Asked about what he’s being told by infections disease experts at his daily press briefing today, 73-year-old President Donald Trump admitted he’s been warned about potentially 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in the coronavirus AKA CoV-2 or Covid-19 pandemic. Yet the real question confronting epidemiologists tracking the coronavirus outbreak is how many cases and how many deaths. New York recorded 75,983 total cases and 1,550 deaths, stretching New York hospitals and clinics to the breaking point. Trump’s corona virus Task Force has marshaled federal resources to the nation’s epicenter of the heath emergency. Docking in Manhattan’s Westside on the Hudson River, the U.S.S. Comfort 1,000-bed hospital gave some relief to 62-year-old New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo’s been pushing the federal government for more ventilators and critical medical supplies.
Hoping to keep pace with growing numbers of hospitalized coronavirus patients, Cuomo asked Trump to expedite delivers of N95 masks, vital protective gear and respirators, to help stave what looks like an overwhelming “war zone” in the Five Boroughs. Trump said today that Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, close to where he grew up, is besieged with Covid-19 cases, stretching hospital personnel to the breaking point. Bodies are starting to pile up in New York City hospitals fighting what looks like an escalating epidemic. Trump said the next few weeks would be tough before the best modeling shows that the epidemic should peak in mid-April. Cuomo said March 24 that the same surge hitting New York would happen in California. Yet when New York posted 75,983 cases and 1,550 deaths, California recorded 8,548 cases with 181 deaths, well behind New York.
Epidemiologists are trying to account for why the nation’s most populous state at 39.56 million over twice the size of New York at 19.54 million has much fewer cases. With 51% more population, California has not seen the dramatic surge in Covd-19 cases like New York. California has 10.9% of the cases of New York, 11.6% of the deaths. Epidemiologists have been warning California about a major surge but it hasn’t happened, hard-pressed to account for the differences. With only 3,011 cases and 54 deaths in Los Angeles County, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to New York City. With a population of 10.11 million in Los Angeles Country compared to 8.62 million in New York, there’s far more cases of coronavirus cases and deaths in New York. Explaining the differences, epidemiologists think population density and public transportation makes the big difference.
With 10,11 million Los Angeles residents spread out over 4.751 square miles with New York’s 8.82 million packed into 302.6 square miles, it’s no wonder New York has been swamped with coronavirus. Los Angeles relies heavily on automobiles for its main source of transportation, while New York relies on subways, buses, commuter trains and far less cars than LA. Crowded public transportation was the most likely place in which the contagious cornonavirus spread. Infectious disease experts point to Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordering residents to “shelter in place” March 20, prompting some epidemiologists to account for the state’s lower numbers. Cuomo followed Newsom on March 22, issuing his own “shelter in place” order. Epidemiologists can’t decide whether the “shelter in place” order has helped suppress the SARS CoV-2 outbreak in California or simply much less population density.
U.S. San Francisco Medical School epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said “shelter in place” orders have helped keep the virus from replicating in the population. UCLA epidemiologist Dr. Robert Kim-Farley said looking at the number of hospitalizations and deaths is a better gauge of the epidemic than just total cases. “I will anticipate that we will continue to see increased hospitalizations and deaths, but I think we should be able to see some leveling off of those numbers in a couple of weeks because of physical distancing measures,” Kim-Farley said. Newsom predicted March 19 that up to 25.5 million or 60% of Californians would be infected in eights weeks. With 8.548 cases, clearly Newsom’s early forecasts look grossly exaggerated a day before he issued his ‘shelter in place” order.
Trump’s forecasts today reflect problems with computerized modeling, not taking into account the public’s response to the epidemic. “Given what we’ve been seeing in California, we are expecting the peak of this epidemic—the intensity of it—to be lower than New York,” said Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Seattle-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. “That means the surge in the hospitals will be smaller.” With California not coming close to Murray’s original estimates, UC Berkeley biostatistician Nicholas Jewel cautioned about computerized forecasts. “I am not saying their answer in wrong,” Jewel said. “I am just saying we shouldn’t put too much confidence in it,” referring to the cases and death projections influencing the president and state governors. With 3,890 deaths in the U.S., it’s a long way from current projections of between 1000,00 and 200,000 deaths.
