Covid-19 Update | March 28 at 8:55 PM

Tonight’s Corona Virus Update is brought to you by the great folks at C&G Sporting goods, which can provide you with all your apocalyptic home defense and hunting needs! New since my last serious post (sorry I had to take a break), we have a statewide ban on short term rentals, mandatory quarantine for travelers from hot spots of New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana, and iPhone alerts reminding everyone over 65 to stay home. Interesting news flowing in like not taking Ibuprofen as it can harm outcomes for people who get CoVID-19. So, if you have a fever or ache, take Tylenol instead! All the governors who outlawed hydroxychloroquine when Trump said it might be promising have now reversed their decision to forbid its use. The governor of Michigan definitely looked the fool today. Apparently, the city of Detroit is becoming a hot spot as Michigan has zoomed past Florida in cases and deaths. Bay County has 4 (or 5) cases and has had 84 negative tests. With 24 cases per million, we are still among the lowest in the state and still lower than the average rate of cases of any state in the nation. Before anyone tells me, we have 5 cases and not 4, I am going on the data from Florida DOH that updates at 12 and 7pm. I’m sure we do have a 5th case, but I’m comparing us to other counties and want to use the same source. As far as the state as a whole, Miami is a hot spot and the Palm Beach to Miami I-95 corridor has 55% of all the cases in the state, but only 23% of the population. Gainesville seems to have cooled off a bit. Getting the students out of town was probably a good thing there. Moving to the national picture, I saw a chart showing that hospitalizations in New York actually decreased today as did the number of new cases. I saw a news report showing a hospital in Queens that seemed pretty packed out, but then shared a video earlier today showing a hospital in Brooklyn that seemed to have little activity. Perhaps our health care system is going to be able to handle what is going down. Overall, US deaths from corona virus are low per capita. At 7 deaths per million we are in the range of Germany and Austria and way better than France and the UK. Really interesting data when it comes to deaths is that certain states have really low numbers of deaths per case. Nationwide, the case fatality rate (CFR) is 1.8%, but many states have CFRs less than 1%. Westchester County, NY, has 7187 residents testing positive for CoVID-19, has 91 hospitalizations, and 10 deaths. Early reports from China indicated up to 20% of those infected would need hospitalization and 2-3% died. In Westchester Co, NY, the hospitalization rate is 1.3% and the CFR is 0.1%. Westchester is an affluent suburb of NYC. Compare Westchester to the state of Louisiana with most cases in New Orleans. Per capita New Orleans leads the nation in cases. They have 3315 residents testing positive, 927 hospitalized, and 137 deaths. A hospitalization rate of 27% and a CFR of 4.1%. Louisiana was rated the least healthy state in the nation and has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the nation as well. I think the incredible difference in the outcomes can be summed up as follows: low socioeconomic status, dense population, older age, poor eating habits, obesity, and less education seem to be significantly associated with a poor outcome from infection. So, eat healthy, exercise, and read a lot and you too can beat corona virus.