Coronavirus Watch

Global Statistics

More than 21, 8 cases have been recorded worldwide as 212,630 new cases were recorded yesterday. The death toll is now siting at 773,072 deaths after 4,533 deaths were reported by various countries.

The USA remains the hardest hit country with over 5, 6 million cases having been registered by the country. The country has also recorded the most deaths the death toll is at 173,128. Brazil follows America with 107, 879 deaths and Mexico has the third highest deaths with 56, 543. India and Britain have also recorded high death rates as 51,045 and 41,361 deaths have been recorded respectively by the two countries.

Mexico recorded 4,448 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, taking the total number of cases identified in the country to 522,162. Only Brazil and Peru have recorded more Covid-19 cases than Mexico in Latin America.

China’s National Health Commission reported that 22 new Covid-19 cases were identified throughout the country Sunday. Another 37 asymptomatic cases were also recorded. China counts these cases separately. A total of 84,849 cases of the novel coronavirus have been identified throughout China since the pandemic began.

Cases in Africa are now over 1, 1 million and the current death toll now exceeds 25, 000. Figures in most countries have been declining for the past 1 week. Countries which include South Africa which used to report numbers over 10, 000 in June and July have been recording numbers below 10,000 reporting a daily average of 4,000. This has largely affected the number of cases recorded by Africa as South Africa accounts for more than 50% of the cases.

Eritrea and the Seychelles remain the only two countries in Africa that have not recorded any deaths since the inception of the pandemic.

South Africa now has 587,345 cases with the current death sitting at 11,839. The death toll increased by 162.  Recoveries are now at 472 377, translating to a recovery of 80%. The country will be moving to level 2 lockdown effective Monday 17^th August 2020 which allows for more economic activity, including the sale of alcohol and cigarettes. The government also lifted the ban on interprovincial travel. However the health Minister warned of a second wave of the pandemic.

Zimbabwe recorded 85 cases to bring the total number of cases to 5,261. 2 new deaths were recorded and the death toll is now at 132. The number of recoveries is at 2,092 which translates to a recovery rate of 39.76%.

Namibia recorded 247 cases of the virus to bring the total cases to 4,154. The country has recorded 35 deaths since the virus was first recorded in the country.

New research on COVID-19 and aging

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across much of the world, scientists are increasingly finding the underlying reasons for the apparent link between older age and worse outcomes following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv* in August 2020 shows that genetic factors, chronic disease, and biological aging define the relationship between aging and the severity of COVID-19.

Immunosenescence

As people age biologically, the immune system becomes less effective at countering pathogens, which is termed immunosenescence. This includes an impaired response to novel antigens, inadequate memory responses, higher autoimmunity, and excessively long periods of inflammation.

Severity of COVID-19 Increases with Aging

Prior research has shown that anywhere from 70% upward of people with COVID-19 above the age of 70 years become symptomatic, compared to 20% in the age group 10-19 years. Mortality is also exponentially higher with increasing age. Thus, many drugs to reverse cell senescence and biological aging are being trialed to protect older individuals from this disease.

Longevity and Lifespan are Protective

The research showed that humans with a long lifespan were protected against COVID-19, at 32% lower odds, which means that the risk of being infected decreases by about 68% per additional decade of life. Defining longevity as survival to the 90^th percentile of age, the odds were 68%. Taking into account the cohort’s known bias towards severe COVID-19, this could also mean that these factors are related to severity and death odds following infection, rather than infection risk per se.

Protective Effect of Longevity is Via Slower Aging

Health span is a term that denotes the lifespan free of age-related chronic disease, mainly myocardial infarction, congestive cardiac failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia, diabetes, stroke, and cancer. In the current study, there was no link between the health span and COVID-19. This is unexpected since there was a high number of significant SNPs in genome-wide association study (GWAS) health span. Medical Life Sciences

Metal Prices Asia/Europe/NY market

17/08/2020

 (Source: Kitco)