Coronavirus

COVID-19 cases that began to surge in the USA in June, peaked in July, and have continued to ease leading to lower hospitalizations and deaths (see figure below).  While infections continue to erupt in certain parts of the USA, the largest outbreaks in California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona have all topped out leading to improving trends for the USA as a whole.  The 7-day rolling average of daily cases has fallen from a high near 70,000 in early August to near 40,000 recently.  The US can continue on this virtuous path if the President stops waffling about masks and tests.  It is far too early to declare victory because part of the decline in newly confirmed cases is due to a significant reduction in testing (see figure below).   The 7-day rolling average of daily tests peaked 4 weeks ago near 810,000 and has since declined 16% to near 680,000.   It is unclear whether this is being driven by a President that continues to be ambivalent about doin...

The Village s is comprised of 17 special purpose Community Development Districts (CDD) for mostly retirees located in Sumter County, 45 miles northwest of Orlando, Florida.   It has consistently ranked as one of the fastest-growing areas in the USA with a current population estimated at 132,420.   The Villages dominate Sumter County which is considered part of The Villages Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).   It was largely spared the full force of the pandemic earlier this year, suffering only 363 cases and 17 deaths to July 1 st .   Since then the number of cases has quadrupled to 1475 and the number of deaths has increased to 44.    These growth rates are consistent with the state of Florida (FL) as a whole and slightly better per capita-wise than FL averages.   For example 2.69% of Floridians have contracted the virus while only 1.16% of Sumter County residents have.   Death count per million is 440 for FL and 330 for Sumter County.   I...

How does someone who gets infected by the novel coronavirus progress to symptoms to diagnosis to hospital and then to death or recovery?   Much about how the virus attacks the human body remains a mystery but we can get some idea of how the typical case progresses by looking at the data that has been collected about the 18 million people that have been diagnosed with COVID-19 around the world. A significant portion of the world’s population, 100+ million, may have already been infected but never developed symptoms strong enough to warrant a diagnosis or treatment.   In the USA, this number may be as high as 20 million with 4.8 million diagnosed cases.   When a person is diagnosed, it may take 3-12 days before symptoms develop if they develop at all. When they do develop symptoms they may ask for a test which can take a few days to return with a result.   If positive they may be asked to quarantine in place at home for 14 days or be admitted to a hospital if the sympt...