The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 3 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on November 13, 2020.
Jovana Jovanovska ’23
Staff Writer
As indicated by the Illinois Department of Public Health’s (IDPH) recommendation on November 11 that everyone should “stay home as much as possible, leaving only for necessary and essential activities, such as work that must be performed outside the home, COVID-19 testing, visiting the pharmacy, and buying groceries,” in response to rising case numbers in Illinois, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our daily lives. Additionally, case numbers continue to rise across the country, and as The Washington Post reports, “a record high of 145,835 new cases were reported Wednesday (November 11), just one week after the U.S. hit 100,000 cases for the first time [and] [a]t least 65,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19…”
According to information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of November 11, there have been a total of 10,314,254 cases in the United States since January 21, 2020.
The Midwest region has had a significant increase in new cases as well, and this has been especially observed in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Illinois reported the most cases, 64,448, in the last week, whereas Wisconsin reported 40,487 cases and 31,597 cases in Michigan. Other states experiencing a large number of new cases in the past week were Texas (51,379 new cases), California (38,105 new cases), and Florida (35,723 new cases).
Regarding Lake County, since the beginning of October, the average incidence rate has been drastically increasing. For instance, on October 8, 2020, the seven-day average incidence rate was 1.23 per 10,000 people, whereas one month later, on November 8, the number increased to 6.65 per 10,000 people, according to information obtained on the City of Lake Forest website. In terms of average positivity percentage, by October 27, there was a 9.02 percent positive COVID-19 rate among Lake County residents or around 105 positive tests out of 1,303 tests performed. However, a month ago, the average percentage of positive COVID-19 tests was 4.72 percent (83 positive tests out of 1814 tests performed), which is almost half of the percentage currently.
On a global scale, there have been 50,994,215 total cases of COVID-19 between December 31, 2019 and November 10, 2020, with 1,264,077 deaths as a result of the virus, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. America, Asia, and Europe continue being the most affected continents. The American continent has had the highest number of cases since the start of the pandemic, with 22,112,744 cases. Asia has the second most cases at 14,326,602, with India being Asia’s most affected country with 8,591,730 positive cases.
Many European countries imposed second national lockdowns to reduce the large increase in cases on the continent, including France and the UK, according to BBC and The Telegraph. Europe has had 12,616,729 cases so far, with France being the country with the most cases, at 1,807,479. Africa and Oceania have had a much lower number of cases, with Africa having a total of 1,892,140 cases and Oceania with only 45,304 cases. Figure 3 shows the 14-day COVID-19 case notification rate per 100,000, which portrays how the same regions of the world (Europe, Asia, and America) remain at the highest risk of COVID-19 transmission.
COVID-19 remains a significant public health issue and the number of cases has recently started increasing once again. Recently, Pfizer announced positive results from the vaccine that their company has been developing. Per Pfizer’s analysis, the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective with volunteers who have not been exposed to the virus, according to The New York Times.
