COVID-19 Update: Friday, November 20th

This is very heavy today so skip it if you need to. Numbers, reaching capacity, resistance, reinfection, and HDL. I am going to do two posts today, this one and a vaccine update one.

1. You have probably seen that we hit 12 million cases in the US yesterday. We added a million cases in 6 days, one day faster than the last million. If we continue on this trajectory we will hit 13 million by November 24th - before Thanksgiving. More Americans have now died from COVID than stroke, suicide, and car crashes combined and the COVID death count is 5x higher than average annual flu deaths.

2. Half of the states in the US are reporting that their hospitals are reaching capacity. When this happens we will see a significant rise in deaths. Please remember that it isn't just COVID patients that will die, if hospitals exceed capacity there won't be enough beds, period. This means patients will have to be triaged and priority patients will receive the beds/care while others do not.

3. Resistance to COVID restrictions and mask mandates are not unique to the US. In fact, in Berlin protesters were pepper-sprayed during riots/protests over masks and restrictions - so it isn't just Americans in 2020. As we have discussed before resistance is human nature and has happened in every pandemic ever recorded.

4. Over 2 dozen cases of reinfection have been recorded and this is estimated to be an undercount - research is ongoing regarding how long immunity lasts and what impact, if any, this will have on vaccines.

5. A study conducted by the Laboratory of Experimental Neurosurgery and Cell Therapy in Milan, Italy looked at things that could possibly increase risk or reduce risk and found that among ICU patients with COVID they had lower albumin and HDL (among other things) than those not requiring hospitalization. HDL, as you know if the good cholesterol which can be improved a host of ways such as exercise, garlic, and flaxseed. Albumin is a protein made in your liver and found in foods such as cottage cheese, eggs, fish, beef, etc. Of course, it can take up to 3 months to improve your HDL (it takes longer for women than men) but it's never too late to start.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Hold on just a little bit longer. If you haven't shopped for Thanksgiving you want to do that this weekend, I recommend ordering online and picking up instead of going in the store. In times of tragedy (and this is certainly a tragedy) it is easy to forget how much we do have to be thankful for but do take time this weekend to step away from all the bad news and spend time considering all you have to be thankful for. Zoom is removing their time restrictions on the free version of their account, so you can Zoom with family on Thanksgiving. It is a one day only perk but please take advantage of it. You can sit the laptop at the table and let your family members argue over dinner as if they were all there in person. Have a wonderful weekend.