed, that is a growing problem, especially when the people who take care of the patients become the patients themselves.

“Well just divert them.” Sure, you can make all the beds you want, but you need doctors and nurses to care for them. When people refer to the healthcare system being overwhelmed and possibly collapsing, it’s the lack of medical practitioners, not the lack of beds are ventilators, that people are referring to.

[Max_S]

The OK was given.

~Max

[Leaper]

So it’s been two weeks since Thanksgiving. How have increases since compared to other recent times? Were predictions correct or off?

[Colibri]

Panama hit a new record of 2,447 new cases today. This represents a four-fold increase since early November, when we were averaging 600-700 a day. So far, the main response has been to move the start of the nightly curfew from 11 PM to 9 PM.

[Trom]

@Leaper

So it’s been two weeks since Thanksgiving. How have increases since compared to other recent times? Were predictions correct or off?

Graph of daily US positive test with a 7-day moving average:

Just eyeballing it… looks to have continued at approximately the same upward trajectory as the weeks prior. The weird drop in positive tests on the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend was expected and is similar to what happened on July 4th and Labor Day. Those tests were likely just delayed and showed up in the following week.

[FigNorton]

Sometimes “it can’t get any worse” is true, not just a set up in a movie.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Okay; I dunno what the hell happened.* My best guess is that the other night when I, uh, fell asleep without posting I somehow folded space/time in just such a potrzebie way that the Cowznofski Effect is that my numbers here have gotten completely off. The upshot is that today there’ll be no recap of yesterday because I no longer have any idea what yesterday’s numbers were, should have been or might be. So I’m just gonna skip that part of things today and tomorrow I’ll resume with recaps.

70,720,814 total cases
1,588,444 dead
49,148,966 recovered

In the US:

16,039,393 total cases
299,692 dead
9,330,865 recovered

*ETA: The US numbers for today seem to line up fine with yesterday but the world numbers… the world did not add 1,500,000+ cases in one day. I dunno what happened with their totals; I look a bit but didn’t see a note about a big data dump or anything. [/shrug]

[BippityBoppityBoo]

You are still my ‘Hero of the Year’!

Meaning Bo-I could not get my quoting right, despite several tries. Really wanted to import that great Time magazine cover of Snowboarder Bo. It is worth a reprise😎

[Eric_C]

Snowboarder- there was a dramatic revision upward of Turkey’s total COVID-19 cases yesterday.

[kayaker]

@asahi

Sure, you can make all the beds you want, but you need doctors and nurses to care for them.

My daughter is a nurse. She tells me her coworkers are getting run ragged. When asked to delay scheduled vacation time, they’re laughing and taking their vacations. What’re they going to do, fire them?

[CalMeacham]

as of yesterday, 158 communities in Massachusetts – more than half of the communities in the state – are listed in the “red zone” as being dangerous cases of coronavirus

To qualify for the red, high-risk category under the new metrics, communities with populations under 10,000 must have more than 25 cases. For mid-size communities of between 10,000 and 50,000 people, they must have an average of more than 10 cases per 100,000 people and a positive test rate of more than 5%. And for larger communities of greater than 50,000 people, they must have more than 10 cases per 100,000 people and a positive test rate of more than 4%.

…

The Department of Public Health is no longer including a map of the community-level risk in the weekly report. An official told NBC10 Boston that the map is no longer seen as being as helpful as it once was, now that coronavirus cases are being reported in most communities.

Mass. COVID Hot Spots: Record Number of Towns, Cities in High-Risk Red Zone