As you know, the FEHBlog tracks the daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. posted by the Centers for Disease Control. Here are the statistics for this week so far:
| COVID 19 Statistics | 4/5 | 4/6 | 4/7 | 4/8 |
| Cases | 304,826 | 330,891 | 374,329 | 395,011 |
| Deaths | 7,616 | 8,910 | 12,064 | 12,754 |
| Deaths over Cases | 2.50% | 2.69% | 3.22% | 3.23% |
We tragically have experienced more COVID-19 deaths so far this week than the approximately 3,000 Americans who died at Pearl Harbor (or on September 11). However, the relatively high death rate (particularly compared to the flu) was flat for the past two days. We will see on Friday whether this encouraging trend continues.
The flattening occurred because the number of deaths stopped increasing proportionally faster than the number of cases. The more rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases must be due at least in part to the expansion of COVID-19 testing as discussed in this Healthcare Dive article and this HHS announcement that licensed pharmacists now are authorized to order COVID-19 tests.
Fierce Healthcare reports on the development of a new COVID-19 portal called “The National Response Portal that will provide vital information to healthcare providers, policymakers and the general public as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all health data related to COVID-19, which is caused by the novel coronavirus, according to the organizations.” The new portal is gathering information now and is expected to go live next week.