JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – For the first time in nearly two weeks, Missouri is reporting less than a thousand new COVID cases in a 24-hour period. Unfortunately, the 7-day rolling average for cases is approximately 36.7 percent higher than it was a month ago.
According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the state has recorded 94,340 cases of SARS-CoV-2—an increase of 906 positive cases from the day before—and 1,659 total deaths as of Monday, September 7. That’s a case-fatality rate of 1.76 percent, which is up slightly over last Friday.
Please keep in mind that not all cases and deaths recorded since yesterday occurred in the last 24 hours.
For comparative purposes, Missouri’s COVID case-fatality rate was 4.71 percent at the end of June and in mid-May, the case-fatality rate was 5.5 percent. When COVID-19 was beginning to spread across the state in late March, the case-fatality rate was 1.33 percent.
The 7-day rolling average for cases in Missouri sits at 1,378. Yesterday, the average was at 1,397 cases. Exactly one month ago, the rolling average was 1,008.
Just over 50 percent of all reported cases are for individuals 39 years of age and younger. The 20 to 24 age group has 12,069 recorded cases, the highest of all age groups. The 0 to 9 age group has 2,321 reported cases and the 10 to 19 group has 10,239 cases.
The average age of a Missouri COVID-19 patient is 42. The rolling average over the last 7 days is 38 years of age.
Slightly more than half of all recorded deaths in the state are for patients 80 years of age and older.
Missouri has administered 1,054,385 PCR tests for COVID-19 and 91.2 percent of those individuals have tested negative. The number of people tested in the last 24 hours is not immediately known.
According to the state health department’s COVID-19 Dashboard, “A PCR test looks for the viral RNA in the nose, throat, or other areas in the respiratory tract to determine if there is an active infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. A positive PCR test means that the person has an active COVID-19 infection.”
Additionally, positive cases are up 8.4 percent (per 100,000 people) over the last 7 days.
The state is reporting 966 hospitalizations for COVID-19 as of September 4. This number is subject to a 72-hour delay to ensure that the data are accurate and complete.
If you have additional questions about the coronavirus, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is available at 877-435-8411 (24 hours a day).
As of September 7, the CDC has identified 6,261,216 cases of COVID-19 and 188,513 deaths across all 50 states and 6 U.S.-affiliated jurisdictions, for a national case-fatality rate of 3.01 percent.
But how do COVID deaths compare to other illnesses, like the flu or even the H1N1 pandemics of 1918 and 2009? It’s a common question.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), preliminary data on the 2018-2019 influenza season in the United States shows an estimated 35,520,883 cases and 34,157 deaths; that would mean a case-fatality rate of 0.09 percent. Case-fatality rates on previous seasons are as follows: 0.136 percent (2017-2018), 0.131 percent (2016-2017), 0.096 percent (2015-2016), and 0.17 percent (2014-2015).
The 1918 H1N1 epidemic, commonly referred to as the “Spanish Flu,” is estimated to have infected 29.4 million Americans and claimed 675,000 lives as a result; a case-fatality rate of 2.3 percent. The Spanish Flu claimed greater numbers of young people than typically expected from other influenzas.
Beginning in January 2009, another H1N1 virus—known as the “swine flu”—spread around the globe and was first detected in the US in April of that year. The CDC identified an estimated 60.8 million cases and 12,469 deaths; a 0.021 percent case-fatality rate.
