This marks the second week the Knox County Health Department has held press conferences on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There is no press conference on Tuesday and Thursday. According to Dr. Buchanan, the move was made to allow staff to devote more time to other pressing matters.
International News:
There are currently 7,235,413 confirmed and acknowledged cases of COVID-19 worldwide. 409,508 people have died. There is a lot of conversation about how deadly the virus truly is. The best information we have at this time is that 3,564,103 (90%) people have recovered and 409,508 (10%) people have died. It is irrelevant to compare deaths to the total who have gotten the illness, as there are currently 3,261,802 active case for which we do not have an outcome. Are some of these figures wrong? Yes. All of them. But they are the best we have.
Yesterday, there were 107,712 new cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide. This marks the thirteenth consecutive day of more than 100,000 new cases. Prior to these thirteen days, the total had been above 100,000 only three times total. Clearly, more cases of the virus are being reported everyday. Given the relative decline in deaths worldwide, the assumption must be that we are find mild cases now that we missed early.
The number of reported daily deaths, while leveled out for the last seven days, continues to reflect a more encouraging trend than cases. Yesterday’s death total from the illness was 3,157. Only three days have been lower since late March. Just three countries reporting the highest deaths yesterday made up over half the total number: Brazil (813), the United States (586) and India (266). If the numbers from around the world are to be believed, deaths are declining and are currently concentrated.
New cases are, of course, a different matter. Seventeen countries reported 1,000 or more new cases. The U.S. led the way with 19,044 new cases, followed closely by Brazil at 18,925. Russia and India were clustered at just less than half those numbers, with Pakistan and Chile coming in about half those of Russia and India, in the 4,000s. Countries with some of the highest rates of increase include India, Pakistan, Chile, Bangladesh and South Africa.
The biggest coronavirus news was made yesterday when an official of the WHO made a statement that asymptomatic spread appears to be rare. That comment was walked back today as a misunderstanding after heavy criticism from scientists across the globe. Concern is growing for spikes that are increasingly occurring in developing countries, with the WHO saying we have not reached the peak. At the same time, some countries, including Russia are ending lock down orders even as their cases continue to grow rapidly.
National News:
Yesterday, the United States reported 19,044 new cases of COVID-19 and 586 deaths. Totals as of mid-day for the U.S. include 2,029,633 cases and 113,225 deaths. Both numbers of new cases hold some encouragement.
It marks the second consecutive day under fewer than 20,000 cases. Previously there have only been four such days since March. That said, the seven-day average of new daily cases has stubbornly remained entrenched in the low 20,000 range. Deaths, however, continue to decline more clearly. Sunday’s number of deaths was the lowest reported in the U.S. since March and yesterday’s was the third lowest.
In national news, reports indicate over half the states are not tracking probable cases, which could lead to under-counting of actual cases. Meanwhile, case numbers are increasing in many states (21, according to this) and new concerns are being expressed about southwestern states. Utah, Arizona and New Mexico have each reported increases of 40% in the last week over the week before. At the same time, other parts of the country have only been lightly hit by the virus, but have been devastated economically by the restrictions put in place to combat it.
Yesterday’s numbers of new cases reveal three states reporting over 1,000 cases: California (2,279), Texas (1,486) and New York (1,064). In addition to Texas, many southern states including our own were in yesterday’s top twenty states with the highest number of new infections: Florida (#4), North Carolina (#6), Georgia (#9), Virginia (#10), Tennessee (#11), South Carolina (#12), Mississippi (#13), Alabama (#16) and Arkansas (#20). That makes 8 of the 13 worst hit yesterday and half of the top twenty.
State and Local News:
After a relatively low count of new cases (still higher than the average from April) on Sunday, Tennessee’s new cases jumped more than 250 cases from that number yesterday to hit 563. It was the eleventh worst total reported among all the states, yesterday, and puts Tennessee just off its record pace from the previous week. The seven-day moving average is about 80% higher than it was in April.
For the day, yesterday, Tennessee’s 563 cases brought its total number of cases to 26,944. 341 people were reported as recovered, meaning a net gain of a bit over 200 active cases yesterday, bringing the total of active cases in Tennessee to roughly 9,400. Three people died yesterday, of the disease, and 16 more were hospitalized.
13,995 were tested, bringing the total to 512,763 tests administered since the beginning of the pandemic. The best news there may be that the rate of positive tests has declined slightly to 5.4%. The CDC and others feel a positive test rate below 5% is the goal for an effective testing program.
On social media I’ve found that one of the reasons (there are many) that people dismiss the current data, in particular the increase in cases in Tennessee, is their belief that testing has increased in the state and that explains the increases in cases. This isn’t true. The best source I’ve found for daily testing numbers comes from Johns Hopkins University. It is the source of the graph above.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer a moving average option, so all one can do to see trends in testing is to eyeball the graph, which is difficult because the spikes and dips are so extreme. To see if my perception of testing being fairly level in recent weeks was true, I added up the daily totals for each of the six most recent weeks in order to compare them. For the day where there appear to be positive tests, but no totals, I was able to determine the number of tests given because the percentage of positive tests was included.
The result is to largely confirm what I thought I was seeing. The week of April-into-May, the state gave 54,870 tests. This increased each of the next two weeks to 56,472 and 67,453. The second half of May, the weekly numbers dropped to 63,429 and and 53,288, ending the month lower than it started. Last week, the first week in June, Tennessee administered 64,375 tests, which is about on par with the third week in May and less than the second week in May. The record-setting week in cases last week cannot be attributed to increased testing.
In Knox County, the last week for which testing numbers are reported is the week of May 24 – 30. 2,426 tests were given that week, which was lower than the number given each of the previous weeks in the county.
Locally, the Knox County Health Department is reporting nine new cases since yesterday, a lower number than many we’ve experienced recently, and less than half that of yesterday. There are 98 active cases and two Knox County residents are hospitalized. There are no new deaths to report and the agency is reporting 10 probable cases.