Covid-19 Update | March 29 at 8:49 PM

Tonight’s corona virus update sponsored by the West Marine, where you can get all your Shell Island wet sand only accessories! So, two new reported cases in Bay County, bringing our grand total up to 6. Our cases per million are now 35 and that is still lower than the average of every state in the nation. And Panama City is still CoVID-19 free. The state data includes city of residence and 2 are from PCB, and one case each from Lynn Haven, Southport, and Youngstown. The last case is the tourist from TX who is still the only reported hospitalization. Nothing new to report at the state level. The number of new cases has increased slightly each of the last 3 days, but as a percent of total cases it is decreasing (29%, 26%, 23%) each of the last three days. The same has occurred in the nation as well. For the last 4 days there have been 18-20,000 new cases, but as a percent of total cases it has gone down 4 straight days (29%, 22%, 18%, 15%). Also, we had a decrease in the number of deaths in the nation today (255 today is the fewest since 235 on March 24th). I watched Trump’s Task Force Briefing today and he is going to extend the social distancing measures through the end of April. He and the doctors on the task force noted they foresee this peaking in two weeks so I doubt these good numbers today will hold up. It could just be its Sunday and that tends to be a day when maybe things get put off until Monday, but I didn’t see anything out of local, state, or national reporting today that was alarming. The University of Washington study estimating the number of US deaths at 81,000 was cited during the briefing. I’ve been following their model and today is the first day that US deaths are below their predicted number. The other takeaway is they mentioned metro areas several times and all of the hot spots are in densely populated areas. This is my personal opinion on the matter: I think they are hesitant to move forward with quarantines on cities because it will drive the urbanites out into the suburbs and exurbs and spread virus so rather than nationally messaging that its ok for some localities to go about your normal routine and others have to stay locked down, they decided to keep status quo because it seems to be working. So, in our area, it’s still very low risk to catch CoVID-19. People over 65 and immune compromised, stay home if you can. Practice hand hygiene and don’t touch your face. If you have a fever or cough, stay home until you get better. It’s probably fine to spend some time with small groups of people (<10) you know haven’t traveled and aren’t sick. And that’s all for tonight peeps. Let’s all have a safe, healthy, and productive week!