COVID-19 Compilation: Part 39 - December 20-26, 2020
On March 14th, I began posting COVID-19 updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have used data from worldometer as a primary source for daily and cumulative data, with frequent supplementation from various national and local sites.
Notables this week:
- The Moderna vaccine started rolling out in the USA
- There were no new single day highs for cases or deaths for the USA or the world
- Record cases were recorded in the UK, where a new COVID-19 mutation was also detected
- Overall cases and deaths fell sharply in the USA and world, in large part due to reporting gaps on Christmas
This blog post compiles the period of December 20th through 26th. see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for more
DECEMBER 20
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 77.19 million | 552,441 | 1.700 million | 8,201 |
| USA | 18.27 million | 188,280 | 324,931 | 1,458 |
The big story in the USA today is that the roll-out of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine began today, with about 6 million doses to be shipped to 3,285 locations across the country, and about 20 million doses by the end of the year.
DECEMBER 21
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 77.74 million | 541,012 | 1.710 million | 9,212 |
| USA | 18.49 million | 201,294 | 327,442 | 1,972 |
Just to give a bit of the relative spike in the USA cases relative to the rest of the world, consider: There were 10 countries other than the USA today with at least 10,000 new cases. The USA had more cases than all of them, combined.
DECEMBER 22
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 78.35 million | 612,458 | 1.723 million | 13,213 |
| USA | 18.68 million | 199,262 | 330,817 | 3,375 |
Today's lead New York Times editorial is headlined, "The Coronavirus Is Mutating, and America’s Leaders Are Flying Blind." The sub-header continues, "Travel restrictions might make sense, but what this country really needs is better disease surveillance."
Just as the first vaccines are rolling out, news has come out about new, more contagious variants of COVID-19 surfacing in Britain and elsewhere. It's unknown whether the new vaccines will be effective against this mutation, though most reports seem to suggest the vaccines should still work.
In the meantime, European countries and Canada have banned travel from from the UK.
DECEMBER 23
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 79.04 million | 683,285 | 1.737 million | 13,468 |
| USA | 18.92 million | 232,342 | 334,218 | 3,401 |
There were 39,237 new cases in the United Kingdom today, a new record there. It's the 4th time in the past week that the UK has set a new single day record. I have yet to see any data noting the extent to which the newly discovered COVID-19 mutation is a factor in the record numbers. The 7-day rolling average of new cases has now gone up 15 consecutive days in the UK, and the overall rate has gone up 121% during that time.
The mutation has now been detected in Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia, per news reports.
The UK also recorded 744 COVID-19 deaths today, the most since April 29th.
DECEMBER 24
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 79.72 million | 673,260 | 1.749 million | 11,837 |
| USA | 19.11 million | 193,030 | 337,066 | 2,835 |
We should expect significant variances in reporting over the next few days due to the Christmas and New Year holidays. In the USA today, 5 states, including Michigan, did not report data today. The number of non-reporting states will surely be much larger tomorrow.
Los Angeles County set a new death record for the 2nd consecutive day, with 148 deaths. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in L.A. County has increased by more than 1,600 in the past week to 6,499. Of the 136 for whom demographic information is available, the age breakdown is as follows:
| Age Group | Count |
| 18-29 | 1 |
| 30-49 | 11 |
| 50-64 | 28 |
| 65-79 | 45 |
| 80+ | 51 |
96 had underlying health conditions.
DECEMBER 25
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 80.26 million | 522,664 | 1.757 million | 8,621 |
| USA | 19.27 million | 149,049 | 338,513 | 1,395 |
16 USA states and the District of Columbia did not report new COVID-19 data for Christmas. As a result, the USA case number today was the lowest since November 29th, and the world case number was the lowest since November 30th. The USA 7-day rolling average for cases fell to less than 200,000 for the first time since December 5th. Several US states will remain offline tomorrow, and some through the weekend.
DECEMBER 26
| Today's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Cases Today | Total Deaths | Deaths Today |
| World | 80.74 million | 465,462 | 1.765 million | 7,265 |
| USA | 19.45 million | 165,764 | 339,951 | 1,420 |
| This week's counts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Total Cases | Percent Change | Total Deaths | Percent Change |
| World | 4.09 million | -9.2% | 72,378 | -10.0% |
| USA | 1.36 million | -12.1% | 15,998 | -14.9% |
The weekly declines, both in the USA and worldwide, in both cases and deaths, are the steepest to date during the pandemic. This is not a surprise; many states and countries have not been reporting data during the Christmas holiday.
Nonetheless, it appears that cases and deaths likely would have declined this week even without the holiday. Reports may continue to be spotty through the New Year's Day holiday, and then we'll see the impact -- if any -- from the two holidays.
The attached chart shows the weekly trend in USA and world cases and deaths.
 |
| USA and World weekly COVID-19 case and death counts |
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