Covid-19 Update | April 1 at 10:16 PM

Tonight’s corona virus update is brought to you by Tito’s Vodka. So, I have had a clinical suspicion about an unreported health effect of corona virus and a consumer report today gives the first proof of it. Sales of liquor are up 75%, beer is up 55%, and wine is up 62%. So, for sure corona virus is bad for American livers! It’s been a really busy day for reports on CoVID-19. We’ll start with the Governor’s “Safer-at-Home” order and at first, I was concerned it was a shelter-in-place order. But when you read the actual order, it’s pretty much keep doing what we’ve been doing. Read last night’s update and I went over the White House Task Force’s 30 days to Slow the Spread and it’s exactly the same. You can go outside to exercise, walk, get groceries, go to the gas station, go see your doctor… you can be with other people in groups of 10 or less. Older people and those with serious medical conditions should stay at home. It garnered a lot of media attention, but it doesn’t really change anything. As far as how the state as a whole is doing, we have increased new cases by 15% each day for the last 3 days. This means the curve is flattening. Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties have above the national average of cases per million (654) and over 60% of all cases in the state. Bay County now has 13 cases and 5 of them have been tagged to Panama City. Is this concerning? Yes. Bay County now has 76 cases per million, which is still among the lowest in the state and it’s still a lower rate than every state average in the country. So, we are still in a better place than almost anywhere in America. An infectious disease physician was on the national news tonight and reported some very interesting anecdotal information. He has treated 80 CoVID-19 patients in the hospital and every patient requiring ICU care was diabetic and their average BMI is over 30. So please make sure if you are staying inside all day, watch your diet and get some exercise. There is a huge correlation between obesity, diabetes, and bad outcomes. Deaths are on the rise. This is to be expected because deaths lag the numbers of cases by about a week. I would assume we will see 1-2,000 deaths in the US a day for at least the next month. We are on track for 100,000 deaths; and most of these deaths will be in the urban areas in people who are older and/or severely overweight. There has never been a better reason to eat right, stop smoking, quit drinking, and start walking 3 miles a day. Nothing else really to talk about except I am probably taking a few days off for some “me time”. If something major changes, I’ll jump on and post an update, but it may be Monday before I dig into the data again.