Our Response to COVID-19: Information
Globally
Good evening,

January 22, 2021 -- This week's data indicate the global peak may be behind us. The world reported 4,322,549 new covid-19 infections, which is 14.2% lower than last week. The weekly total of coronavirus deaths added 97,527 new fatalities, slightly up from last week (+2.52%). However, a recent study from Denmark's State Serum Institute concluded that "cases involving the variant are increasing 70 percent a week in Denmark, despite a strict lockdown [...] “We’re losing some of the tools that we have to control the epidemic,” said Tyra Grove Krause, scientific director of the institute, which this past week began sequencing every positive coronavirus test to check for mutations. By contrast, the United States is sequencing 0.3 percent of cases, ranking it 43rd in the world and leaving it largely blind to the variant’s spread." This worries Danish health officials who fear their improving infections numbers may be misleading as the new variant could reverse the encouraging tendency. As noted, the global contagion numbers are slightly lower this week, but a few flares are still raging in many countries setting new records in the last few days, notably in Portugal, Spain, Mexico, and Indonesia.

COVID-19 in the world today:

  • COVID-19 Global cases: 98,719,446 (+653,119)
  • COVID-19 Global deaths: 2,114,894 (+16,030)
  • COVID-19 Global death rate: 2.14%
  • COVID-19 Global testing*: 1,376,412,161 confirmed tests (+6,958,049)
  • COVID-19 Global positivity rate: 7.17%
  • COVID-19 Global single-day positivity rate: 9.30%

*: incomplete data set.
Tip: click on any of the graphs for larger and clearer images and click on READ MORE to view the complete articles. Also, please forgive the occasional typos.
Reinfections More Likely With New Coronavirus Variants, Evidence Suggests | npr.org
Back in April, COVID-19 hit the city of Manaus, Brazil, extremely hard. In fact, the outbreak there was arguably the worst in the world. One study, published in the journal Science, estimated that so many people were infected that the city could have reached herd immunity — that the outbreak there slowed down because up to 76% of the population had protection against the virus.

Now the city of Manaus is seeing another massive surge in cases. This time around, the outbreak appears even larger than the first one, says Marcus Vinicius Lacerda, an infectious disease doctor at the Fundação de Medicina Tropical Doutor Heitor Vieira Dourado in Manaus. "You have much more people becoming infected and that includes people inside their [newly diagnosed patients'] households," he says.

The surge is so large that hospitals have run out of oxygen, and patients on ventilators, who need extra oxygen to breathe, have literally suffocated in hospital beds. "I'm really afraid. I'm seeing lots of people dying, people that should have had better support in the hospitals," Lacerda says.

In many ways, this resurgence in Manaus doesn't seem to make sense because such a large proportion of the population was infected just last spring. In theory, these earlier patients should now be immune to the coronavirus. So why is the city seeing such a huge surge?

The answer could lie in a newly discovered variant.

Last week, scientists in Brazil detected a new genetic variant of the coronavirus that has been circulating in Manaus since at least December and is likely fueling the second surge. Called P1, the variant has a set of about 20 mutations, including three mutations that are particularly concerning. These mutations could make the virus more infectious and could possibly decrease the efficacy of vaccines against the variant.
Spain COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 7
  • 2,603,472 cases (+42,885)
  • 55,441 deaths (+400)
  • 30,165,217 tests
  • positivity rate: 8.63%
  • 24hr positivity rate: N/A
Mexico COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 13
  • 1,732,290 (+21,007)
  • 147,614 deaths (+1,440)
  • 4,353,072 tests (+64,848)
  • positivity rate: 39.79%
  • 24hr positivity rate: 32.39%
Portugal COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 27
  • 609,136 cases (+13,987)
  • 9,920 deaths (+234) peak
  • 6,647,312 tests (+78,011)
  • positivity rate: 9.16%
  • 24hr positivity rate: 17.93%
Indonesia COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 19
  • 965,283 cases (+13,632)
  • 27,453 deaths (+250)
  • 8,638,162 tests (+77,942)
  • positivity rate: 11.17%
  • 24hr positivity rate: 17.49%
In the US
The national peak of new daily cases is now two weeks old, but 33 states still reported at least 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours. Today the nation reported 192,065 new coronavirus infections and covid-19 has killed 3,886 Americans in the last 24 hours, after reporting over 4,300 daily deaths the two previous days. The national hospitalization numbers are down but still high: 116,264 (-9%) covid-19 patients are now hospitalized in the United States, with 22,008 (-7%) in ICU and 7,236 (-7%) people fighting for their life currently on ventilators. In the last 7 days, covid-19 has killed 22,293 Americans (3,185/day) and infected 1,286,766 more of our neighbors (183,824/day).
Pandemic Numbers Are (Finally) Tiptoeing in the Right Direction | theatlantic.com
The United States remains in a very alarming place, but COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all fell in the past seven days.

In last week’s update, we wrote that the United States had reported the worst weekly case, hospitalization, and death numbers of the pandemic. At the time, it wasn’t clear what proportion of the case and death increases were related to postholiday reporting backlogs. This week brings some clarity: The backlogs appear to be largely behind us, and the underlying trends are moving in the right direction for most of the country. Even for the states experiencing the worst outbreaks, we are seeing early indications that the rates of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are easing, though some areas are still reporting dangerously high case and hospitalization levels and wrenching death rates.

Weekly new cases for the seven-day period beginning Thursday, January 14 were down 20 percent, the lowest number of new cases we’ve seen for a non-holiday week since mid-November. As important, after 16 straight weeks of increases, average weekly hospitalizations dropped 4 percent this week—a modest improvement, but a good sign. Reported tests reached a new weekly high, edging out last week by 1 percent—though the high test numbers this week probably reflect the fact that the testing backlog is still catching up.
COVID-19 in the USA

  • Cases: 25,390,042 (+192,065)
  • Deaths: 424,177 (+3,886)
  • Death rate: 1.67%
  • Testing: 295,539,578 individual tests (+1,974,271)
  • Positivity rate: 8.59%
  • Single-day positivity date: 9.73%
US top 5 infected states:

  1. California: 3,128,763 COVID-19 cases, 36,359 deaths
  2. Texas: 2,233,304 COVID-19 cases, 34,600 deaths
  3. Florida: 1,627,603 COVID-19 cases, 25,013 deaths
  4. New York: 1,344,365 COVID-19 cases, 42,074 deaths
  5. Illinois: 1,093,375 COVID-19 cases, 20,534 deaths
In California
This week confirms California's new covid-19 infections have peaked. The numbers of new covid-19 deaths and new infections are still high, but they are significantly lower than last week's: 202,834 new infections (-32%), and 3,388 new deaths (-10%).
  • COVID-19 California cases: 3,128,763 (+24,927)
  • COVID-19 California deaths: 36,359 (+593)
  • COVID-19 California death rate: 1.16%
  • COVID-19 California testing: 39,725,839 individual tests (+213,083)
  • COVID-19 California positivity rate: 7.88%
  • COVID-19 California single-day positivity rate: 11.70%
In the Central Valley
Madera Hospital ICU Overrun With COVID Patients as State Promises Help | gvwire.com
Madera Community Hospital has 10 ICU beds. All those beds are filled with COVID-19 patients.

In fact, there’s not a single ICU bed available in the entire county.

“All of those are patients that are on ventilators,” hospital Chief Executive Officer Karen Paolinelli tells GV Wire℠ by Zoom. “We do have seven patients currently holding in our emergency department right now, and three of those are on ventilators.”

The hospital has been so overrun they’ve had to move patients to other hospitals. On Monday night, two patients were taken to hospitals in Riverside and the Sacramento area.

More patients were transferred out Wednesday. Paolinelli says, “We normally never transfer patients out unless they need a higher level of care than what we can provide for them.”

Paolinelli says the hospital would like to expand capacity into other available spaces at the facility but lacks the staffing to do so.
The Madera County Department of Public Health COVID-19 Update:

1/22/2021: Reporting 81 cases from the public and 4 from Valley State Prison (total 85 new cases) bringing the total number of reported cases to 13,583.
Of the 13,583:
  • 2,860 active case (including 32 Madera County residents hospitalized in Madera County)
  • 10,572 recovered (52 released from isolation)
  • 151 deceased
Including its prison population, Madera County is averaging 115 new cases per day (72 per 100K), with 805 new cases revealed over the last 7 days. Although a significant improvement over last week, we still need to get down to an average of 11 cases per day or 77 cases over 7 days to switch from purple to red (from "widespread" to "substantial" contagion risk).

Today, the seven local counties together reported 1,709 new infections and 33 new coronavirus deaths. In the combined 7 counties, COVID-19 has infected 273,975 people and has killed 2,800 residents of our region since it claimed its first central valley victim, in Madera, on March 26, 2020.

Our friends and neighbors are needlessly dying; many families are suffering. Science and the courage to follow its logic will solve this pandemic, any other discourse is inadequate.
COVID-19 in Madera + 6 local counties (+% is the positivity rate)

  • Mariposa: 346 cases, 4 deaths, 13,327 tests, 2.60+%
  • Merced: 25,048 cases (+260), 324 deaths (+4)
  • Madera: 13,583 cases (+85), 151 deaths, 161,558 tests, 8.41+%
  • Fresno: 84,137 cases (+546), 1,043 deaths (+23), 669,246 tests, 12.57+%
  • Tulare: 42,759 cases (+218), 531 deaths (+2)
  • Kings: 19,703 cases, 160 deaths, 242,406 tests, 8.13+%
  • Kern: 88,399 cases (+685), 587 deaths (+4), 388,204 tests, 22.77+%

COVID-19 in the 7 counties together

  • 7 counties cases: 273,975 (+1,709)
  • 7 counties deaths: 2,800 (+33)
  • 7 counties death rate: 1.02%
It appears the worst of the current wave is now behind us in the Central Valley. The new infections have decreased to the lowest weekly report in 7 weeks. The total of new deaths is still high but slightly below last week's highest watermark. As documented in this weekly report, the numbers are starting to improve globally.
Keep observing the simple yet proven safety habits of physical-distancing, mask-wearing, and frequent hand-washing, that will help drive down new infections and new deaths, to a level low enough so as to give us a chance to reopen our schools for onsite education and thus, reopen our economy. Nothing else will work until we have massively administered a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine -- currently estimated by vaccinating up to 85% of the population -- to finally reach herd immunity.
From our hearts to yours,

Fredo and Renee Martin
Workingarts Marketing, Inc.

PS: We welcome comments and questions. If you wish to review previous reports, we now host past issues here.