Friday's post included a set of numbers, organized by SIGNIFICANT DATE, for Worldwide, USA, California, and the four adjacent Agricultural counties where we have been living. Herein, I will also refer to the numbers for Tulare County itself.
The dates I chose:
A. January 22, 2020, the date of the first Confirmed Case in the USA
B. February 6, 2020, the date of the first Confirmed Death in the USA. Trump two days later says "the flu kills 25-60K per year., dwarfs our 15 or so cases"
C. March 6, 2020, the date President Trump said "we've got a million test kits ready to go", AND the date I first went to the Emergency Room in Visalia, CA for 'shortness of breath'
D. April 3, 2020, the date of my last (5th) ER visit; ten days after Trump says "Safe to re-open by Easter"
E. April 30, 2020, the date of my first published COVID-19 Dashboard, and the date that Trump tweets to "protest masks in Michigan"
F. May 7, 2020, the date I released a public version of the DASHBOARD
G. April 30, 2021 (updated numbers from last night's post)
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There are several stunning things to note in these early statistics
1. In the first two months worldwide, 100,000+ cases and 3,000+ deaths, but the US was 0.2% of this.
2. In the nest two months (March/April), the US cases were an astonishing 58% of all those in the rest of the world, and US deaths were 46% of the rest of the world. This is the period during which President Trump was pronouncing it a minor problem, supporting and urging protests against Democratic governors who were desperately trying to urge masks to stem the tide.
3. During this period (March/April), it wasn't clear just how deadly COVID-19 was, but the figures show that 6% of confirmed cases in the US and 7% in the rest of the world died in this same period. Given what we later learned, that the disease typically did not kill right away, but instead had a 3 to 4 week latency, the numbers were even more appalling. 10.2% for WW, 8.2% for the USA.
4. Elders were most susceptible, with nursing homes the worst target. Nearly 25% of those infected over age 75 died during this period, both worldwide and in the USA. Small wonder that people were scared; it was trying to abate this fear that Trump allegedly kept trying to downplay the threat.
5. Treatment, and spread of infection to younger groups (notably in meat packing houses and prisons), lowered the death rate per confirmed case, but in truth the pandemic would rage for more than a year.
