March 8, US and Western Hemisphere Coronavirus Cases
The US has 554 cases with 21 deaths. Subtracting the 45 and 21 cruise ship confined cases, gives 488 land cases. This is up 121 from 367 land cases yesterday. The case increase ratio is 121/367 = 33%. It was 35% yesterday. The 33% ratio is the lowest of the last few days. If you have 33% growth for a week, or 1.33^7 = 7.36. A factor of 7 growth in a week.
Since the US still seems short of tests, changes conditions for tests, and can take 5 days to get CDC tests back, one cannot plot a real growth for community transmissions.
In all countries with rapid growth, since serious cases have not run the full length of hospitalization, one cannot determine the real fatality rate. As we saw in Italy, the death rate goes up with the age of the population, and should be cited with the age class. It would also depend on whether the health care system gets overloaded locally, statewide, or nationally.
Update March 9: A Johns Hopkins recent study, though based on 2010 data, said that there were 62,000 full featured ventilators. There were an additional 98,000 ventilators, but they were not full featured, but could be used in an emergency. So the analysis below is still useful. These are probably the source of the recent number of 175,000 ventilators.
Poor protocols also can quarantine many first responders and health care workers. With limited resources, like ventilators, two thirds of which are in use for usual patients, the health system will get overwhelmed at some point. There are 75,000 ventilators, so at 25,000 serious cases, there will be a real problem. If 20% of cases are serious, that will not occur until the total US cases hit 125,000, which we are a long, long way from. With 500 land cases, that would take an increase of a factor of 250. If cases increase a factor of 7 a week, that would occur in less than 3 weeks, since 7^3 = 343.
17 of those deaths are from King Co., WA, and I learned today that 16 of those were from the Life Care Nursing Facility in Kirkland. King Co. now has 83 cases, up 24 cases from yesterday.
Snohomish Co., WA, has 31 cases, up 12 from yesterday, with 1 death.
An unassigned location in WA has 5 cases.
Washington Co., OR, has 8 cases.
For speed, we now drop recoveries, and set the lower limit at 5 cases, except where relevant to me.
In California, Santa Clara Co. has 38 cases, up 14 from yesterday. Los Angeles has 14 cases. Contra Costa Co. has 12 cases. San Francisco Co. has 9. Placer Co. has 5 cases and 1 death. Locally, Orange Co. has 4 cases, San Diego 3, and Riverside 1.
In Texas, Fort Bend Co. has 6, and Harris Co. has 5.
Cook County with Chicago, IL, has 7 cases.
Around D.C.: Montgomery Co. has 4; Fairfax, VA, has 2; and Washington D.C. has 2.
In Westchester Co., NY, are 83 cases, up 56 from 27 yesterday. New York Co., NY, has 12 cases, down from 16 yesterday, and Nassau Co., has 5.
In Massachusetts, Suffolk Co. has 8 cases, Middlesex Co. has 7, and Norfolk Co. has 6.
In Canada, there are 64 cases. BC has 27, Toronto has 28, Edmonton has 3, and Montreal has 4.
Mexico has 7 cases.
In South America, Brazil leads with 20 cases, Ecuador has 14, Argentina has 12 with 1 death, Chile has 8, and Peru has 6.
