Belleville Mayor Michael Melham said he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, adding that he believes he was sick with the virus in November — more than a month before doctors in China first reported cases of the new disease.
Melham said he was sick toward the end of November and suffered from chills, hallucinations and a "skyrocketing temperature" after he left the League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City.
"It felt as if I was an addict going through withdrawal," Melham said in a press release. "I didn’t know what was happening to me. I never felt that I could be so sick."
The first known case of the coronavirus in the United States was in January and involved a West Coast man who had been in China's Wuhan Province. Health experts now say the coronavirus may have been quietly circulating in the United States in January and February, when testing was rare. None have pushed the timeline back as far as November, however.
In a text message to NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, Melham said it was the sickest he had ever been in his adult life.
The doctor told Melham he had the flu and that he would get better after rest and fluids, the release said. He did not take a flu test and said he did not travel overseas.
Melham said he later suspected he had contracted the coronavirus in November but dismissed the notion because the earliest cases in the United States weren't reported until January. His November illness is what prompted Melham to ask his doctor for the blood test. He got the results Wednesday.
"It is my hope that this antibody testing becomes more readily available," Melham said. "My doctor only had 10 of these blood tests at his disposal and was willing to give me one because of my daily work with the public. More and more testing is needed so that more and more plasma can be gleaned to hopefully save many lives."
Kaitlyn Kanzler covers Essex County for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Based on a math model, after 6 months, the total death toll for each country can be estimated as:
World 636,410
USA 238,363
Spain 37,704
Italy 46,054
UK 57,514
France 41,219
Germany 11,228
Russia 24,240
Reported Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance
posted on 5/5/2020 and by https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Let C# denote the Column with the specified number #. We have data for:
C2: Total Cases
C4: Total deaths
C6: Total recovery
C7: Active cases
The following equation is always true:
C2 = C4 + C6 + C7
Suppose there are no new cases in the future ( this assumption makes the estimation conservative), each of the people in C7 will eventually goes to either C4(death) or C6 (recovery).
Then after 6 months, C7=0; and all the active cases in C7 (2,225,786) will be either died or recovered.
The death ratio R can be estimated as:
R = C4 / (C4 + C6）
Let X4 denote the final death toll for each country, then we should have:
X4 = C4 + C7 * R = C4 * (1 + C7/(C6+C4)）
Let A denote the average death ratio, A can be estimated based on the whole world data.
A = Average of ( C4/(C4 + C6）) = 1/(1+1,240,705/258,027) = 17%;
Let Y4 is the following estimated death toll:
Y4 = C4 + C7 * A
Then, the final death toll can be estimated as (using Y4 and X4 seperately）:
Country Y4 X4
World 636,410 641,226
USA 238,363 327,760
Spain 37,704 35,588
Italy 46,054 54,515
UK 57,514 NA
France 41,219 55,634
Germany 11,228 8,219
Russia 24,240 10,576
The death ratio estimated here could be decreasing with time, due to each country might test people with severe symptoms at the begining, thus the death ratio is high at the beginning. As time goes on, the death ratio may become stable.
President Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump just posted a tweet and stated that:
For the constant criticism from the Do Nothing Democrats and their Fake News partners, here is the newest chart on our great testing “miracle" compared to other countries. Dems and LameStream Media should be proud of the USA, instead of always ripping us down!
For the constant criticism from the Do Nothing Democrats and their Fake News partners, here is the newest chart on our great testing “miracle" compared to other countries. Dems and LameStream Media should be proud of the USA, instead of always ripping us down!
