Year of COVID-19: A cool view of how the United States, California is compared to the rest of the world | News

San Jose, CA — A year after the new coronavirus was identified as the cause of the mysterious outbreak of pneumonia in China, SARS-CoV-2 redefined life around the world, but felt as sharp as the United States. There is no place. ..

About one in four out of the 97 million people infected in the United States, or more than 24 million, were infected. And it accounted for one in five of the world’s 2 million deaths from COVID-19, and surprisingly more than 400,000.

In this country, there are more than twice as many coronavirus infections as in India. India’s 10.6 million cases are the second largest in the world in a country with four times the population. In addition, the death toll in the United States is almost double that of Brazil’s 212,000, making it the second highest casualty in the world, about two-thirds of the US population.

How did it happen here in the world?

“Something was desperately wrong here in the United States,” said Dr. John Swartsburg, an honorary clinical professor of infectious diseases and vaccines in the UC Berkeley-UCF Joint Medical Program.

Public health agencies have been underfunded for decades. The US federal government has less direct role in public health than many other countries and requires significant federal leadership to strengthen and coordinate its response. And it didn’t come from Trump’s White House, Swartsburg said, and the president often supported skepticism about science.

The US experience with the closest cousins ​​to the new virus, SARS and MERS, may have also calmed authorities and thought they would not fall into a global health crisis. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, which first appeared in Asia in 2003, is more deadly than the new virus, but infects only 8,098 people worldwide, killing 774 of them. did. Most cases occurred in Asia, with only eight U.S. residents infected and no deaths. According to the CDC, no cases of SARS have been reported worldwide since 2004.

According to the World Health Organization, the first fatal Middle East respiratory syndrome reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 has since infected more than 2,200 people and killed 791 people. It spread primarily through infected camels, and the CDC reported only two US cases. Both are the survivors.

As a result, the United States was reluctant to treat it as a serious threat after it was confirmed that a new coronavirus had occurred in China a year ago. After the first incident in the Bay Area, events such as San Francisco’s Chinese New Year celebrations and professional hockey and basketball games continued.

“No one wanted this pandemic to interfere with their lives,” Swartzberg said. “That’s a great lesson for all of us. We need to respond more quickly.”

By mid-March last year, the Bay Area and California had emerged as national leaders in the fight against the virus, enforcing a curfew for the first coordinated region and then for the entire state. These actions occurred just weeks after the first documented case of a community-based viral infection.

But things were worse than the health authorities were already afraid of. A 57-year-old San Jose woman who died of a short illness at home on February 6 was determined to be the first US victim of the virus two and a half months later.

California’s early actions were praised after California avoided a catastrophic spring outbreak like New York, which was overwhelmed by hospitals. However, the Golden State was criticized last spring for loosening restrictions on business and activities, and summer incidents surged. And, like most of the country, it was struck hard by the waves of this winter’s incident.

Dr. Sarah Cody, a Santa Clara County Health Officer who led the Bay Area in enacting the initial curfew, said the region and state’s swift action in the early stages when little was known about the treatment of COVID-19. Said that he avoided the spread of infectious diseases. California currently has some of the worst outbreaks in the country, but improved treatment has allowed more infected people to survive.

“There was a huge surge in the fall compared to the really new spring, and now we have the experience of caring for COVID patients and we are generally getting better results,” said Cody.

A year after California reported some of the first US infections, more than 3 million cases in the state amount to one in eight in the country. However, even after the worst outbreaks in the United States in recent months, nearly two-thirds of all COVID-19 cases in California and nearly half of state deaths have been reported since December 1. The Golden State is much better than any other state.

According to data compiled by the New York Times, per capita infection rates in the most populous states in the United States are average, lagging behind the other 23 states. The highest rates are in the sparsely populated states of North Dakota and South Dakota.

In addition, California’s 35,000 COVID-19 deaths account for 1 in 12 in the United States, less than the 41,000 or more deaths in New York, the highest number in the United States. According to New York Times data, New York, which has half the population of California, was the second most deadly state after neighboring New Jersey, and California was 39th.

The virus is as economical as a health hazard, and experts say California paid the price of unemployment for its aggressive efforts to control the outbreak of the virus by limiting its business activities.

Nationally, the United States has lost nearly 10 million jobs since the pandemic blow, even after a record $ 2.2 trillion economic stimulus last March and an additional $ 900 billion bailout last month. Only 56% of those lost in the blockade last spring recovered.

The lowest unemployment rate in the 50 years before the pandemic was only 3.5%, but almost doubled from 6.7% in December after jumping to 15% last spring. By comparison, the Eurozone in November was 8.3%, the latest available.

However, California’s December unemployment rate is higher than the national average, higher than the unemployment rate in other large states, such as 8.2% in New York, 7.2% in Texas and 6.1% in Florida. Michael Bernick, an employment lawyer at law firm Duane Morris and a former director of the State Employment Development Department, said this was because Golden State was blocking business activities more than anyone else.

“California’s economic blockade was tighter than that imposed by other states,” Bernick said. “It works better in states that aren’t so tightly blocked, like Texas and Florida.”

The outbreak of the virus in Southern California was much worse than that in Northern California. In major counties in Southern California, including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Imperial, and Riverside, there are more than 10,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. According to data compiled by the press, the case rate is less than half that of large counties in the Bay Area such as Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and San Mateo. The pattern is the same for COVID-19 deaths.

Infectious disease experts provide a variety of explanations, including poverty and increasing population density in Southern California, and slow adherence to a healthy order. Cody, a Santa Clara County Health Officer, is at a loss to explain what is behind the wave of winter infections and why it has worsened in Southern California.

However, Swartsberg said the 1980s Bay Area HIV experience has both tested and improved public health systems.

“The Bay Area HIV infection control was a model for other parts of the world,” said Swartzberg. “It left us with a culture that still remains.”

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