Health care economy
The growth of the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed in the US. New confirmed cases jumped to over 200,000 a month ago. Yesterday they increased by 64,375 to 28,325,091, which is 25% of the world total. Death in the US increased by 4,000 many days a month ago. Yesterday there were 1,660 to 502,493, about 20% of the world total. However, many scientists and public health experts are concerned that new variants of the disease could spread more quickly and be potentially more deadly. Three of these are now in the US, and as the number of people infected by them increases, there may be a race with vaccination coverage to prevent another surge.
Scientists, medical experts and the media are using different ways to measure the distribution and presence of COVID-19. Among them are raw numbers of confirmed cases, recovered cases, fatalities 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 most deaths is Kansas at 1.23 as averaged over the past seven days. At the other end of the spectrum, Hawaii is at 0.05. Among Kansas counties, Scott County is the highest hit with 14.81, almost twice the figure for the next highest county in the state by the same measure.
Scott County is located in the center of western part of the state, towards the Colorado border. The main city is Scott City. The county has a population of 4,823, based on an estimate from the US census for 2019. That figure is a 2.3% decrease from 2010.
Almost 78% of the people living in Scott County are white. Another 18% are Spanish. The median household income in Scott County is $ 65,417, slightly below the national average. The poverty rate at 7.9% is much lower than in the US.
As is the case in almost every state in the country, COVID-19 infections and deaths in Kansas have dropped. Confirmed cases number 294,010, up a modest 141 yesterday. In recent weeks, more than 2,000 per day have risen. The fatalities in the state are at 4,614 and have not increased yesterday. The daily increase in fatalities was more than 100 twice in the last month.
Kansas, like any other state, is in a race. There are at least three new varieties in the US, and one is almost certainly spreading faster than the one Americans have been infected with in the past year. The statistics for the percentage with which Kansas vaccinated its adult population is at 12% in the bottom half of all states compared to the national average of 13%.
Ultimately, most of the disease will move from Scott County to elsewhere in the US, as it has for a year. Meanwhile, the province is dealing with the horrific lethality of COVID-19.
Click here to read that these are the most dangerous cities in the US for COVID-19
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