June 14, 2021

COVID-19 Update: This Week’s Numbers

Greetings. Hope your had a wonderful weekend. With COVID-19 on the decline, the EURO 2020 soccer tournament kicked off this past weekend exactly one year and one day after it was originally scheduled. It was moving to see the opening game of this once-every-four years event with fans in the stadium in Italy where so much devastation had been. Let’s hope this is a marker of things to come. This week local and national numbers have improved to levels not seen since April, 2020, when the pandemic was just getting started.

El Paso Data

Average Daily New Cases: 12 (21 one week ago and 32 two weeks ago)

Average Daily Hospitalized Patients: 50 (65 one week ago and 81 two weeks ago)—(4% of Total Beds / 9% of Available Beds)

Average Daily ICU Patients: 19 (24 one week ago and 28 two weeks ago)—(8% of Total Beds / 25% of Available Beds)

Known Active Cases: 444 (626 one week and 911 two weeks ago)

Weekly Mortality

El Paso: 5 (4 last week)

Texas: 214 (291 last week)

US: 2,138 (3,194 last week)

Global: 74,706 (187,195 last week)

At this time, we continue to advise extreme caution until you and your contacts are vaccinated

For the 7 out of the past 12 weeks, US average daily cases have decreased. This week US average daily cases are nearly flat with a 3% increase to 14,288 (compared with 13,925 the previous two weeks). Daily cases in El Paso decreased 41% to 12 per day (21 per day last week). Locally, daily cases have decreased 15 out of the past 19 weeks.

In the past week El Paso has seen a continued improvement in hospitalizations as well, with the average number of hospitalized patients decreasing by 29% (24% decrease last week). Average ICU patients decreased 25% (16% decrease last week). Overall hospitalizations have improved 18 out of the past 20 weeks.

Our current risk of COVID-19 infection and spread remains high with an estimated 82,000 who have neither had COVID-19 nor been vaccinated. Since the eligible age of vaccination has been moved from 16 to 12 years, there are now nearly 279,000 people 12 and older who have not been vaccinated.

As a public good (and duty), please do not relax your efforts until we are truly safe and you and those you associate with are vaccinated. Full immunity does not develop until after the second dose of the two shot vaccines (1 week after Pfizer and 2 weeks after Moderna) and you can still catch and transmit COVID-19. With Janssen, immunity begins 2 weeks after the single shot.

COVID-19 Update: Vaccination

The vaccination effort remains strong across much of the world. This past week Moderna asked the FDA for emergency authorization in ages 12 to 17, citing 100% effectiveness and safety.

This week worldwide COVID-19 vaccinations reached 2.26 billion doses (2.1 billion last week) with an average of 33.1 million doses per day. US vaccinations stand at 309 million (302 million last week). China has now administered 893 million doses. About 144 million or 43.8% of Americans are fully vaccinated (42% last week).

El Paso continues to make progress toward our threshold for herd immunity of 70 to 90%. This week an additional 9,967 in El Paso received their first dose (12,730 last week) and 15,501 their second (14,436 last week). As of today 498,481 (488,514 last week) have received at least one dose and 407,928 (392,427 last week) have received both. (Our population 12 and older is 686,863). This means 48.6% of our population is fully vaccinated. If we add to this an estimated 350,000 infections, our estimated combined immunity is 758,000 or 90% (infections + fully immunized—88% last week). Approximately 82,000 El Paso residents remain at risk (not vaccinated or infected) and nearly 279,000 eligible people have not been vaccinated (age 12 and older rather than 16).

If you have the chance to be vaccinated, please take it. In Texas all people age 12 and older are eligible for vaccination. Remember, so far these vaccines appear to prevent nearly 100% of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19. To reiterate, these vaccines are both extremely safe and extremely effective. Use of the Janssen vaccine has been cleared by the FDA, including for premenopausal women. The six widely publicized cases of rare blood clots among 7 million vaccine recipients turns out to be near the incidence of this disorder in the general population.

Please get vaccinated as soon as possible, if not for yourself, for the good of others.

Vaccination Links:

Text or call myWELLNESS® at (915) 845-5700

University Medical Center

Immunize El Paso

City of El Paso Department of Public Health

Albertsons

Walmart

CVS

Walgreens

UTEP (Students and Employees)

VA Patients

El Paso Times COVID-19 Vaccination Guide

myWELLNESS® COVID-19 Vaccine Update

Military Retirees / Active Duty: WBAMC call (915) 742-2915

Wishing you good health,

CG Escandon, MD

Douglas Payne, MD

COVID-19 Information

For the week of 6/14/2021

Assumptions:

• Mortality rate between 0.5% and 1.5% — using 0.75%

• This means 1 death for every 133 infections

• For June 13 — 2,626 total deaths = 350,000 total cases

• 58% or 490,000 El Pasoans have not been infected yet

• The number of deaths lags behind the number of infections by 2-4 weeks

• We estimate the current infection rate to be higher than stated as of June 13th

Assumptions:

Staffed Hospital Beds: 1754

Available Hospital Beds: 572 (1/3 of total)

Staffed ICU Beds: 234

Available ICU Beds: 77 (1/3 of total)