Coronavirus update – April 24th
Bottom Line: This daily update is designed to put everything in perspective with straight-forward facts. No hyperbole, no misinformation, no nonsense. The news just wasn’t the best on Thursday. After the recent improvement in cases and deaths we took a step back. In Florida,the United States and around the world, new diagnosed cases and deaths jumped over Wednesday’s totals and broke the positive trend. We also received word that the promising Ebola fighting drug Remdisivir failed in a Chinese trial – just a week after an exceedingly positive trial at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Gilead Pharmaceuticals disputes the Chinese study based on their claims it was cut short and lacked enough participation – maybe that’s the case. Hopefully that’s the case. Also, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn stated a vaccine is likely 12 months away based on current studies/progress monitored. And in other related news from Thursday - the CDC tripled the symptoms associated with COVID-19. The nine symptoms now are - fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, shaking, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, loss of taste/smell.
Here’s where we stand as of now...
Worldwide:
- 2,732,701 – 191,150 deaths – 750,864 recovered
Nationally:
- 886,709 cases – 50,243 deaths – 85,922 recovered
Florida:
- 29,648 cases – 987 deaths (specific Florida recoveries aren’t disclosed)
We experienced over 86,000 additional diagnosed cases and over 6,800 deaths worldwide on Thursday. Those figures were both higher than the previous day’s totals as Russia continues to have the fastest growing case count in the world. In the United States, we had over 37,000 new cases and more than 2,500 deaths – likewise totals higher than the day before. Something to be mindful of, especially in the US, is that California and Texas have been testing at rates that have been less than half of what Florida has been doing. Both states are finally ramping up testing and as they do – it's possible we’ll see an escalation in cases. Especially as California just discovered they had the US’s first two COVID-19 death’s in February. For the month of April, COVID-19 remains the top estimated cause of death in the United States.