Day 206: The MDPH Punts the Ball

Mexico is #7 in total coronavirus cases, with 560,000 cases and 60,000 deaths, which is bad enough, but the Mexican press paints an even worse picture. Like the mother country, their counting skills leave something to be desired, and some estimates place their case counts and death toll at as much as three times higher than the public numbers. While their "cratering economy" is allegedly due in part to austere fiscal policies, most of it sounds coronaviral in nature.

On the science front, a Korean study showed 79% greater risk of severe COVID outcomes from the use of proton pump inhibitors (a class of antacid already known to be associated with pneumonia).

Also, a study out of UC Davis found likely animal hosts of SARS-CoV-2 based on their ACE2 sequences. Not surprisingly, many old world primates share our ACE2, but they also found "12 cetaceans (whales and dolphins), 7 rodents, 3 cervids (deer), 3 lemuriform primates, 2 representatives of the order Pilosa (giant anteater and southern tamandua), and 1 Old-World primate" to be highly correlated to our ACE2 insofar as binding SARS goes, and 57 other species (including cats) with medium propensity for binding the virus. Dogs were low propensity. The American mink, which has proven to be the most susceptible of all animals, got their lowest rating of potential for infection: very low, as did another animal known to be susceptible, the ferret. They discussed the inaccuracy of their ferret result, but not the much more impressive miss on the mink. Make of that what you will.

Upon reflection, PlagueBlog realizes it was foolish to have ever expected backdated numbers from the MDPH, which has instead tossed all the weekend's cases into today's totals. While that still only puts the case count up half a percentage point, we prefer to report the average over the past three days (recalling that Saturday was a bit wedged as well): by this accounting, cases were up only a fifth of a percentage point per day.

It seems that even Miskatonic University has submitted its COVID-19 safety plans to the Commonwealth.