Coronavirus update – April 23rd
Bottom Line: This daily update is designed to put everything in perspective with straight-forward facts. No hyperbole, no misinformation, no nonsense. The day after CDC Director Robert Redfield was cited by the Washington Post as saying a second round of COVID-19 could return this fall and be worse than what we’ve been experiencing – he took the opportunity at the daily Task Force briefing to clarify his comments. He said he didn’t mean to imply that the virus would be worse but rather the situation more difficult as the healthcare system would be battling two virus (the traditional flu and COVID-19) at the same time. He reiterated the importance of obtaining a flu shot as early as it’s available for the next flu season to attempt to minimize the impact of the traditional flu. Meanwhile, at the same briefing, President Trump stated he doesn’t support Georgia’s plan for reopening the state which begins tomorrow. He stated he’s talked to the governor and thinks it’s too early to open many of the businesses being green-lighted in the state. Also, a new study of 5,700 New York coronavirus hospitalizations revealed the average age of those hospitalized was 63 and 94% of the patients had preexisting conditions - most commonly hypertension.
Here’s where we stand as of now...
Worldwide:
- 2,645,784 – 184,326 deaths – 723,196 recovered
Nationally:
- 849,092 cases – 47,681 deaths – 84,050 recovered
Florida:
- 28,576 cases – 927 deaths (specific Florida recoveries aren’t disclosed)
We’ve experienced over 80,000 additional diagnosed cases and over 6,500 deaths worldwide on Wednesday. Those figures were both a bit lower than the previous day’s totals. In the United States, we had nearly 30,000 new cases and more than 2,300 deaths. The new diagnosed case count was higher, while the death toll was lower than on Tuesday. For the month of April, COVID-19 remains the top estimated cause of death in the United States.
The most disconcerting aspect of the virus remains the death/recovery rate based on closed cases - though we did have a second consecutive day of improvement. With over 900,000 closed cases, the death rate remained at 20%for a second consecutive day - remaining below the peak of 21% - hopefully the start of a trend towards the anticipated much lower rate. We reached a low of 6%in early March. The common pattern with the virus spreading has been an increase in death rates with vulnerable early on, followed by improving rates overtime as people begin to recover which has often taken weeks.