The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County is nearing 1,000.
Public health officials reported 66 new cases this afternoon, bringing the total up to 956—a 255 percent increase over last week. Two more people have also died from complications of the upper respiratory infection, placing the local death toll at 32.
On Tuesday, Bay Area health officials announced that they would extend the region-wide shelter-in-place order to May 3 in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.
“Even though we were making progress and slowing the spread of COVID-19, it’s apparent we have to do even more,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said during a briefing this morning.
While Bay Area officials have indicated that the oft-cited curve has started to bend downward, widespread testing is still not being conducted in Santa Clara County. As of March 22, just 647 people had been tested at county-run labs.
But without ramping up diagnostic assays, local officials won’t be able to see just how far the coronavirus has spread throughout Silicon Valley.
Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said last week that as many as 10,000 people in the county of 1.9 million could be infected with the virus, while San Jose Deputy City Manager Kip Harkness said the number could be as high as 19,000.
County of Santa Clara COVID-19 Daily Briefings at 10AM | 2020-04-01
The County of Santa Clara is committed to providing accuracy, transparency, and efficiency. Join us every day Monday through Friday on Facebook live at 10AM. Website: sccphd.org/coronavirus | Call: 2-1-1 | DA Contact: publichealthreferral@dao.sccgov.org or 408-792-2300Full transcript: https://pastebin.com/rhBKkuAm
Posted by County of Santa Clara Public Health Department on Wednesday, April 1, 2020
How many cases require Hospitalization? And how many cases have already recovered?
Good questions.
The only way you’re ever going to get answers to those very relevant questions is if, at some point, those numbers become alarming. They aren’t being publicized now because they don’t support the massive economic damage that’s being caused by the shutdown.
> Number of COVID-19 Cases in Santa Clara County Nears 1,000
New York City COVID-19 cases: 44,707
California COVID-19 cases: 8,155
Santa Clara County COVID-19 cases: 956
– frequency:
1 person in 1,450
– frequency of active cases (cases in the last 14 days):
1 person in 2,400
We just can’t seem to get it together. We need to take notes from South Korea.
Come on Grace. You can do better. The number of people testing positive does not matter when the testing regime is so bad. What matters is the percentage of people who get seriously sick, require hospitalizations, die etc. as measured against the total number of infections. There is no point spreading hysteria about the number of positive-testing cases unless and until testing is widely available.
Stay with me as I walk you through it: The number of people testing positive is going up, way up. Of course it would if the population is widely infected and testing spreads. All have been saying this virus is contagious; people will get infected. They are just lying undetected because our testing has been such a disaster so far. (Thank you President Trump for not taking this seriously quickly, contributing to the misinformation and panic.)
So the virus is contagious. But is it deadly? Forget the positive-tests. How many people are infected now? According to Jeffrey Smith, 10,000 may be infected. San Jose says 19,000 may be infected. (Both say this with a sense of pride to justify their drastic actions. Little do they know.)
With the testing numbers available in this county, it looks like 3.3% of the positive-testing individuals have died (Deaths (32) divided by Total Cases (956) on the County dashboard). This rate looks high, but not if you factor in the total number of those infected. Using Jeffrey Smith’s 10,000 people infected number, the infection fatality rate goes down to 0.3%. Using San Jose’s number, the rate is 0.16%. Yes, these are rough numbers, unadjusted, but remember, as testing spreads, these will go down further, as long as the numbers are reported honestly.
This is very far from the 2 percent number being discussed and much closer to the infection fatality rate of the flu though still higher. We don’t see a massive shut down of the economy because of the flu. An entire generation of children will have their education and development disrupted because of this, their bonds with their friends and grandparents greatly weakened. A cohort of people will be unemployed. Did we need to do this because Sara Cody had a fit—and decided to act after talking to her friends (as reported in the Mercury News). Where is the County leadership in all this? They are the ones responsible for the lockdown. Why did they not ask the hard questions before the lockdown? What are they waiting for now?
I agree with you completely Angel, however you may not recall that President Trump started the Coronavirus response team and stopped travel from China back in January, while he was being impeached by speaker Pelosi and the Democrats who called him racist for his efforts.
In my opinion he deserves heaps of credit for weathering that storm and putting such great people in place so early on.
Thanks, Angel, for the clear-headed reply. As you rightly point out, the city, county, state and feds have taken draconian action based on incomplete data. They are acting out of an abundance of precaution, which is understandable, yet perhaps not prudent. But if Precaution is your own guiding principle, there is no “cost” in the “cost/benefit” analysis. Precaution trumps everything else. So look for increasing efforts to double- and triple-down on the purported effectiveness of the shutdown strategy going forward, as contrary evidence (llfting shelter in place not causing uptick in cases/deaths) will leave them open to substantial criticism. People who question the effectiveness of the strategy will be ostracized and treated like pariah. We will likely be paying down this debt for decades and never really know if it was the right strategy.
if all agencies involved with the Corona virus are attempting to gather data then why can’t they publish the names of those infected and/or deceased? I get the need for privacy but if i had lunch w/ someone 2 weeks ago and i saw his/her name published someplace – that would grace myself, family, others with some important information.
with this information i could contact the proper agency and let them know i had lunch 2 weeks ago w/ said person at a particular place. wouldn’t this be useful information to have in trying to slow the spread?
it seems like the authorities are telling us to “watch out” but aren’t very forthcoming about details that could be a game changer- – Like – — – “2 weeks ago a known infected person was having lunch w/ Hugh at the ________ restaurant.