US Cases: 3,167,984
US Deaths: 126,444
Worldwide Cases: 12,466,337
Worldwide Deaths: 559,622
As the number of new cases in the U.S. spikes, people are once again focusing on the relatively low death rate --- less than 1% of those infected. However, Josh Marshall raises a good point --- even if the virus doesn't kill you, it can still do a lot of damage:
I got focused on this today when I head from longtime reader TPM Reader JB, who is a clinician at an academic medical center. He forward me this JAMA study in Italy. You can see the details here. But the gist is that talked to 143 patients who had been hospitalized for and survived COVID. Only 5% had been on a ventilator. So this wasn’t just people who had been on the edge of death. The mean hospitalization had been about two weeks. They were interviewed 60 days after the onset of symptoms. Only 12.6% reported being symptom free. A worsened quality of life was observed among 44.1% of the group. The most common symptoms were fatigue and labored breathing. There are many instances of people with what appears to be permanent organ damage from COVID, persistent neurological or psychiatric impacts. One day you’re healthy and the next you have a permanently compromised heart or kidneys. It’s not great.If you’re staying up on COVID news you probably don’t need me to tell you this. Certainly you don’t if you have loved ones who are affected. But even at roughly 130,000 Americans having died of this disease much of the public discussion is significantly understating the full impact of the disease either nationally or individually.
The bottom line here is clear: This virus isn't something to screw around with.
WEAR A MASK!!!
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