Forget heart health. Get out there and play!

Early this week, the director of athletics medicine of Penn State stated that 30 to 35% of Big Ten athletes who had tested positive for Covid-19 had myocarditis, described in an article in the Post as “…an inflammation of the heart muscle that can lead to arrhythmia, cardiac arrest and death, especially in a person who doesn’t know they have it and performs rigorous exercise.” Yesterday, Penn State pointed out that the percentage was “only” 15%, and that no Penn State players had developed myocarditis, and most of them didn’t have symptoms other than inflammation.

However, even this means that about one in six Big Ten athletes who develop Covid-19 might potentially have to end their careers because of myocarditis. The athletics director pointed out that this figure played a big role in the decision to cancel its fall sports season.

Of course, other than the Big Ten and the Pac-12, the other conferences are still going ahead with their schedules. Their athletes are all adults, so they can make the decision whether or not they want to compete – but I also assume they’re being required to sign liability waivers before being allowed to play. However, our president – supposedly a great proponent of allowing decision making at the local level – is trying to talk the Big Ten out of their decision, meaning that their players would need to also sign waivers – knowing full well that this might end up being a career-ending decision. But not signing the waiver might also be a career-ending decision, since the pro leagues might look askance at athletes who have the temerity to place their personal well-being above the joys of competing and possibly getting Covid-19.

But I guess when you’re also pushing schools to reopen at a time when Covid infections in children are rising faster than in adults, this is just another day at the office.

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). No other variables go into the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4%.

Note that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4 weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks previous.

However, once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays - after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some indication of what will happen in the near term if there are no significant intervening changes.

Week ending	Deaths reported during week/month	Avg. deaths per day during week/month	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
March 7	18	3
March 14	38	5
March 21	244	35
March 28	1,928	275
Month of March	4,058	131
April 4	6,225	889
April 11	12,126	1,732
April 18	18,434	2,633
April 25	15,251	2,179
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
May 2	13,183	1,883
May 9	12,592	1,799
May 16	10,073	1,439
May 23	8,570	1,224
May 30	6,874	982
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
June 6	6,544	935
June 13	5,427	775
June 20	4,457	637
June 27	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,476	782
July 25	6,971	996
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
August 1	8,069	1,153
August 8	7,153	1,022
August 15	7,556	1,079
August 22	7,552	1,079
August 29	6,675	954
Month of August	30,970	999	116%
September 5	6,294	899
September 12	6,506	929
September 19	6,725	961
September 26	6,952	993
Month of Sept.	27,982	933	90%
Total March – September	215,723

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 191,060

Deaths reported yesterday: 1,069

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 3% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% two days ago. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 6,335,653

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 44,621

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 6%  

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 3,575,495

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 191,060

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 5%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

IV. 7-day average of test positive rate for US: 5.5%

For comparison, the recent peak for this rate was 27% in late July, although the peak in late March was 75%. This is published by Johns Hopkins (recent rates for New York state: .8%. For Texas: 11.2%. For Florida: 12.3%.  For Arizona: 7.2%).

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com