Exactly two years ago, Santa Clara County’s top public health officials huddled in a conference room and began listing everything they knew and didn’t know about the mysterious deadly virus circulating the globe.
“The first column was rather short and the last column was very long,” said Public Health Director Sara Cody, reflecting on the day when her calendar officially switched from B.C. – Before COVID.
The Bay Area’s first confirmed case of the coronavirus had been detected in Santa Clara County on that day – Jan. 31, 2020 – in a man who had recently traveled back from Wuhan, China, where the virus was originally found.
In the 730 days since COVID-19 has crept into every pocket of the country and every corner of our lives, exacting an almost incomprehensible toll.
“It probably wasn’t even in the realm of my imagination,” Cody said, “that we would still be on full-time pandemic response two years later.”
Here are five numbers that show just how dramatically the virus has transformed society since Cody’s initial conference room huddle.
878,000
The coronavirus has claimed roughly 878,000 American lives. Bob Wachter, chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine, recently pointed out on Twitter that number is roughly the population of San Francisco. It’s also nearly 300 times the number of victims killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Tragically, we’ve all become numb to Covid’s death toll. Sometimes it takes a tangible comparison to shake us out of complacency.
I had such a moment today, when Covid deaths in the U.S. hit 875,000. That, as it happens, is the population of my city, San Francisco. Staggering. pic.twitter.com/WjGNyy5fUE— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) January 27, 2022
California has recorded nearly 79,000 deaths. In Santa Clara County, the number just recently crossed 2,000, a number Cody said she is certain would be much higher if not for the willingness of residents to take protective measures like getting vaccinated, wearing masks and social distancing.
Still, “it feels personal to me,” Cody said. “I do remember just falling apart a couple times.”
73.4 million
This is roughly the number of officially recorded COVID cases in the U.S. – more than one case for every five Americans. And it’s surely an undercount since at-home positive tests are not part of the overall tally and many cases early in the pandemic likely went undetected. That would be like everyone in California, Texas and Oregon getting infected.
California alone has recorded about 7.7 million cases. With a population of approximately 40 million, that also works out to about one case per five people.
Cody remembers in Santa Clara County feeling overwhelmed the first time her team recorded 30 cases in one day, back when they were trying to trace each case. “Things have changed,” she said. While current case counts are declining, the rolling seven-day daily average of new cases in the county is still above 3,000.
536 million
About 536 million doses of vaccine have gone into arms across the U.S., providing powerful protection against serious illness and death, the vast majority in the last year alone. Of course, many people have received multiple doses – some as many as four – and others none at all. While more than 60% of Americans eligible for shots are fully vaccinated, more than 30% have chosen not to get jabbed, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the vaccines are safe and effective. For context, 536 million is more than four times the population of Mexico and about 1.6 times the population of the U.S.
More than 69 million of those doses have been administered in California, a state of 40 million people where more than 80% of the population 5 and up has received at least one dose. That’s more doses than people living in the entire United Kingdom.
9.4 million
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payroll employment dropped by 9.4 million in 2020, ending the longest period of employment expansion in recent memory. That’s more than the entire population of the country’s most populous city, New York. Job losses hit low-wage workers in retail, food service and other sectors especially hard, and disproportionately affected women.
There are some signs of improvement. The U.S. economy grew at the fastest rate in 2021 since the Reagan administration, and more restaurants, salons and other businesses that had to shut down early in the pandemic have reopened their doors. But inflation has meant sticker shock at the grocery store and gas pump for consumers, hundreds of businesses have closed up shop permanently and thousands of families are still struggling to meet their basic needs.
7.2 million
Imagine if the combined populations of Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Jose had no memory of dinner buffets or crowded theaters. That’s roughly the number of children who have been born – 7.2 million – in the last couple of years who have never known a non-pandemic world. About 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2020, down about 4% from 2019. While final 2021 data is not yet available, the number of babies born last year is expected to be similar – although there were some signs that births were starting to rebound.
What’s next?
It’s not clear where we’ll be in another two years, but health experts say the virus will still be with us in some form.
“I think we can probably anticipate that we’ll continue to have peaks and valleys,” Cody said, suggesting that people will need to learn to be prepared with up-to-date vaccinations and masks and tests on hand, the same way people prepare for a hike by packing water and other supplies. That will mean, she acknowledged, “tolerating a lot of ongoing uncertainty.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com