Candid Journal Entry 5
Another day, another increase in the number of cases in the State of Utah. This time, it featured a community leader, and a young woman in her 20s. One was well into his seventies, the other is in the high risk group. You can read more here:
The state website now offers a new statistic: hospitalization. In short, about 10% of the confirmed cases require hospitalization. Does the state even have enough ICU beds to accommodate such number? Digging around, I am not finding the exact answer.
One source claims that there are only about 500 ICU beds (out of 5000 total) for the entire state at this moment. Another cited about 1.8 bed per 1000 residents. By the way, that number is well below the national average of 2.4, and Italy has 3.2. Granted, Utah only has about 3.2 million residents. I guess we shall see.
Among the new stats, it is somewhat alarming to see that people aged 25-44 comprise of most of the cases. At the same time, it made sense that most of the hospitalizations fell under the 45-64 range.
In case you are wondering, men make up a slight majority of the cases right now. They are about 54.2% of the total confirmed cases as of today. That's not a huge difference, although I've heard otherwise in other parts of the world.
Meanwhile in real life
Are you interested in N95 respirators? Here's a company that delivers them.
There's a purchase limit of two units, which is about 10 masks. At $65 for 5 masks, they are a bit pricey. But, if you want to gather some supplies for yourself or a small-sized family, it's an outlet.
If you want to clean and reuse the masks, I don't have a good news for you. Although, there has been some research on the matter. Duke University has been using vaporized hydrogen peroxide (not your liquid form). Turns out such decontaminating method is viable.
Anyhow, if the pattern holds, we won't see the curve flattening out or going down for another few weeks.
Stay safe out there.