Portal, AZ - Rodeo, NM

             

Update 10/23/20 6AM

Data tables and graphs are updated M, W, F. Cochise and Hidalgo County section includes data on active infections as of 10/19/20 (updated twice weekly) Cochise County recorded 18 new cases on 10/22/20 with none in Portal/San Simon. Hidalgo County recorded 3 new cases last week

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus&link_location=live-reporting-story

CDC: Pandemic results in 299,000 more U.S. deaths than in typical year

U.S. News & World Report: COVID-19 taking huge toll in excess U.S. deaths

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-10-13/covid-19-taking-huge-toll-in-excess-us-deaths

A pair of new studies assert that the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster, causing more deaths than thought and prolonging Americans' suffering more than any other country.

• COVID-19 will kill 500,000 Americans. Here’s why. – KevinMD

• Dr. Scott Gottlieb: U.S. about ‘a week away from a rapid acceleration’ of coronavirus cases – CNBC

• Eight Persistent COVID-19 Myths and Why People Believe Them - Scientific America

• ‘At Capacity’: Covid-19 Patients Push U.S. Hospitals to Brink
• Utah officials issued urgent pleas and said they were planning to open a field hospital, which Wisconsin has already done. At least 14 states have a record number of coronavirus hospitalizations.

• U.S. Nears Record, With More Than 75,000 Virus Cases
• The tally is the second-highest daily total since the pandemic began, as eight states set single-day case records

CDC Recommends Barring Travelers Without Masks

WebMD Health News

A third surge of coronavirus infections has now firmly taken hold across much of the United States.

How the F.D.A. did an end run around the White House to issue vaccine guidelines.

The Hill: Key Coronavirus Model Predicts Nearly 80 Percent Rise in Deaths by February
A key model foresees approximately 171,000 more coronavirus related deaths by February 2021, a number that would represent a spike of 78 percent. The model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine suggests there will be roughly 389,087 deaths by Feb. 1. If all Americans use face masks, the model’s best-case scenario projects 314,000 deaths by that date. The model, however, foresees more than 477,000 deaths if mask mandates are eased. (Gstalter, 10/16)

NPR: How Many COVID Deaths Could U.S. See This Winter? Here's What Experts Project
Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly in many states as the U.S. heads into the winter months. And forecasters predict staggering growth in infections and deaths if current trends continue. It's exactly the kind of scenario that public health experts have long warned could be in store for the country, if it did not aggressively tamp down on infections over the summer. (Stone, 10/16)

The White House embraces a dubious route to ‘herd immunity’

Fauci on coronavirus herd immunity: ‘That is nonsense and very dangerous’ - Yahoo News

Scientific consensus on the COVID-19 pandemic: we need to act now

Coronavirus is not done with America. Holding super-spreader events like the Sturgis Motorcycle rally or political rallies will ensure that it will get worse. 

We do have Covid-19 in Cochise and Hidalgo Counties. The hotspots are in Douglas and Lordsburg. The threat of Covid-19 spreading in our communities is still for real.

You can make it less likely by following common sense when interacting with other people:  outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd, crowd is better than large crowd, observe social distancing and use a mask.

Schools Reopening:

San Simon School district appears safe and is succeeding with on site education as there are no active cases as of 10/16/20 in San Simon/Portal, no active cases in Bowie and 1-5 cases in Willcox. Douglas is a potential trouble spot with increasing numbers of active cases.

Active cases as of 10/19/20.

Hidalgo County: Lordsburg is the potential trouble area. No cases in Animas or Rodeo for a very long time; The testing activity in Hidalgo county is impressive. More than half of Hidalgo County’s population has been tested so far.

State of the epidemic in US:

Welcome to the new abnormal. America's disastrous COVID response based on politics-first and disregarding any science has made us reach milestone after milestone. We have over 8 million cases and 220.000 reported deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, nearly a quarter of the global total We continue to have the highest caseload and number of deaths in the world by far. 

The global picture is also grim with a total confirmed cases reaching 40 million and over 1 million deaths.

Nearly every country has struggled and made mistakes, but the U.S. is in a class by itself and the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe, sustained outbreak for so long. It is a national disgrace.

Covid-19 is likely to stay with us forever. To co-exist successfully we will need both effective antiviral treatments and good vaccines. At the moment we have neither. You cannot wish, lie or bully a virus into making it disappear.

1. Data for Arizona and New Mexico with emphasis on Cochise and Hidalgo Counties

 Arizona lost control of the epidemic when it re-opened too early.

How Libertarianism Made Arizona a Covid-19 Hot Spot

 It is now better but cases and hospitalizations are rising again.

Hospitalizations:

The most accurate metric for severity of the epidemic is the hospitalization numbers. Hospitals in the Midwest are in trouble.

https://covidactnow

Cochise County, AZ 

Cochise County is doing well.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/arizona-coronavirus-cases.html

New Mexico Data: 

Hospitalizations and new cases are going up. 

New emergency public health order in effect for NM

Oct 16, 2020 | Press Room

SANTA FE –The amended public health order can be viewed here.

Hidalgo County.

Hidalgo County had6 new cases in last week

Metrics for comparing AZ to NM

From the beginning New Mexico handled the epidemic much better than Arizona.  New Mexico is seeing a rise in cases.

1. US Data

Hospitalizations and cases are rising again. Deaths will follow. The epidemic has now shifted to the Midwest and rural areas.

 Coronavirus cases rising sharply in Midwest, 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/jul/15/covid-19-coronavirus-us-map-latest-cases-state-by-state

There is a marked racial/ethnic difference in both cases and death

The toll of the virus in the United States has fallen disproportionately on poorer people and groups that have long suffered discrimination. Black and Latino residents of the United States have contracted the virus at much higher rates than white residents.

 

https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-all-key-metrics

Coronavirus hospitalizations are increasing and deaths are very high. 

How do we compare to other countries?

Comparisons of US versus Germany, UK and Canada

We have now passed the UK in the number per 100,000 population that was killed by the virus. Not where we should be.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/

1. What can we do to prevent Covid-19 from spreading?

At the heart of dismal U.S. coronavirus response, a fraught relationship with masks

If it’s not blatantly obvious, masks are the linchpin in both preventing you from spreading coronavirus and preventing you from getting COVID-19

Face masks are not political statements but sound public health measures.

More than 100 countries in the world require masks in public because they endorse masks as effective in preventing COVID-19

COVID-19 is not just a respiratory infection but a systemic infectious disease. It infects lungs, blood, heart, liver, kidney and intestinal tract. People die mainly from respiratory failure, but many deaths are caused from heart involvement. Diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease, hypertension and cardiovascular disease are risk factors for severe disease. All ages get Covid-19 but the severity and mortality are higher in age 65 and older. 

What are the treatments available for Covid-19  

There are three broad approaches being investigated:

• Antiviral drugs that directly affect the coronavirus's ability to thrive inside the body
• Drugs that can calm the immune system - patients become seriously ill when their immune system overreacts and starts causing collateral damage to the body
• Antibodies, either from survivors' blood or made in a lab, that can attack the virus

Coronavirus Treatment 

The New York Times has an excellent site for tracking drug treatments

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-drugs-treatments.html

There is no cure yet for Covid-19. And even the most promising treatments to date only help certain groups of patients and await validation from further trials. The F.D.A. has not fully licensed any treatment specifically for the coronavirus. Although it has granted emergency use authorization to some treatments, their effectiveness against Covid-19 has yet to be demonstrated in large-scale, randomized clinical trials.

We will update and expand the list as new evidence emerges. For details on evaluating treatments, see the N.I.H. Covid-19 Treatment Guidelines. For the current status of vaccine development, see our Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker “ 

The New York Times also has an excellent site for tracking vaccine development

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Vaccines: Sputnik-V.

Russia’s way of copying US in putting politics-first, science-second. 

“This is all beyond stupid”: Experts are worried about Russia’s rushed vaccine.  A decision on mass vaccination has been carried out after combined first- and second-phase tests on 76 people, and that it is impossible to confirm the efficacy of a drug on this basis.

Our Post Offices are essential to us. Please be extremely careful when you pick up mail- wear a mask. Be nice to our postmasters and follow their instructions.