Tracking of the human cost of the coronavirus pandemic worldwide hit another milestone on Friday, as worldwide deaths attributed thus far to Covid-19 surpassed 100,000. According to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, there have been 101,762 deaths worldwide from the outbreak, while 373,587 cases have been logged as recovered/discharged. It marks the current number of active cases at over 1.2 million, with 96% of those reportedly in mild condition.
Despite the grim news, there remains positive news relative to the epidemic and its unprecedented impact on worldwide events and commerce: the number of new cases appears to be slowing down in many hard-hit areas.
In the United States, daily new cases have plateaued over the past few days – April 4 saw a high of 34,196 new cases reported, but fewer in each of the five days since. Deaths, which reached a high of 1,971 reported on April 7, have also seen lower reports in each of the past two days. Italy, which has reeled with over 18,000 deaths from the disease, has also seen substantial improvement since its high in new cases on March 21.
According to modeling by the University of Washington (last updated on April 7), a total of 11 states have already likely seen the peak of their medical resource impact, including New York and New Jersey, which combine for nearly half of the 489,646 cases in the United States according to worldometers’ tracking. Ten more are projected to see their resource peaks in the next seven days, while the remaining states peak resource use is expected between April 17 and the beginning of May.
In New York, Friday marked the first day where fewer patients were in ICU beds than the previous day. The drop was small – from 4,925 to 4,908 – but a marked difference from a week ago, when the ICU census was jumping by 300 per day on average.
“As someone who searches for solace in all this grief, the leveling off in lives lost is a somewhat hopeful sign,” NY Governor Andrew Cuomo said Friday. According to officials, the increase in hospitalizations related to the disease has fallen off far quicker than initial projections. “The actual curve is much, much lower than any of [the three models the state has been using] projected,” Cuomo said.
Obviously the beginning of positive signs that social distancing are working isn’t likely to mean things are going to be getting back to normal any time in the near future, particularly by Sunday’s Easter holiday, which had been touted in late March as a potential target for the loosening of some distancing guidelines by the Trump administration (it subsequently moved its guidelines to end no earlier than April 30th) But it is a sign that what is being done at the moment is moving things in the right direction.
Projections on when live events will resume are all over the map. Most events through early summer have already been cancelled or postponed, and there is a lively debate on the importance of re-starting “normal” life vs. doing things too early and risking further outbreak growth by abandoning social distancing guidelines too early.
Keep up with TicketNews as we continue to cover the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on live events throughout the coming weeks and months.
