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

September 25, 2020 -- The top three most infected nations, which roughly account for half of the global infections, appear to have settled on high plateau numbers of daily counts of new COVID-19 cases: USA: 48,000, India: 85,000, and Brazil: 32,000. As other countries experience rising numbers breaking daily records in the UK, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Lebanon, many other countries are reporting near peak or high numbers: France, India, Iran, Iraq, Ukraine, Romania, Morocco, Belgium, Czechia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Israel. Many of those countries are now considering or already implementing regional lockdowns (national in Israel) and other mitigating measures: closing bars and restaurants, reducing hours of operations, limiting the size of public gatherings, canceling large events, reducing, or prohibiting spectators at sports events. Noteworthy, two countries that have exhibited consistent control of the spread within their borders are now showing upticks in Canada and Portugal. This Sunday, the world will report the first millionth COVID-19 death and over 33 million documented infections. The WHO is announcing the global total will likely be twice as high before a working and safe vaccine has been approved. So, according to the WHO, we are not even halfway there. Friday’s global daily infections total was the second highest since the onset of the pandemic.

PS: this report is late because electrical power was out most of yesterday at my location.

COVID-19 in the world today

  • COVID-19 Global cases: 32,749,830 (+342,766)
  • COVID-19 Global deaths: 993,393 (+5,747)
  • COVID-19 Global death rate: 3.03%
  • COVID-19 Global testing*: 627,067,143 confirmed tests (+4,786,572)
  • COVID-19 Global positivity rate: 5.22%
  • COVID-19 Global single-day positivity rate: 6.57%

*: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.
Netherlands COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 36
  • 105,918 cases (+2,777) peak
  • 6,328 deaths (+16)
  • 2,240,526 tests
  • positivity rate 4.73%
Lebanon COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 71
  • 33,962 cases (+1,143) peak
  • 330 deaths (+1)
  • 780,164 tests (+11,983)
  • positivity rate 4.43%
Great Britain COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 14
  • 423,236 cases (+6,874) peak
  • 41,936 deaths (+34)
  • 23,188,836 tests
  • positivity rate 1.83%
Indonesia COVID-19 data

  • global rank: 23
  • 266,845 cases (+4,823) peak
  • 10,218 deaths (+113)
  • 3,120,947 tests (+46,133)
  • positivity rate 8.58%
Coronavirus: Two million deaths 'very likely' even with vaccine, WHO warns | bbc.com
Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies head, said the figure could be higher without concerted international action.

Almost one million people have died with Covid-19 worldwide since the disease first emerged in China late last year.

Virus infections continue to rise, with 32 million cases confirmed globally.

The start of a second surge of coronavirus infections has been seen in many countries in the northern hemisphere as winter approaches.

So far, the US, India and Brazil have confirmed the most cases, recording more than 15 million between them.

But in recent days, there has been a resurgence of infections across Europe, prompting warnings of national lockdowns similar to those imposed at the height of the first wave of the pandemic.

"Overall within that very large region, we are seeing worrying increases of the disease," Dr Ryan said of the marked spike in cases in Europe.

He urged Europeans to ask themselves whether they had done enough to avoid the need for lockdowns - and whether alternatives, such as testing and tracing, quarantines and social distancing, had been implemented.

"Lockdowns are almost a last resort - and to think that we're back in last-resort territory in September, that's a pretty sobering thought," Dr Ryan told reporters at the WHO's headquarters in Geneva.
In the US
About 9% of Americans exposed to COVID-19 by mid-summer. That's a long way from herd immunity | usatoday.com
By the end of July, about 9% of American adults had been exposed to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study of dialysis patients, the largest yet looking for evidence of the disease in people's blood.

The infection rates varied from essentially zero in some states that avoided infection by mid-summer, to more than one-third of residents in parts of New York hard-hit in the spring.

The upshot is the American public is a long way from achieving "herd immunity" – having enough infections to prevent further spread of the virus. 

Infection rates are so patchy that even if some areas have had high infection rates, people there are unlikely to be protected because others will bring the virus in from elsewhere, said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

Hanage is also concerned communities not yet hit by COVID-19 will feel a false sense of security.

"We expect small-town America not to be in the first surge," he said, but over time, as people move around more and it gets introduced multiple times, more communities will have outbreaks.

Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at the University of California, San Francisco, was surprised the national infection rate appeared so high. He would have expected closer to 3-4%. But whatever the number, he said, the U.S. is nowhere close to an end to this pandemic.

"The only way we're going to get to herd immunity, unless you're in a very closed community like a prison, is for everybody to get vaccinated," Rutherford said. 
COVID-19 in the USA

  • Cases: 7,236,425 (+51,203)
  • Deaths: 208,373 (+853)
  • Death rate: 2.88%
  • Testing: 102,463,044 individual tests (+886,971)
  • Positivity rate: 7.06%
  • Single-day positivity date: 5.77%
More midwestern states are sounding the alarm with raising number of new cases and infection rates (R0 or 'R-naught) above 1.0. While Alabama and Utah had their highest daily count, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota brushed with their highest numbers and many other states reported high plateau or significant rises in their totals: Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Idaho, North Dakota. Our nation is documenting about 50,000 new cases every day, or about 5 times our target baseline. In the last seven days, COVID-19 has killed 5,206 more Americans.
Alabama COVID-19 data

  • national rank: 13
  • 150,658 cases (+2,452) peak
  • 2,491 deaths (+3)
  • 1,155,184 tests (+19,617)
  • positivity rate 13.04%
Utah COVID-19 data

  • national rank: 31
  • 68,530 cases (+1,411) peak
  • 448 deaths (+4)
  • 1,022,373 tests (+15,880)
  • positivity rate 6.70%
US top 5 infected states:

  1. California: 804,247 COVID-19 cases, 15,539 deaths
  2. Texas: 765,056 COVID-19 cases, 15,726 deaths
  3. Florida: 695,887 COVID-19 cases, 13,915 deaths
  4. New York: 487,934 COVID-19 cases, 33,202 deaths
  5. Georgia: 312,514 COVID-19 cases, 6,874 deaths
In California
California COVID-19 hospitalizations could jump 89% in next month amid signs of coronavirus spread | latimes.com
California is expected to see an 89% increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the next month amid growing signs that the spread of the coronavirus may be intensifying again, state officials announced Friday.

The proportion of Californians testing positive for the virus continues to remain low at 3% over the last two weeks, and the total number of COVID-19 patients in the state’s hospitals continues to decline, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s health and human services secretary.

But he said that some other metrics are prompting concern that a feared uptick in the virus’ spread, which public health officials said was possible in the wake of the Labor Day holiday and more businesses reopening, may be materializing.

Many regions have seen a slight increase in the rate of cases per 100,000 residents, and COVID-19-related emergency room visits have trended upward over the last week in virtually all areas of the state, Ghaly said.

The number of new hospital admissions has also crept upwards, “and that means that overall, we’re seeing more admissions than we did the day or week prior for COVID-19 in some of our hospital systems across the state,” he said.

Based on the current conditions, he said, the state is now forecasting that 4,864 people will be hospitalized with COVID-19 by Oct. 25, an increase of roughly 89% from Wednesday, when there were 2,578 patients. READ MORE
  • COVID-19 California cases: 804,247 (+4,151)
  • COVID-19 California deaths: 15,539 (+137)
  • COVID-19 California death rate: 1.93%
  • COVID-19 California testing: 14,052,047 individual tests (+99,190)
  • COVID-19 California positivity rate: 5.73%
  • COVID-19 California single-day positivity rate: 4.18%
In the Central Valley
The Madera County Department of Public Health COVID-19 Update:

9/25/20 COVID-19 UPDATE: Reporting 23 cases from the public, bringing the total number of reported cases to 4,481.
Of the 4,481:
  • 514 active case (including 12 Madera County residents hospitalized in Madera County) 
  • 3,902 recovered (49 released from isolation) 
  • 65 deceased

Today, the seven local counties together confirmed 542 new infections and 32 new coronavirus deaths (2,333 new cases and 66 new deaths in the last week). In the seven monitored counties, COVID-19 has killed 1,298 of our neighbors in the last 28 weeks. Although the new weekly new cases count has been significantly lowered in the last week to a level unseen since the middle of June (14th highest), the numbers of victims is still high (7th highest). 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: 75 cases, 2 deaths, 5,813 tests, 1.29+%
  • Merced: 8,872 cases (+26), 142 deaths (+2), 53,928 tests, 16.45+%
  • Madera: 4,481 cases (+23), 65 deaths, 55,472 tests, 8.08+%
  • Fresno: 27,717 cases (+278), 382 deaths (+20), 279,059 tests, 9.93+%
  • Tulare: 15,970 cases (+73), 263 (+4) deaths, est. 133,083 tests, 12.00+%
  • Kings: 7,631 cases (+62), 77 deaths, 74,795 tests, 10.20+%
  • Kern: 31,865 cases (+80), 367 deaths (+6), 191,836 tests, 16.61+%

COVID-19 in the 7 counties together

  • 7 counties cases: 96,611 (+542)
  • 7 counties deaths: 1,298 (+32)
  • 7 counties death rate: 1.34%
  • 7 Counties tests: 793,986 (est.)
  • 7 Counties positivity rate: 12.17%
Keep observing the simple yet proven habits of physical-distancing, mask-wearing, and frequent hand-washing, that will help drive down new infections and new deaths numbers, 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 a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.
From our hearts to yours,

Fredo and Renee Martin
Workingarts Marketing, inc.
+1-559-662-1119

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