Covid -19 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

COVID -19 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The World Health Organization declared the novel Coronavirus -2019(SARS-COV-2) a
pandemic on 11th March 2020. The organization considers it a very high-risk disease. Severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 was the disease’s designated name. By the 13th of
April, 2020 every county within Pennsylvania State had confirmed cases of the disease. While
the first case within the United States of America was first identified in January, by mid-March
every one of the 50 states had cases of the virus. Community transmission was first determined
in February 2020. In February, there were few infections but a sharp increase was observed from
20th march. There was a 93.5 % correlation in infection rates between Italy and the United States
in mid-March (Nash et al., 2020) .As of 13th April 2020, the United States had the highest
number of confirmed cases in the world. Close to two million people globally have been
confirmed to have the virus. There were 568,176 confirmed cases within the United States of
America with 22,935 deaths according to John Hopkins University. More than 41,000
individuals have recovered. The numbers were expected to rise within the days following this.
The rate of new infections is, however, projected to drop. The state of Pennsylvania had 22,938
cases with 557 deaths. More than 98,500 people had tested negative within the county. The
county of Allegheny had 857 confirmed cases with 19 reported deaths. The county had increases
of 2.5 % against the country’s 5.4% increase rate.80% of people with the disease however; only
get mild symptoms which clear even without medical attention.
Compared to the seasonal flu, the coronavirus-2019 disease is more infectious and has a longer
incubation time. It takes 2-14 days for symptoms to develop after exposure. It has been reported
to be 10 times deadlier than the seasonal flu. This is made worse by the asymptomatic individual
still being able to spread the disease. In 97.5% of those who get symptoms, the occurrence is
usually on the 10.5 day (Lipsitch et al., 2020).The most common symptoms include fever, dry
cough, and fatigue. In some few cases, sore throat, nasal obstruction occurs. Diarrhea, abdominal
pain and vomiting also common. The measures for severity range from asymptomatic to mild to
severe to fatal. Transmission levels are categorized as having no cases, sporadic cases, clustering
of cases and finally community transmission.
Initially, the transmission of the virus was studied. During the 14 day evaluation period, 12 % of
close contacts had worse symptoms or got new ones. It was determined there was a 10.5 %
symptomatic attack rate within households with it being 0.45% in close contacts. The
transmission rate initially doubled every seven days with each infected individual spreading it to
2.2 other people. Studies of those over 60 years indicated they had a higher risk than children
who show generally milder symptoms or are asymptomatic. Within the United States, 31% of
cases involved those over 65 years. Those over 85 years made up 6% of these cases. Those over
65 years made up 80% of deaths. Those with coronary heart disease, hypertension,
cardiovascular disease, and chronic lung disease or diabetes were more susceptible to infections
(Chow et al., 2020). 78% of infections were of those with at least one disease. 2% of cases were