Health Economics
The growth of the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed in the USA. The new confirmed cases increased to more than 200,000 a month ago. Yesterday, they rose 64,375 to 28,325,091, which is 25% of the world total. Mortality in the United States increased by 4,000 many days a month ago. Yesterday, there was an increase from 1,660 to 502,493, about 20% of the world total. However, many scientists and public health experts fear that new variants of the disease may spread more quickly and be more deadly. Three of them are now in the United States. And, as the number of cases of people infected by them grows, there may be a race with vaccination rates to prevent another increase.
Scientists, medical experts and the media use several ways to measure the spread and presence of COVID-19. Among them are gross numbers of confirmed cases, recovered cases, fatal cases and hospitalizations. Another is to measure cases and deaths per 100,000 people. This allows experts to make comparisons between counties and states, regardless of population size.
Based on this figure per 100,000, the state with the highest number of deaths is Kansas, with 1.23 as the average for the last seven days. At the other end of the spectrum, Hawaii is at 0.05. Among Kansas counties, the hardest hit is Scott County, with 14.81, almost double the number of the state’s second highest county in the same measure.
Scott County is located in the midwestern part of the state, towards the Colorado border. Its main city is Scott City. The county has a population of 4,823, based on the US Census estimate for 2019. That number is down 2.3% from 2010.
Almost 78% of the people who live in Scott County are white. Another 18% are Hispanic. Scott County’s average family income is $ 65,417, slightly below the national average. The poverty rate, 7.9%, is much lower than that of the USA.
As is the case in almost every state in the country, the numbers of infections and deaths from COVID-19 have dropped in Kansas. Confirmed cases reach 294,010, and increased by a modest 141 yesterday. In recent weeks, the increases have been more than 2,000 per day. Fatal cases in the state reach 4,614 and did not increase yesterday. The daily increase in fatalities was over 100 twice in the last month.
Kansas, like any other state, is in a race. At least three new variants are in the U.S. and almost certainly one spreads faster than the one that infected Americans last year. Statistics for the vaccination rate of its adult population in Kansas are in the bottom half of all states, at 12%, compared to the national average of 13%.
Eventually, the burden of the disease will shift from Scott County to anywhere else in the United States, as it did for a year. In the meantime, the county has to deal with the terrible lethality of COVID-19.
Click here to read that these are the most dangerous cities in the USA for COVID-19
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