US Medical News: Medical Experts Warn That Drop In COVID-19 Deaths In America Is Only A Short-Term Reprieve
Source: US Medical News Jun 19, 2020 4 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
US Medical News: COVID-19 deaths per day in the U.S. have fallen in recent weeks to the lowest level since late March, even as states increasingly reopen for business. However scientists are deeply afraid the trend may be about to reverse itself.
In the last 24 hours there were only 747 deaths from the COVID-19 disease but 27,924 new infected cases. There is however more than 19,215 patients who are in critical condition all over the country.
So far there is a total of 2.263 million cases of COVID-19 infections in America of which 930,994 individuals were deemed to have ‘recovered’ according to health authorities. A total of 120,668 Americans have died from the disease.
A total of 26,723, 179 COVID-19 tests has been done according to the US CDC (however we have no data as to how many people have been tested as in certain cases a person at a hospital could have been tested 3 to 4 times.). America current population is officially 330,939,817.
Dr Cyrus Shahpar of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent epidemics. "For now, it's too soon to be reassured that deaths are going down and everything's OK."
Deaths from COVID-19 across the country are down to about 800 a day, compared with around 960 two weeks ago, according to an analysis of data.
A variety of reasons are believed to be at play, including the advent of effective treatments and improved efforts at hospitals and nursing homes to prevent infections and save lives.
Already there are warning signs, for one thing, the number of newly confirmed cases per day has rising.
In Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona ie states that loosened their stay-at-home restrictions early, daily deaths have been quietly rising since early June, said Dr Ali Mokdad, Professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr Mokdad said. "These are not numbers. These are human beings. We're going to see a rise in deaths in many places in the United States."
Many of the reported figures are thought to be inaccurate as the real numbers are believed to be higher.
Though potential vaccines are in early stages of testing, and it is unlikely any will be ready till mid next year and even then we are not sure if any will really work.
Medical experts note that a rise in deaths could take a while to show up in the U.S. statistics. Stay-at-home orders imposed in March, combined with the use of face masks and other social-distancing measures, have been bringing down the daily death toll since mid-April, and the U.S. as a whole is still seeing the positive effects, even though people are starting to work, shop and eat out again.
Healthcare professionals are watching for an uptick in deaths will be on the alert for certain signals to emerge in a specific order.
Cellphone data will firstly show people moving around more. Next, doctors will report more flu-like illnesses, and the proportion of people testing positive for the virus will rise. Hospitalizations will then go up and, finally, so will deaths.
Several factors are believed to be pushing the curves for
deaths and cases in opposite directions.
However rising case numbers can partially be explained by the wider availability of testing. Mild cases, previously undetected because of limits on who could be tested, are now showing up in the numbers.
Dr Shmuel Shoham, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said, “As for the drop in deaths, it is probably several things happening at once. Lessons learned from the ‘awful early days’ are now benefiting the severely sick and people in nursing homes.”
It definitely looks that way in Washington state's King County, where the first nursing home outbreak in the U.S. killed 45 people at the Life Care Center in suburban Seattle. County data shows deaths in similar facilities declining over the past two months. And no single facility in the county has come close to the death toll at Life Care, which was struck unaware.
Though it is unclear how much specific treatments may have contributed to the decline in deaths, doctors are trying antivirals such as remdesivir, plasma donated from people who have recovered from the virus and steroids such as dexamethasone, which grabbed attention this week with reports confirming it can save the lives of many of the sickest patients.
Significantly while all viruses mutate, scientists say the coronavirus so far is not changing in a way that has made it less deadly.
Interestingly, the decline in deaths this spring might well be tied in part to warmer weather as people spend more time outdoors where circulating air disperses the virus. But that does not bode well for the U.S. come this fall and winter.
It should also be noted that deaths are on the rise in the Southern Hemisphere, where it's now winter.
This virus is going to have a second wave. It's going to follow the pattern of pneumonia. What we're seeing in the Southern Hemisphere will be happening in the US in a few months’ time.
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