Coping with COVID: COVID-19 update

After weeks of declining numbers of COVID-19 deaths, the nation saw a spike this week, reaching 993 on Tuesday before receding a bit to 890 on Wednesday. That extended to 29 the string of days below 1,000 new daily deaths.

Public health officials and hospital executives, however, caution against putting too much faith in declining death rates alone. Given the explosive numbers of new cases, the famed “curve” that America was working to bend this spring with economic lockdowns is now trending back up in demand for hospital beds, especially in intensive care, especially in  Florida, Texas and Arizona.

With a record of 61,848 new cases reported on Wednesday, more than 3 million cases have now been recorded nationwide. If current infection numbers hold steady, the U.S. will reach a 1 percent known infection rate for the overall population by the coming weekend.

That calculates to a death rate of 4.27 percent among known COVID-19 cases.

The mortality picture regionally was somewhat more positive; Missouri recorded four new fatal cases by end-of-day Wednesday, while Kansas reported two. That brought their cumulative death tolls to 1,046 and 282, respectively. But the viral spread, while leveling off in each state, continues to grow, according to tracking site rt.live.

The mortality rate among the 17,748 cases identified in Kansas is just 1.63 percent. Largely because of a more severe outbreak in the St. Louis area than anywhere else in the state, Missouri’s rate is 4.14 percent for its 26,334 cases.