COVID-19 update; nearly 100K infected, death toll more than 3300

Over the past few weeks while daily infection rates have dropped in China, they have surged internationally with more than 87 countries and territories now dealing with outbreaks.

At the time of writing, there are currently 96,980 confirmed cases, of which 53,983 have recovered and 3311 have died. There are currently 39,686 active cases, of which 6,423 people are in a serious or critical condition. In the last 24 hours there have been 1,812 reported new cases globally.

While the majority of cases are within China – 80,430 infected, 52,259 recovered, 5952 in a critical state, and 3013 dead – the virus has begun to take root globally, with the worst hit outside of China being; South Korea, Iran, and Italy.

S. Korean has more than 6000 infected, with over 450 newly confirmed infections in the last 24 hours, and 40 deaths to date. So far only 135 people have recovered with 52 currently in a serious or critical state.

Iran has more than 3500 infected, with nearly 600 newly confirmed infections, 107 deaths, with 739 recovered. It is unknown how many people are in a critical state.

Italy has more than 3000 infected, no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, also 107 deaths, 276 recovered and 295 in a critical condition.

Further numbers on a country by country basis can be found at the end of this article.

In Japan, as of March 2, all schools in the country have been shut down until April. In Switzerland events with more than 1,000 people have been banned at least until March 15. This came shortly after France had already banned all gatherings of more than 5,000 people in confined space.

In an interview, when asked about whether the UK may have to implement similar measures as China in shutting down entire cities, the UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned that while there would be serious economic implications if they were forced to do so, he would not take anything “off the table at this stage”.

Meanwhile Italy, already issuing instructions of self-quarantine measures to reduce the spread, has essentially seen some parts of the country shut down.

RESPONSE FROM OFFICIALS

The WHO recently raised its assessment of “the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19” to “very high at the global level”.

As of March 3rd, the WHO called on industry and governments to increase manufacturing by 40 per cent to meet rising global demand, warning that a shortage and disruptions to the global supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) are leaving healthcare workers ill-equipped and endangering health workers worldwide.

The WHO is working with governments, industry and the Pandemic Supply Chain Network to boost production and secure allocations for critically affected and at-risk countries. The WHO also said there is still a chance of containing the virus if its chain of transmission is broken.

The UN has released US$15 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to help fund global efforts to contain the COVID-19 virus.

CONCLUSIONS

While the daily rate of infections in China have dropped steadily, a good sign that the virus can be contained, it’s spread internationally is evident. The WHO still feel it can be contained even at this stage but that it requires intergovernmental cooperation as well as individuals within countries to be vigilant, self-isolating and alerting authorities if they think they may have been compromised, avoiding unnecessary gatherings of large crowds, and keeping themselves clean with frequent disinfecting handwashing and avoiding touching the face.

Globally, Italy, Iran, and South Korea, where outbreaks have occurred have been conducting widespread testing to determine and quickly deal with those who may be infected. However, worryingly, countries such as the UK and USA have not yet begun the widespread testing, leading statisticians to warn over larger numbers of infected than currently being reported.

As concerns over infectivity and the potential of it becoming a pandemic grow (at the moment the virus is still being considered as multiple epidemics), some good news coming from the data being collected show a decrease in mortality rates, namely; that 84% of cases result in a mild condition, while 16% result in a serious or critical condition (these are better numbers than initial data from China suggested). Additionally, 94% of closed cases have recovered while 6% have died. While it is concerning that over 3,000 people have already died due to the virus, a drop in overall mortality of 4% is significant.

In a report from the American College of Cardiology, quote:

Overall the case mortality rate remains low at 2.3%; however, the mortality rate jumps to 6% in hypertensives, 7.3% in diabetics, 10.5% in patients with cardiovascular disease, and 14.8% for patients ≥ 80 years of age.

Notably, the case mortality rate for underlying cardiovascular disease (10.5%) is greater than in patients with underlying chronic respiratory disease (6.3%)

In a detailed case report on 138 hospitalized COVID-19 patients:
o 19.6% of patients developed acute respiratory distress syndrome
o 16.7% of patients developed arrhythmia
o 7.2% developed acute cardiac injury
o 8.7% of patients developed shock
o 3.6% developed acute kidney injury o Rates of complication were universally higher for ICU patients

What we can learn from these results is that while overall case mortality, as mentioned 6% of total closed cases, is rather high, it seems that the majority of cases had underlying health issues and were advanced in age. For the general population this is somewhat good news as it means many more should recover even if they are infected than initially thought, although it is concerning for those who have the mentioned health issues.

Below are the current figures on a per country basis, infected / dead :

China – 80409 / 3013
South Korea – 6088 / 40
Italy – 3858 / 148
Iran – 3513 / 107
Diamond Princess – 698 / 6
Germany – 482 / 0
France – 377 / 4
Japan – 361 / 6
Spain – 259 / 3
United States – 164 / 11
Singapore – 117 / 0
United Kingdom – 115 / 0
Switzerland – 114 / 1
Hong Kong – 105 / 2
Norway – 87 / 0
Netherlands – 82 / 0
Sweden – 64 / 0
Kuwait – 58 / 0
Bahrain – 55 / 0
Malaysia – 55 / 0
Australia – 53 / 2
Belgium – 50 / 0
Thailand – 47 / 1
Taiwan – 44 / 1
Austria – 41 / 0
Canada – 37 / 0
Iraq – 35 / 3
Iceland – 34 / 0
Greece – 31 / 0
India – 30 / 0
UAE – 28 / 0
San Marino – 21 / 1
Denmark – 20 / 0
Algeria – 17 / 0
Israel – 16 / 0
Lebanon – 16 / 0
Oman – 16 / 0
Vietnam – 16 / 0
Ecuador – 13 / 0
Czechia – 12 / 0
Finland – 12 / 0
Macau – 10 / 0
Croatia – 10 / 0
Portugal – 8 / 0
Qatar – 8 / 0
Azerbaijan – 6 / 0
Belarus – 6 / 0
Ireland – 6 / 0
Mexico – 6 / 0
Romania – 6 / 0
Pakistan – 5 / 0
Saudi Arabia – 5 / 0
Brazil – 4 / 0
Georgia – 4 / 0
Russia – 4 / 0
Senegal – 4 / 0
Palestine – 4 / 0
Philippines – 3 / 1
Egypt – 3 / 0
Estonia – 3 / 0
New Zealand – 3 / 0
Chile – 3 / 0
Slovenia – 3 / 0
Indonesia – 2 / 0
Morocco – 2 / 0
Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 / 0
Hungary – 2 / 0
Afghanistan – 1 / 0
Andorra – 1 / 0
Armenia – 1 / 0
Cambodia – 1 / 0
Dominican Republic – 1 / 0
Jordan – 1 / 0
Latvia – 1 / 0
Lithuania – 1 / 0
Luxembourg – 1 / 0
North Macedonia – 1 / 0
Monaco – 1 / 0
Nepal – 1 / 0
Nigeria – 1 / 0
Sri Lanka – 1 / 0
Tunisia – 1 / 0
Ukraine – 1 / 0
Argentina – 1 / 0
Liechtenstein – 1 / 0
Poland – 1 / 0
South Africa – 1 / 0

SOURCES:

RETUERS, AP, BBC, CDC, WHO (daily situation reports and official statements), ACC Clinical Bulletin (American College of Cardiology), WORDOMETERS, JHU (John Hopkins Univeristy, live virus tracking dashboard), Twitter (offical verified sources) and Telegraph (offical coronavirus telegraph channel).