Coronavirus Disease News 25April 2020

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. There is less demographic and epidemiological articles than in weeks past. News from Europe is at the end, where Italy is in remission while Belgium and the UK are the new hot spots. It is hard to say how to characterize the direction this takes, but you can get a feel from the first handful of articles.

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People who need care are not going to hospitals because of coronavirus, doctors say – The Washington Post -Soon after he repurposed his 60-bed cardiac unit to accommodate covid-19 patients, Mount Sinai cardiovascular surgeon John Puskas was stumped: With nearly all the beds now occupied by victims of the novel coronavirus, where had all the heart patients gone? Even those left almost speechless by crushing chest pain weren’t coming through the ER.Variations on that question have puzzled clinicians not only in New York, the most severe area of the U.S. outbreak, but across the country and in Spain, the United Kingdom and China. Five weeks into a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, many doctors say the pandemic has produced a silent sub-epidemic of people who need care at hospitals but dare not come in. They include people with inflamed appendixes, infected gall bladders, bowel obstructions and, more ominously, chest pains and stroke symptoms, according to these physicians and early research.“Everybody is frightened to come to the ER,” Puskas said. Some doctors worry that illness and mortality from unaddressed health problems may rival the carnage produced in regions less affected by covid-19, the disease the virus causes. And some expect they will soon see patients who have dangerously delayed seeking care as ongoing symptoms force them to overcome their fear. Evert Eriksson, trauma medical director at the Medical University of South Carolina, described a man in his 20s who tried to ignore the growing pain in his belly, toughing it out at home with the aid of over-the-counter painkillers. By the time he showed up at the Charleston hospital, perhaps 10 days after he should have, he had developed a large abscess, one that was gnawing through the muscle in his abdominal wall. A fairly routine surgery and a night in the hospital had become a lengthy and difficult inpatient stay, with doctors operating and using antibiotics to control the widespread infection, according to Eriksson. Only after they succeed in vanquishing the infection can they address the appendix itself.

Coronavirus: What Is the Risk for Asthma Patients? – Elderly people or people with previous illnesses are considered a special risk group in the current COVID-19 pandemic. And since the aggressive SARS-CoV-2 virus primarily affects the lungs, many asthma patients are afraid they might have an increased risk of infection and of a potentially severe course of the disease.Additional uncertainty has been caused by indications that the immunosuppressive drugs frequently used by asthma patients, such as cortisone sprays, may further increase the risk of infection because they downregulate the body’s own immune system.Should Patients Continue to Use Cortisone Sprays?Cortisone sprays, or cortisone tablets in severe cases, are frequently used in asthma therapy because they have an anti-inflammatory effect and reduce the asthmatic hypersensitivity of the bronchial tubes. In this way, they regulate the body’s own immune defense downward, giving the active substance an immunosuppressive effect.However, German lung physicians and experts have now issued a joint statement to reassure asthma patients on this score. They say the risk of infection for correctly adjusted asthma patients is not increased as long as they continue to take their medication regularly and do not stop taking it without consulting their doctor. Even in the event of deterioration, the cortisone dose should be adjusted only according to the instructions of the treating pulmonologist, they say.This assessment contrasts with recommendations that are critical of therapy with inhalable steroids (ICS). For example, the chief virologist of the Berlin Charite, Christian Drosten, has cautiously recommended that asthma patients should clarify with their treating physician whether their cortisone-based asthma medication should be replaced by one that does not interfere as much with the immune system.However, since a connection between such cortisone-based medications and increased infection risk has not yet been scientifically proven, the experts of the German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP) continue to support inhalation therapy.They say that a sudden discontinuation of the medication or a change in therapy could be considerably more dangerous than any increased risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Low incidence of daily active tobacco smoking in patients with symptomatic COVID-19 – Abstract: As the pandemic of COVID-19 is still under progression, identification of prognostic factors remains a global challenge. The role of cigarette smoking has been suggested among the disease’s epidemiological risk factors, although it is highly controversial. Objective: To evaluate the correlation of daily smoking with the susceptibility to develop SARS-CoV-2 infection. Participants: We estimated the rates of daily current smokers in COVID-19-infected patients in a large French university hospital between February 28th , 2020 and March 30th , 2020 for outpatients and from March 23rd , till April 9th , 2020 for inpatients. Design: The rates from both groups were compared to those of daily current smokers in the 2018 French general population, established in 2018, after standardization of the data for sex and age. Results: The inpatient group was composed of 343 patients, median age 65 yr: 206 men (601%, median age 66 years) and 137 women (39.9%, median age 65 years) with a rate of daily smokers of 4.4% (5.4% of men and 2.9% of women).The outpatient group was composed of 139 patients, median age 44 years: 62 men (44.6 %, median age 43 years, and 77 women (55.4 %, median age 44 years). The daily smokers rate was 5.3% (5.1% of men and 5.5 % of women). In the French population, the daily smokers rate was 25.4% (28.2% of men and 22.9% of women). The rate of current daily smokers was significantly lower in COVID-19 outpatients and inpatients (80.3% and 75.4%, respectively), as compared to that in the French general population with standardized incidence ratios according to sex and age of 0.197 [0.094 – 0.41] and 0.246 [0.148 – 0.408]. These ratios did not significantly differ between the two groups (P=0.63). Conclusions and relevance: Our cross sectional study in both COVID-19 out- and inpatients strongly suggests that daily smokers have a very much lower probability of developing symptomatic or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as compared to the general population.

Indoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2 – Abstract: By early April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had infected nearly one million people and had spread to nearly all countries worldwide. It is essential to understand where and how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted. Methods: Case reports were extracted from the local Municipal Health Commissions of 320 prefectural cities (municipalities) in China, not including Hubei province, between 4 January and 11 February 2020. We identified all outbreaks involving three or more cases and reviewed the major characteristics of the enclosed spaces in which the outbreaks were reported and associated indoor environmental issues. Results: Three hundred and eighteen outbreaks with three or more cases were identified, involving 1245 confirmed cases in 120 prefectural cities. We divided the venues in which the outbreaks occurred into six categories: homes, transport, food, entertainment, shopping, and miscellaneous. Among the identified outbreaks, 53.8% involved three cases, 26.4% involved four cases, and only 1.6% involved ten or more cases. Home outbreaks were the dominant category (254 of 318 outbreaks; 79.9%), followed by transport (108; 34.0%; note that many outbreaks involved more than one venue category). Most home outbreaks involved three to five cases. We identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases. Conclusions: All identified outbreaks of three or more cases occurred in an indoor environment, which confirms that sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk.

CDC adds six more symptoms for coronavirus – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added six new symptoms for the coronavirus to its website as officials still grapple with gauging the illness’s scope.New symptoms for the disease include “chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and new loss of taste or smell,” the CDC said. The list already included fever, cough and shortness of breath as symptoms for the coronavirus, which has infected over 905,000 people in the U.S. and killed nearly 52,000.The CDC recommends that anyone who has “trouble breathing, persistent pain or pressure in their chest, new confusion or inability to arouse or have bluish lips or face” should seek immediate medical attention. Other symptoms of the highly-infectious virus could include diarrhea, skin rash, runny nose, red eyes and fatigue. However, people are known to be able to contract the virus and remain asymptomatic.

COVID-19 Is Not Like The Flu At All — How deadly is Covid-19 compared to seasonal flu, past pandemics, or car crashes? It’s about the spike… To offer context, we have produced two charts showing coronavirus deaths along with deaths from other common causes in the past to which the disease has recently been compared. One chart shows deaths for the United States, the other for New York, the state hardest hit.Note that the data sets begin at different points in the year (as marked on the left). Also note that the figures shown here are for new deaths each week, not for cumulative deaths. The chart shows deaths per capita to allow for comparison of data from different years. Deaths are shown from:

• Covid-19, starting from February 17. (Covid Tracking Project)
• The 2017-18 flu season: This was the deadliest recent flu season. The chart shows one line for deaths attributed directly to flu, and another for deaths attributed to either flu or pneumonia. The smaller line is an undercount of flu-caused deaths, the larger is an overcount, with the real number lying somewhere in between. (More on this below.) The data begin on October 1, 2017, which the CDC considered the first week of that flu season. (CDC)
• Heart disease and cancer: The first and second leading causes of death in the United States. The chart shows total 2017 deaths averaged per week. (CDC)
• Car crashes: Weekly deaths beginning from January 1, 2018. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
• 1957-58 Asian flu pandemic: Weekly influenza and pneumonia deaths beginning from August 24, 1957. These data come from a contemporary CDC program that surveilled 108 American cities with a total population of about 50 million people. We have used that figure, rather than the total U.S. population at the time, to calculate deaths per million. (CDC)

Because the number of weekly Covid-19 deaths in New York is now larger than the typical number of weekly deaths from all causes, we are omitting most of the individual causes from the chart. And because the state’s population has been highly stable over the time periods considered – decreasing by just 0.7 percent since 2017, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates – we have chosen to show both absolute deaths and deaths per capita.

Four-month-old daughter of NYC firefighter dies of coronavirus, family says -A New York City firefighter and his wife lost their 4-month-old daughter to the coronavirus this week, according to their family. Jay-Natalie La Santa, the first child for firefighter Jerel La Santa and his wife Lindsey La Santa, died on Monday after being rushed to the hospital nearly a month ago. The girl’s grandmother, Wanda La Santa, confirmed her death to NBC News. “She was very feisty. She was a little Angel with the most beautiful smile. She kept us on our toes,” Wanda La Santa said. The 4-month-old was taken to the hospital on March 21 for a fever and was admitted right away due to her pre-existing heart condition. Jay-Natalie’s initial coronavirus test came back negative, as well as tests for her parents and grandmother. However, a week later she was tested again and it came back positive. Wanda La Santa told the outlet her granddaughter began showing signs of improvement. “She had broken the fever. It looked like it was subsiding,” Wanda La Santa said. “Her lungs were starting to clear.” Doctors believed the baby was on the mend during an April 20 meeting but “everything just started going south” within hours. “In a matter of minutes, her pulse started to drop, her breathing started to drop and she went into cardiac arrest,” the grandmother said. Jay-Natalie later died that day, leaving her family devastated.thehill.com

COVID-19 possibly striking more children than expected -The number of children infected with the coronavirus is far more extensive than what is currently reported — a hidden detail that could vastly underestimate the demand on health care systems and pediatric intensive care units (PICUs).A new study published in the “Journal of Public Health Management and Practice” from the University of South Florida (USF) and the Women’s Institute for Independent Social Enquiry (WiiSE), estimates that for each child who requires intensive care for COVID-19, there are 2,381 children infected with the virus. This calculation follows a report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention regarding its clinical study of over 2,100 children in China with COVID-19. According to the North American registry, Virtual PICU Systems, 74 children in the U.S. were admitted to PICUs between March 18 and April 6, signaling an additional 176,190 children were likely infected during this timeframe. Children younger than 2 accounted for 30 percent of the cases, 24 percent were ages 2 to 11 and 46 percent of the PICU cases were children between ages 12 and 17. Researchers say that if as many as 25 percent of the U.S. population becomes infected with the coronavirus before the end of 2020, 50,000 children with severe illness will need to be hospitalized, with 5,400 of them critically ill and requiring mechanical ventilation. Clinical reports indicate the average length of stay for pediatric COVID-19 is 14 days. According to a national survey aimed to evaluate the U.S. pediatric critical care capacity and published in “Critical Care Medicine,” there are approximately 5,100 PICU beds in the U.S.

Autopsy: Santa Clara patient died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6 – Health officials said Tuesday that new autopsy results show a patient in Santa Clara, Calif., died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, several weeks before the United States declared its first novel coronavirus death.The finding suggests that the virus was circulating in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier than previously thought.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first fatality due to coronavirus complications in the United States on Feb. 28. The patient was a resident of Kirkland, Wash.Now, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department has identified two individuals who died of COVID-19 at home on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17. The health department said samples were sent to the CDC and the results were shared Tuesday.The department also received the results of a third autopsy finding from a patient who was confirmed to have died from COVID-19 on March 6.All three of these deaths occurred at a time when testing for the virus was extremely limited.The county originally said its first coronavirus death was on March 9. This new report finds three deaths happened before this date. “As the Medical Examiner-Coroner continues to carefully investigate deaths throughout the county, we anticipate additional deaths from COVID-19 will be identified,” Santa Clara County Health Department said in a statement.

Amid Signs the Virus Came Earlier, Americans Ask: Did I Already Have It? – NYT – New revelations have left people wondering about ailments early this year. – In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms – dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their cubicles looking wan and tired.“I’ve started to think it was the coronavirus,” said Julie Parks, a 63-year-old employee who was among the sick. “I may have had it, but I can’t be sure. It’s limbo.” The revelation this week that a death in the United States in early February was the result of the coronavirus has significantly altered the understanding of how early the virus may have been circulating in this country. Researchers now believe that hidden outbreaks were creeping through cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Boston in January and February, earlier than previously known.The new timeline has lent credence to a question on the minds of many Americans: Did I already have the coronavirus?The retroactive search is happening on many levels. People who had suffered dreadful bouts with flulike illnesses are now wondering whether it had been the coronavirus. Doctors are thinking back to unexplained cases. Medical examiners are poring over their records looking for possible misdiagnosed deaths. And local politicians are demanding investigations.

Alarmed as COVID patients’ blood thickened, New York doctors try new treatments (Reuters) – As the novel coronavirus spread through New York City in late March, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital noticed something strange happening to patients’ blood. Signs of blood thickening and clotting were being detected in different organs by doctors from different specialties. This would turn out to be one of the alarming ways the virus ravages the body, as doctors there and elsewhere were starting to realize. At Mount Sinai, nephrologists noticed kidney dialysis catheters getting plugged with clots. Pulmonologists monitoring COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilators could see portions of lungs were oddly bloodless. Neurosurgeons confronted a surge in their usual caseload of strokes due to blood clots, the age of victims skewing younger, with at least half testing positive for the virus. “It’s very striking how much this disease causes clots to form,” Dr. J Mocco, a Mount Sinai neurosurgeon, said in an interview, describing how some doctors think COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, is more than a lung disease. In some cases, Mocco said, a stroke was a young patient’s first symptom of COVID-19. As colleagues from various specialties pooled their observations, they developed a new treatment protocol. Patients now receive high doses of a blood-thinning drug even before any evidence of clotting appears. “Maybe, just maybe, if you prevent the clotting, you can make the disease less severe,” said Dr. David Reich, the hospital president. The new protocol will not be used on certain high-risk patients because blood thinners can lead to bleeding in the brain and other organs.

Blood-pressure drugs are in the crosshairs of COVID-19 research – (Reuters) – Scientists are baffled by how the coronavirus attacks the body – killing many patients while barely affecting others. But some are tantalized by a clue: A disproportionate number of patients hospitalized by COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, have high blood pressure. Theories about why the condition makes them more vulnerable – and what patients should do about it – have sparked a fierce debate among scientists over the impact of widely prescribed blood-pressure drugs. Researchers agree that the life-saving drugs affect the same pathways that the novel coronavirus takes to enter the lungs and heart. They differ on whether those drugs open the door to the virus or protect against it. Resolving that question has taken on new urgency after an April 8 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 72% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients 65 or older had hypertension. The drugs are known as ACE inhibitors and ARBs, broad categories that include Vasotec, Valsartan, Irbesartan, as well as their generic versions. In a recent interview with a medical journal, Anthony Fauci – the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert – cited a report showing similarly high rates of hypertension among COVID-19 patients who died in Italy and suggested the medicines, rather than the underlying condition, may act as an accelerant for the virus. Efforts to understand how the virus uses the pathway to the heart and lungs, and the role of the medicines, are complicated by a lack of rigorous studies. “There are millions of Americans that take an ACE inhibitor or AR daily,” said Dr Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness in Baltimore. “This is one of the most important clinical questions.” An estimated 100 million U.S. residents suffer from high blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney failure. About four-fifths of them need to take prescription drugs to control it, according to the CDC. ACE inhibitors and ARBs are widely prescribed to patients with congestive heart failure, diabetes or kidney disease. The drugs account for billions of dollars in prescription sales worldwide. The absence of clear answers on how the drugs impact COVID-19 patients has sparked rampant speculation in correspondence and editorials posted on medical journal websites and those where scientists share unreviewed, pre-publication study drafts.

April 20 Update: US COVID-19 Test Results – Test-and-trace is a key criterion in starting to reopen the country. My current guess is test-and-trace will require around 300,000 tests per day at first since the US is far behind the curve. Some scientists believe we need around 800,000 tests per day. Note: The Financial Times reports that Germany is doing more than 50,000 tests per day (with about one-fourth of the US population). That would be 200,000 in the US. I rounded up to 300,000 per day since the US is so behind on testing. But there are recommendations that Germany needs 200,000 tests per day to do test-and-trace. (800,000 adjusted for population).This is just test results reported daily.There were 137,687 test results reported over the last 24 hours. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 17% (red line). The US probably needs enough tests to push the percentage below 5% (probably much lower based on testing in New Zealand). All experts agree: We need many more tests!

CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus this winter will likely be worse – Even as states move ahead with plans to reopen their economies, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more deadly because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season. “There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.” Having two simultaneous respiratory outbreaks would put unimaginable strain on the health-care system, he said. The first wave of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has already killed more than 42,000 people across the country. It has already overwhelmed hospitals and revealed gaping shortages in test kits, ventilators and protective equipment for health-care workers. In a wide-ranging interview, Redfield said federal and state officials need to use the coming months to prepare for what lies ahead. As stay-at-home orders are lifted, officials need to stress the continued importance of social distancing. Officials also need to need to massively scale up their ability to identify the infected through testing and find everyone they interact with through contact tracing. Doing so prevents new cases from becoming larger outbreaks. Asked about the appropriateness of protests against stay-at-home orders and calls on states to be “liberated” from restrictions, Redfield said: “It’s not helpful.” He said he, along with members of the White House coronavirus task force, have been clear about the importance of social distancing “and the enormous impact that it’s had on this outbreak in our nation.”

Gilead Tumbles After Report That Chinese Trial Unsuccessful – Gilead Sciences Inc. shares plunged after reports that its experimental drug being tested in Covid-19 patients failed to show a positive result in a Chinese trial.The drug company and a scientist involved in the trial disputed that characterization, however.According to reports from the Financial Times and Stat, the drug, called remdesivir, didn’t make a significant difference in the amount of time it took patients to improve, or their likelihood of death. A summary of the trial results was posted and quickly removed by the World Health Organization, according to the publications. The summary posted by Stat shows results from 237 patients in the trial. Use of the drug wasn’t associated with patients getting better, faster. And 13.9% of patients getting the drug died, versus 12.8% getting standard care, according to the summary.Frederick Hayden, an infectious disease expert at the University of Virginia School of Medicine who helped the Chinese doctors conduct the study, disputed the characterization that the study had failed.“That is not correct,” Hayden said in an interview, when asked whether the results showed remdesivir had flopped. “My interpretation of them is not consistent with that headline.” Gilead, in a statement, said that the summary mischaracterizes the results of the study, which was stopped early after not enough patients could be found. A study with low enrollment can lead to results that are less conclusive.

More than 30 Amazon workers in New York warehouse test positive for coronavirus: report -An Amazon employee claimed that over 30 employees at a warehouse outside of New York City have tested positive for the coronavirus, Business Insider reports, a number that has not been confirmed by the tech giant. “We are supporting the individuals, who are recovering,” Rachel Lightly, an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “We are following guidelines from health officials and medical experts, and are taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of employees at our site,” she continued, calling Amazon employees “heroes fighting for their communities.” Employees at the Amazon fulfillment center in Carteret, N.J., said they received a text message Wednesday informing them of additional coronavirus cases. “Every other day it’s the same text message,” one anonymous employee told Business Insider. “Our building during one day shift has over 500 people in the building at once. There’s no way to properly distance yourself when running at that capacity. And every day they’re hiring more and more people.” “I used to feel safe here, but not anymore,” the employee continued. “They just care about putting out packages.” Amazon has implemented a policy of unlimited unpaid time off and a $2-per-hour pay increase for hazard pay amid the coronavirus pandemic. The policies will both continue through the end of the month, according to multiple reports. All Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will also receive up to two weeks of pay. The company has provided workers with protective gear, including masks and gloves. It has also started checking staff temperatures at the beginning of shifts. Five lawmakers penned a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos earlier this month expressing dismay at the work conditions of Amazon employees. The letter discusses Chris Smalls, who was reportedly fired after organizing a walkout and demanding a change in conditions for warehouse employees.

New York Finds Virus Marker in 13.9%, Suggesting Wide Spread — A New York state study seeking to find out how many people have been infected by the new coronavirus found that 13.9% of those tested across the state had signs of the virus, in one of the biggest U.S. reviews to date. In New York City, the hardest-hit area in the U.S., 21.2% of people tested positive for a blood marker showing that they had been infected at some point. Statewide, 2.7 million people may have had Covid-19, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. That’s about 10 times more than the official count based on the state’s testing of mostly very sick patients. There are broad ramifications of the study, which will need to be analyzed further by experts to give a clearer picture of the infection’s prevalence. But it appears to confirm predictions that the virus has infected far more people than New York has been able to diagnose so far. It also means that the fatality rate of the virus is likely lower than the figure that’s based only on confirmed cases and deaths. Officially, New York has reported 15,500 deaths. If 2.7 million people have been infected, that would put the fatality rate at around 0.6%. The current death count doesn’t include some people may have died at home and not been diagnosed, and may also miss people who died earlier on in the outbreak before diagnostic testing became widespread. The survey used blood tests that look for antibodies, which are markers in the blood created by the immune system after a person has been exposed. They can show whether a person was previously exposed to the virus, even after they have recovered from the illness. Antibody tests may also help find people who were infected but showed few or no symptoms. Diagnostic tests, such as the nasal swabs used on people who show up sick at the hospital, check for the virus itself. They can’t find out whether people were previously infected and recovered, however.

New York City antibody survey reveals more than a FIFTH residents have been infected and mortality rate is FIVE TIMES deadlier than the flu -More than 20 percent of New York City residents tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in a study launched by Governor Andrew Cuomo which, if accurate, means as many as 1.7million people have been infected in the city – and that the mortality rate is between 0.6 and 0.8 percent, far greater than the 0.1 percent mortality rate of the flu. The study took samples from 3,000 randomly selected people across the state who were chosen at grocery stores and had their blood taken via a finger-prick test that the state’s health department made. It remains unknown how accurate it is. While private companies have given exact percentages for how accurate their own tests are, when questioned about their test, the NY health department, said only that theirs was ‘very accurate’. Statewide, the virus prevalence was 13.9 percent but it was far higher in New York City, where 21.2 percent tested positive. New York City, which has a population of 8.4million, has recorded 9,944 confirmed coronavirus deaths and there are another 5,052 presumed deaths from the disease. There are currently more than 138,000 confirmed cases of the virus in the city which means that, by the study’s percentage, only eight percent of the people who actually had the virus have tested positive for it. If the infection rate from the study is accurate, when combining the confirmed deaths and presumed deaths, it means the fatality rate is 0.8 percent. When counting confirmed deaths alone, the fatality rate drops to 0.6 percent. That makes it far more deadly than the flu – which has a fatality rate of 0.1 percent – and coronavirus has proven to be far more contagious. Oxiris Balbot, the New York City health commissioner, said on Thursday that she estimates up to one million New Yorkers might have been infected.

New Study Shows Nearly 9 in 10 Covid-19 Patients on Ventilators Don’t Make It – A giant study that examined outcomes for more than 2,600 patients found an extraordinarily high 88% death rate among Covid-19 patients in the New York City area who had to be placed on mechanical devices to help them breathe. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is one of the largest reviews published to date of Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the U.S. The researchers examined outcomes for coronavirus patients who were admitted between March 1 and April 4 to 12 hospitals in New York City and Long Island that are part of the Northwell Health system. Overall, the researchers reported that 553 patients died, or 21%. But among the 12% of very sick patients that needed ventilators to breathe, the death rate rose to 88%. The rate was particularly awful for patients over 65 who were placed on a machine, with just 3% of those patients surviving, according to the results. Men had a higher mortality rate than women. “The findings of high mortality rates among ventilated patients are similar to smaller case series reports of critically ill patients in the US,” the authors wrote in the paper. With no proven drugs, ventilators are one of the go-to options for ICUs and critical care doctors in working with severe cases of Covid-19 pneumonia. But there are growing reports that few patients who get on the machines are able to get off. As a result, some doctors are questioning their use in Covid-19 patients and have been trying to find methods for keeping coronavirus patients off them when possible. The mortality rate in the study may not represent the ultimate picture that emerges. That’s because the study only included patients for whom a definite outcome is known– those who died or were discharged. It didn’t include patients still being treated at hospitals. Outcome data were available for just 2,634 of 5,700 patients admitted during the study period.

Life After Ventilators Can Be Hell for Coronavirus Survivors – Her fever hit 105 degrees. In her delirium, Diana Aguilar was sure the strangers hovering over her, in their masks and gowns, were angels before they morphed into menacing aliens. As a doctor prepared to slide a ventilator tube down her throat, all she remembers thinking was: “I cannot breathe. I have no air. I give up, I give up.” Aguilar, in the throes of Covid-19, was starting her 10-day descent into ventilator limbo. The mechanical device to which her tube was attached is coveted for its ability to push life-saving oxygen deep into damaged lungs. Yet it also is feared and reviled for the damage it inflicts – and for the slim odds of survival it affords. “You’re going to be fine,” a voice reassured her. “Start counting now; one, two…” The voice belonged to an anesthesiologist, the last she heard before drifting off. The virus had already been ravaging her body for weeks, infecting the tiny cells in her lungs that deliver oxygen to her blood. She was struggling to breathe, and every inch of her body ached as she felt it failing. And then came the intubation, a last-resort intervention to save her life. It’s an awful moment for each of the many thousands of patients who are estimated to have undergone the procedure. Most will not survive: Studies suggest more than two-thirds die while on ventilators. As the cases of Covid-19 infection soar, already approaching 900,000 Americans, more and more patients are going through the same dreaded treatment. The lucky ones pull through, but their journey back to health is long and perilous. Doctors are only now learning about the challenges ahead for people who arrive at the hospital so breathless and low on oxygen that a ventilator, many believe, is all that’s standing between them and death. “Mechanical ventilation is a life-saving intervention,” says Hassan Khouli, chair of critical care at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Yet even when patients survive, “some of them will continue to be profoundly weak,” he says. “It can get to the point where they can’t perform daily activities – shaving, taking a bath, preparing a meal – to the point they could be bedridden.’’ Some people never fully recover, says Michael Rodricks, medical director of Somerset’s intensive-care unit. And those who do often must relearn basic skills such as walking, talking and swallowing.

NYPD Confiscates Drone Belonging To Freelance Photojournalist Documenting NYC’s Mass Burials –By now, many Americans have probably seen the photos of mass graves being dug at New York’s Hart Island, a small island in the Bronx that has for more than a century served as a burial ground for NYC’s unclaimed bodies. Over the past few weeks, the city has accelerated the burials taking place at the island from a pace of about 25 a week to more than 25 a day, as we reported a few weeks ago.To be sure, not all of those bodies are victims of the coronavirus outbreak. But many of them are, and the story has acquired a kind of lurid fascination, making it an object of widespread interest among the public.Perhaps it was this tremendous public response to certain photos, clearly taken with an aerial drone, that drew the interest of the NYPD. Because as the NY Post reported Sunday, the NYPD has seized the drone of a photojournalist documenting the mass burials on Hart Island amid the coronavirus crisis.The photographer, a freelance photojournalist presumably intending to circulate the photos to media organizations, had an FAA license to fly the drone, but his property was confiscated, and he was given a misdemeanor summons for “avigation”, an ancient city ordinance prohibiting flying anywhere that’s not an airport (an ordinance that’s clearly in conflict with federal regulations on drone piloting). Aerial photographer George Steinmetz, who has an FAA license to fly a drone, had launched the $1,500 device from a City Island parking lot Wednesday morning to film the somber work on Hart Island when he was suddenly stopped. Just minutes after he began, Steinmetz was confronted by a group of plainclothes NYPD officers who stepped out of an unmarked van. The cops confiscated the drone and issued him a misdemeanor summons for “avigation,” an antiquated law prohibiting aircraft – including drones – from taking off or landing anywhere in New York City that isn’t an airport, the report said.When approached by Gothamist and asked why he felt compelled to document the burials on Hart Island, the photographer, whose name was George Steinmetz as noted in the above-quote, replied that: “these are human beings, and they’re basically being treated like toxic waste.”

Cats with coronavirus: Two in New York are first pets known to have virus in the US – Two cats in New York have been infected with the novel coronavirus, federal officials announced Wednesday. Both had mild respiratory symptoms and are expected to make a full recovery. “These are the first pets in the United States to test positive,” the US Department of Agriculture said Wednesday in a joint statement with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agencies emphasized that there is no evidence pets play a role in spreading coronavirus in the United States. “There is no justification in taking measures against companion animals that may compromise their welfare,” they said. The two cats were tested after they showed respiratory symptoms, according to the agencies, and they join the ranks of eight lions and tigers who were infected at a New York zoo. A veterinarian tested the first house cat after it showed mild respiratory signs, but none of the humans in its household were confirmed to have the virus. It’s possible, officials said, that the cat was infected by somebody outside the home. Someone inside the house, with mild or no symptoms, could have also transmitted the virus. The second cat, in a separate area of New York, was also tested after it showed signs of respiratory illness. The owner of that cat tested positive for Covid-19 before the cat became ill, but another cat in the household has shown no signs of illness.

2 Cats Become First Pets To Test Positive For Coronavirus In The US: Live Updates – New York has reached another grim milestone: the state’s death toll has surpassed 15k on Wednesday, though the pace of deaths continued to slow. Deaths climbed to 15,302. Texas, meanwhile, reported another 18% jump in new cases. France reported 3,201 new cases on Wednesday, the highest number in four days, to right around 160k cases. The WHO noted that in the Middle East, cases are rising everywhere except Iran. Earlier in the afternoon, remarks made by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus drew the attention of the international press as he asked the US to “reconsider” cutting funding to the organization, insisting that the organization acts to combat discrimination and fight for human rights everywhere (except China). The organization also released a list of six conditions that should be met before countries begin to reopen.Earlier, Saudi Arabia reported 1,141 new cases of coronavirus and 5 new deaths for a total of 12,772 cases and 114 deaths, while the UAE reported 483 new cases of coronavirus and 6 new deaths for a total of 8,238 cases and 52 deaths.Meanwhile, the state of California said it recorded 86 new COVID-19-linked deaths since yesterday, an increase of 6.8% to nearly 1,300 deaths. Earlier, two cats in the US tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first household pets in the country to be confirmed positive for the virus after at least one tiger at the Bronx Zoo was found to be carrying strains of the virus. At least one of the cats was experiencing mild symptoms, per the CDC. Summary:

• German biotech company begins clinical trials for vaccine
• Oxford U. begins human testing for vaccine
• FT says UK coronavirus deaths 2x+ official number
• NY death toll passes 15k
• Trump: “Our Country is starting to OPEN FOR BUSINESS”
• Middle East coronavirus cases continue to climb everywhere except Iran
• WHO’s Dr. Tedros asks US to reconsider cutting funding
• 2 cats become first pets in US to catch the virus
• Chinese scientist finds deadly new coronavirus mutations
• Cali officials reveal first US coronavirus death occurred weeks earlier than realized
• Dominic Raab says at least 69 health-care workers have died in the UK
• South Korea unveils ‘New Deal’-style stimulus

Virus Deaths in New York Hit Lowest Level Since April 1 – Deaths from the coronavirus continued their gradual descent, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Friday, with the state recording 422 more deaths, the least since April 1. The state death toll now stands at 16,162.Other indicators of progress against the virus continue to show improvement, too, though New York is still being hit harder than any state in the nation:

• The three-day average of the number of virus patients in hospitals has fallen 11 days in a row. It has dropped by more than 3,000 since last Friday, and is down nearly 25 percent since its peak on April 13, according to statistics cited by the governor.
• The number of patients who are intubated, and therefore least likely to survive, has fallen for 12 days in a row.

One area of concern remains the number of new hospital admissions. After dropping almost 35 percent from last Friday to Tuesday, it has fallen only another 5 percent since then.“That’s basically a flat line, and that is troubling,” Mr. Cuomo said.The influx of patients reflects the fact that the state is still averaging about 6,000 new virus cases per day.That is down from almost 11,000 per day during the first week of April but still more than any other state. New York now has 271,590 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

N.J. Seeing Quicker Test Results With Cases on Brink of 100,000 – New Jersey reported quicker test results and a drop in ventilator use as it’s on the brink of exceeding 100,000 cases of the new coronavirus. The state added 4,247 positive results, for a total of 99,989. There were 307 more deaths reported, for a cumulative 5,368. It’s taking some of 21 counties more than 30 days to double cases; last month, some had doubled every three days. Governor Phil Murphy said test results now take five to seven days, rather than as long as the 14 days typical in past weeks. The state has at least 86 testing sites, some using a rapid test developed by Rutgers, the state university. New Jersey will need to double its capacity in order to prevent future cases from becoming “boomerang outbreaks,” the governor said. “I am not in a position yet to begin reopening our state,” he said Thursday at a press briefing. As the infection rate recedes in New Jersey’s northern region, health officials have warned that the peak is approaching in the center and south. The last of the state’s three Federal Emergency Management Agency field hospitals opened on April 21 in Atlantic City. Although those facilities, with 750 combined beds, are mostly empty, Murphy said they may be pressed into service if a resurgence strikes, as scientists have warned. The state this week received 500 ventilators that it had bought on its own, which should cut its dependence on a federal stockpile that was in demand nationally. Murphy reported that ventilator use dropped to 1,462, its lowest since April 5. The state was starting to examine death certificates and nursing homes were reconsidering what may be classified as virus-related fatalities. “We do expect you will see on our dashboard an increase in the number of deaths,”

Texas Cases Rise for Third Day; N.Y. Deaths Slow: Virus Update – U.S. President Donald Trump said he disagreed with the Georgia governor’s decision to begin relaxing curbs this week, a marked shift in his tone. Data showed U.S. unemployment could potentially rise as high as 20%, as lawmakers debate a $484 billion interim rescue plan.New York’s hospitalizations are relatively flat, which Governor Andrew Cuomo said “is not great news.” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told EU leaders they’ve done too little, too late to contain the outbreak.Spain reported the greatest number of new cases and fatalities in almost a week, while Italy saw recoveries from the coronavirus overtake new infections for the first time. The U.K. will survey 20,000 households to track the spread of the virus. Key Developments:

• Virus Tracker: Cases top 2.6 million; deaths exceed 184,000
• Trump signs executive order suspending immigration
• Mexico sees first daily rise of 1,000 new cases
• Six vaccines in human trials stage, WHO says
• Coronavirus leading to Europe’s highest deaths in decades
• Temperature checks, constant anxiety in pandemic’s city zero
• Slow pace of U.K. rescue loans sparks ire

Texas reported its third-straight increase in the daily number of new Covid-19 cases, with an additional 875 sickened residents, bringing the total to 21,944. Another 18 people died, bringing total fatalities to 561. The rise comes as the number of daily virus tests reported has fallen this week, despite assurances from Governor Greg Abbott that the state has expanded its testing capabilities. The Texas health department reported an additional 8,295 tests Thursday, down from 15,005 on Monday. So far ,225,078 tests have been recorded in Texas, or less than 1% of its estimated 30 million population. A New York state-led study seeking to learn how many people have been infected found that 13.9% of those tested had signs of the virus, in one of the biggest U.S. reviews to date. In New York City, the hardest-hit area in the U.S., 21.2% tested positive for a blood marker showing that they had been infected at some point. Statewide, 2.7 million people may have has Covid-19, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. New York has reported 15,500 deaths. If 2.7 million people have been infected, that would put the fatality rate at around 0.6%.

Michigan nears 3,000 COVID-19 deaths, cases rise to 35,200 – Michigan reported 164 additional deaths stemming from the novel coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the state’s death toll due to the illness COVID-19 to 2,977. State officials said Thursday’s tally included 55 older deaths identified by comparing death certificate data with the state’s registry of laboratory-confirmed cases. These deaths might have occurred days or weeks earlier. The state also confirmed 1,325 new cases Thursday, bringing its cumulative total cases to 35,291, according to state data. The new case figure was the highest daily increase in Michigan since April 14 and 326 more than the new cases reported Wednesday, when the state reached 33,966 cases and 2,813 deaths. Michigan’s rate of infection has been leveling off, and the state dropped in rank to seventh in the nation for its number of COVID-19 cases. But Michigan still ranks third for deaths behind New York (nearly 19,500 deaths) and New Jersey (over 5,100 deaths), according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. Workers are seen in a side view mirror at the new rapid-testing site in the parking lot of Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.

Coronavirus in Ohio: New cases slow as DeWine builds case for May reopening – Gov. Mike DeWine continued Wednesday to build a case of economic justification for gradually reopening the state beginning May 1, saying that Ohioans have “paid a great price” in lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. But the public-health case that DeWine has built for reopening amid a lack of testing and failure to meet federal guidance on recording a decline in infection numbers remains a work in progress. With the state set to soon issue “stringent” virus-precaution requirements on employers and businesses being allowed to reopen, DeWine concedes that a critical component – testing – must increase. “I’ve been candid about that,” DeWine said. “The tracing and testing pieces are starting to come together,” he added, saying that he soon will have “good news” about expanded testing to help check the spread of the virus. DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, the state health director, say the limited reopening probably will increase the number of coronavirus cases as Ohioans isolated at home for a month venture out. There are now 14,117 coronavirus cases statewide with 610 deaths, although Wednesday’s case load increased by less than 3 percent. Ohio’s daily case numbers, after backing out cases from two virus-riddled state prisons, have fallen into a consistent range. But they have not shown a downward trajectory over 14 days – a Trump administration guideline for states to reopen their economies. “We have hit a plateau. We would like to see it decline, but the plateau seems to be holding,” the governor said. The state’s reopening plan will be announced soon, but not Thursday as originally stated. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, the administration’s point person on the reopening, said that thorough virus precautions will be required of employers and businesses, and he feels comfortable. “I would encourage my own family members to go to work under conditions like this,” he said. State officials credit the month-old stay-at-home order with checking the spread of the coronavirus and sparing the hospital system from being slammed with unmanageable numbers of patients. Hospitals reported a slight increase in virus admissions and ICU hospitalizations Wednesday. Although more cases are projected under a partial reopening, DeWine said that Ohio businesses and their employees no longer can afford not to get back to work. Many businesses remain leery of what reopening will bring, however. Amid the closing of nonessential businesses and declining business revenue, Ohio’s number of unemployed is expected to hit 1 million – 17% of the workforce – when updated jobless figures are released Thursday.

First positive case of COVID-19 reported in Ohio’s juvenile corrections population – Gov. Mike DeWine announced the state has its first positive case of COVID-19 among the juvenile corrections population on Wednesday. DeWine said the youth started showing symptoms on Monday evening and was immediately isolated. He did not give any other details about the individual or where they are being housed. DeWine added the living units do not intermingle, but all of the youth in this individual’s unit are being monitored for symptoms. The Ohio Department of Health and the Cuyahoga County Health Department have begun contact-tracing, according to DeWine. DeWine said activity at our juvenile corrections locations has been limited for some time. Both youth and staff have also been provided with face masks and are required to wear them.

Response to major COVID-19 outbreak in Grand Forks, N.D., raises questions – When workers at one of the biggest companies in this Red River border city raised concerns about safety in March during the early stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic, officials didn’t send health inspectors to check it out. They sent the CEO of their regional economic development agency, who reported back that the company assured him everything was fine. A month later, Grand Forks is one of the Midwest’s largest COVID-19 hot spots, with 128 confirmed cases – including 11 Minnesota residents – linked to LM Wind Power, a major manufacturer of wind turbine blades. The North Dakota Department of Health has issued an executive order requiring all 900 LM employees to quarantine in their homes until April 30. The plant closed on April 14 and will reopen at an undetermined date after a deep cleaning. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation and is working with the company to implement a safety action plan, an agency spokesman said Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Grand Forks County reported 11 new COVID-19 cases for a total of 154, a 7.7% increase over the previous day. With about 9% of North Dakota’s population, Grand Forks County accounts for about 23% of the state’s COVID-19 cases. Now employees and residents are questioning whether the city and the company could have done more to prevent a major outbreak. Leaving the early response to a businessman was “ridiculous,” said Jim Schothorst, who retired in 2018 after more than 30 years as a city health inspector and training consultant. “He’s got no expertise whatsoever in the field of environmental health,” said Schothorst, who also questioned why the early response was coordinated by the mayor’s office rather than the city’s Public Health Department.

Mutual Aid Volunteers Are Mobilizing to Help the Most Vulnerable Communities to Deal With Coronavirus – Across the nation, people who are able to are volunteering to offer free delivery of food and household supplies to the most vulnerable members of their communities. Volunteers all over are sewing masks, distributing hand sanitizer (often from distilleries, breweries and other local businesses that have been making and donating it) and other cleaning supplies, and offering free grocery deliveries to people who are advised not to leave their homes. There is a mass mutual aid effort underway in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.“Mutual aid is like disaster relief,” he says. “It feels like picking up the pieces that are falling all over the place.”As many of the volunteer networks normally operating in Chico are largely composed of retirees, and people aged 65 and older have been advised by the governor’s office to stay indoors, Winslow says younger volunteers in the area are working to fill in the gaps however they can. And, he notes, there are several other groups in the region providing services, mutual aid offerings, and other support initiatives.At any given time, a group of between 10 and 30 DSA volunteers have been manning the phone lines of the hotline, accruing supplies and financial support, and delivering goods to the community’s most vulnerable – from low-income seniors and people with immunodeficiencies, to houseless communities who have limited-to-no access to basic supplies and information about the pandemic, with libraries and other primary resource hubs they normally have access to shutting down because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.Volunteers from the DSA have been finding or making hand sanitizer and hiking into creek beds and other areas where many of the region’s homeless encampments are located, offering them supplies and updating them on the situation.Similar efforts to those in Chico are mounting across the country. A public Google spreadsheet, the “Database of Localized Resources During COVID 19 Outbreak,” offers a catalog of mutual aid efforts underway. Anyone can search for their nearby aid groups and make a localized request for supplies or support.The database was created in a collaborative effort by local organizations and individuals across the country, with a credit line at the bottom of the welcome page that reads, “This database wouldn’t exist without the collaboration of the Rad Comms Network and without the hard work of many other folks doing what they can to catalogue efforts across the country.”

Global COVID-19 infections, deaths rise amid drive to revive corporate profit-making – Despite more than four billion people on the planet being in some form of isolation, the number of new cases throughout the world continues to grow at a steady pace of approximately 75,000 per day. The staggering daily death toll of 5,000 to 7,000 is a reminder of the deadly nature of the pandemic that has brought much of the world to a standstill. Nearly 800,000 cases have been reported in the US, representing 32 percent of all infections internationally. The death toll to date is 42,458, almost 2,000 on Monday alone. The US accounts for a quarter of overall fatalities. The number of cases in the hot spots of New York and New Jersey continues to steadily increase, with still harrowing fatalities. On Monday, nine states each confirmed over 1,000 new cases. By all accounts, given the still very limited access to testing, the figures for infections and deaths from COVID-19 are underestimates. This is the public health situation with over 90 percent of the US population under some form of stay-at-home order since President Trump declared a state of emergency over a month ago. The economic and social calamity resulting from these measures to rein in the pandemic is only partially reflected in the record number of people – over 22 million – who have filed for unemployment insurance over the past four weeks. Millions of those laid off have lost their health insurance, and thousands are lining up at food banks in cities across the country to receive food to feed their families. However, rather than using the vast riches of the country to care for the people, the political establishment, from the fascistic Trump to Congress and both big business parties, to growing numbers of state governors and mayors, is working in concert to force a premature return to work that will only add more human fuel to the viral fire. There is no evidence, despite the constant media talk of “a turn for the better,” that the pandemic is under control. The bogus “guidelines” for reopening the economy announced by Trump last week mark the end of any pretense of a nationally coordinated effort to contain the disease. In reality, they are a green light to force workers back to work, with no protections in place against the virus, to satisfy corporate America’s demands for fresh profits even at the cost of untold thousands of lives. Health care facilities in Boston, Detroit, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles continue to be overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. There are more than 180 refrigerated trailers stationed behind New York City hospitals to hold corpses under conditions where funeral homes and morgues are beyond capacity. In one instance, more than 20 bodies were piled on the sidewalk of a Brooklyn funeral home. Many of the dead who are not claimed will be buried in mass graves with thousands of forgotten others. The state of Ohio, with nearly 13,000 cases, made headlines reporting that 73 percent of the inmates at the Marion Correctional Institution were infected with COVID-19. Testing of inmates revealed that 1,950 prisoners were positive for the virus, accounting for 20 percent of all cases in Ohio. Along with these, 154 of the institution’s staff members tested positive.

Europe’s pandemic death toll passes 100,000 – Sunday marked a terrible milestone, as the coronavirus death toll passed 100,000 across Europe. An additional 3,287 deaths yesterday take the number of officially recorded fatalities across the continent to 102,565. Nearly 1.1 million coronavirus cases (1,088,651) have been announced, meaning the 102,000 plus deaths represent a fatality rate of nearly 10 percent. Even as the big business media pointed to a lessening of the number of deaths in some countries, the gruesome death toll rises – an indictment of the entire profit system. The five major states in Europe – Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK – account for around 85,000 of the 100,000 plus deaths. In Spain, 565 deaths were reported Saturday, and 410 new deaths announced yesterday. Spain’s death toll stands at 20,453 deaths – the third country to reach the horrific milestone of 20,000 behind Italy and the United States. In Italy, 482 more people were announced dead on Saturday and 433 on Sunday, with 23,660 fatalities overall. This week, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy’s leading technical-scientific body, published a report revealing that 2,724 elderly patient deaths in residential medical facilities were certified COVID-19 infections. There is no precise number of COVID-19 deaths in care homes, where doctors often do not arrive and the deaths are not reported to municipal authorities. On Saturday, France recorded 642 deaths, and 395 more on Sunday (total deaths 19,718). In Germany, 186 deaths were announced Saturday and 104, Sunday. Germany is routinely described in the corporate media as a model in how to confront the virus – but deaths there are now approaching five thousand (4,642). Some 145,184 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded by Berlin. The UK is around four weeks behind Italy and Spain in terms of the spread of the virus, but has become the pandemic’s epicentre in Europe. On Saturday, 888 deaths were announced and 596, Sunday, as the death toll reached 16,060. Some 5,589 of these deaths have occurred in the last week. Claims of a “glimmer of good news” as the “first wave” of the virus reached its peak in the UK (Daily Mail) were shot down as Saturday’s 5,525 new cases represented the third highest jump since the outbreak of the pandemic in Britain. An even higher 5,850 new cases were reported Sunday.

Coronavirus live updates: NY unemployment system collapses, UK begins human vaccine trials this week — New York’s unemployment website “collapsed” following a surge in claims after the state shuttered nonessential businesses to curb the coronavirus pandemic, putting a record number of New Yorkers out of work, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The state now has 1,000 people working online and through its phone system to process the high volume of unemployment claims, Cuomo said during a press conference Tuesday in Albany. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “One thousand people just to take the incoming unemployment calls. That’s how high the volume is and they still can’t keep up with the volume.” The state has paid approximately $2.2 billion in unemployment insurance benefits to 1.1 million New Yorkers since the Covid-19 outbreak began, according to state data. . Britain’s health minister said Tuesday that the country will trial a potential vaccine for the coronavirus on people later this week. A vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford University will be tested on people on Thursday, Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a daily news briefing. “In normal times, reaching this stage would take years, and I’m very proud of the work taken so far,” he said. Hancock said he would make £20 million ($24.5 million US) available to the scientists at Oxford, as well as an additional £22.5 million in funding for researchers at Imperial College London. “Nothing about this process is certain,” he said. “Vaccine development is a process of trial and error and trial again.” That’s the nature of how vaccines are developed.” Italy is likely to start easing its coronavirus lockdown from May 4, though the long-awaited rollback will be cautious and calculated, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday. The country has been one of the hardest hit in the world by the Covid-19 pandemic, with more than 24,100 people killed since the contagion first emerged in February. Looking to contain the spread, the government introduced sweeping curbs in March, telling Italians to stay at home and shutting schools, businesses and industries nationwide. The restrictions have put a major strain on the euro zone’s third largest economy but with the number of new cases gradually slowing, Conte said he would unveil by the weekend government plans to loosen the shutdown. “I wish I could say: let’s reopen everything. Immediately. We start tomorrow morning … But such a decision would be irresponsible,” Conte wrote in a Facebook post. He promised “a serious, scientific plan” that would include a “rethinking of modes of transport” to enable workers to travel in safety, new business rules and measures to check whether the loosening was leading to an uptick in infections.

• Global cases: More than 2.5 million
• Global deaths: At least 171,810
• US cases: More than 788,900
• US deaths: At least 42,485

Over 1,000 sailors on French carrier Charles de Gaulle sick with COVID-19 – France’s nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle arrived at its home port in Toulon a week ago with 50 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on board. After more testing, the Defense Ministry announced that 1,081 sailors were infected with the coronavirus out of 2,010 sailors tested on the carrier and its escorting fleet. Currently, 24 sailors are hospitalized with one in critical condition, and 545 sailors are presenting symptoms. Since January 21, the Charles de Gaulle had been operating in the Mediterranean as part of Operation Chammal targeting Syria and Iraq, and then the North Atlantic for a mission slated to end on April 23. In the North Atlantic, according to the Navy, it was tasked with “deepening knowledge of the areas traversed and contributing to stabilizing the Euro-Mediterranean and Euro-Atlantic regions.” Its escorts included German, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese frigates. There is growing anger among the carrier’s crew, whose commander was refused permission to end the mission as the ship arrived at the Atlantic port of Brest on March 13 with confirmed coronavirus cases aboard. A month before arriving at Brest, the carrier had put in at a port in Cyprus. Initial reports suggested the first cases could have emerged after a five-to-eight-day incubation period and spread very rapidly. One sailor anonymously told the press, “The armed forces played with our health and our lives. … It is impossible to respect social distancing measures aboard an aircraft carrier.” The infected sailors are victims of the imperialist war drive in the Middle East threatening Iran, Russia and China. Like Washington, Paris is sabre rattling against Russia in the Mediterranean, where Moscow backs the Syrian regime against NATO, and in the Euro-Atlantic area. Putting its imperialist geostrategic interests first, including above all intensifying war threats against Russia and China, President Emmanuel Macron’s government acted with contempt for the sailors’ health with its refusal to allow the sailors to disembark to safety.

France Reports 516 Coronavirus Deaths, Lowest Toll in Four Days – France reported deaths linked to the coronavirus rose at the slowest pace in four days, increasing by 516 to 21,856 fatalities, according to data from the Health Ministry published Thursday. The number of patients in intensive care, which health authorities have said is an indicator of the outbreak’s impact on France’s hospital system, fell by 165 to 5,053, the lowest since March 29. The overall number of hospitalized patients fell for a ninth day to 29,219, the lowest in more than two weeks. “Our efforts are starting to bear fruit,” the Health Ministry said in a statement. “We nevertheless remain at an exceptional level, above the maximum reanimation capacity in France before the crisis.” France, among the worst-hit countries in Europe with Italy and Spain, has more than doubled its intensive care beds to around 10,500 since the outbreak. The government is working on a detailed plan to progressively lift restrictions on non-essential travel and revive its economy starting May 11, after weeks of confinement to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. The country’s daily coronavirus figures have fluctuated amid inconsistent reporting from nursing homes, which were first included in the tally this month. The public-health service on Tuesday revised down the number of reported cases in nursing homes after an analysis of the data.

Italy Reports Fewest Virus Fatalities in More Than Five Weeks – Italy on Friday posted its fewest coronavirus fatalities in more than five weeks as the government paved the way for a new stimulus package to revive an economy stalled by containment measures. Civil defense authorities reported 420 deaths linked to the virus for the 24-hour period — the fewest since March 17 — compared with 464 the day before. That brings the total number of fatalities to 25,969. Confirmed cases now total 192,994. There were 3,021 new cases compared with 2,646 a day earlier. The number of recovered patients was 2,922. The data come weeks into a nationwide lockdown that spurred Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s cabinet earlier Friday to request parliamentary authorization to broaden the country’s deficit by 55 billion euros ahead of new spending, officials said. That is more than an initial 25-billion euro program last month. Conte is preparing to start easing the lockdown in the original European epicenter of the outbreak from May 4, with companies in the manufacturing, automotive and construction industries the first to restart activities, depending on health and safety measures.

Why the World’s Highest Virus Death Rate Is in Europe’s Capital – In an art-deco building in the heart of Brussels, Belgium’s leading scientists gather daily to announce the country’s coronavirus toll. It’s been grim reading. Despite having only 11 million people, the country has reported more deaths from the disease than China. With some 57 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, it has the highest per-capita death rate in the world — almost four times that of the U.S. According to Belgian officials, the reason for the grisly figures isn’t overwhelmed hospitals — 43% of intensive-care beds were vacant even at the peak of the crisis — but the country’s bureaucratic rigor. Unlike many other countries, the home of the European Union’s top institutions counts deaths at nursing homes even if there wasn’t a confirmed infection. “We often get criticism — oh, you’re making Belgium look bad — we think it’s the opposite,” Steven Van Gucht, head of the viral disease division at the Sciensano public-health institute, said while maintaining the requisite distance of 1.5 meters (5 feet). “If you want to compare our numbers with a lot of other countries, you basically have to cut them in half.” About 95% of Covid-19 deaths in elderly care homes haven’t been diagnosed, yet Belgium makes the decision to register them based on the symptoms shown and who the people have been in contact with. The goal is to get a clearer picture of the outbreak and better target hot spots. At the start of each briefing at the Residence Palais, a stone’s throw from the European Commission, Belgian officials detail the day’s statistics in French and Dutch. They draw particular attention to those who die outside of hospitals — typically around half the total. The impact of the disease on vulnerable care-home residents is a growing issue. While Europe knew it would need more ventilators and intensive-care capacity once the virus spread beyond China, the impact on nursing homes was unexpected, according to Agoritsa Baka, a senior expert at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. “It’s a disaster,” she said. “We did not realize how devastating Covid would be if it entered these populations.”

Recovered, almost: China’s early patients unable to shed coronavirus – A man wearing a single mask opened the door a crack and, after Du introduced herself as a psychological counsellor, burst into tears. “I really can’t take it anymore,” he said. Diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in early February, the man, who appeared to be in his 50s, had been treated at two hospitals before being transferred to a quarantine centre set up in a cluster of apartment blocks in an industrial part of Wuhan. Why, he asked, did tests say he still had the virus more than two months after he first contracted it? The answer to that question is a mystery baffling doctors on the frontline of China’s battle against COVID-19, even as it has successfully slowed the spread of the coronavirus across the country. Chinese doctors in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, say a growing number of cases in which people recover from the virus, but continue to test positive without showing symptoms, is one of their biggest challenges as the country moves into a new phase of its containment battle. Those patients all tested negative for the virus at some point after recovering, but then tested positive again, some up to 70 days later, the doctors said. Many have done so over 50-60 days. The prospect of people remaining positive for the virus, and therefore potentially infectious, is of international concern, as many countries seek to end lockdowns and resume economic activity as the spread of the virus slows. Currently, the globally recommended isolation period after exposure is 14 days. So far, there have been no confirmations of newly positive patients infecting others, according to Chinese health officials. China has not published precise figures for how many patients fall into this category. But disclosures by Chinese hospitals to Reuters, as well as in other media reports, indicate there are at least dozens of such cases. In South Korea, about 1,000 people have been testing positive for four weeks or more. In Italy, the first European country ravaged by the pandemic, health officials noticed that coronavirus patients could test positive for the virus for about a month.

Renowned Microbiologist Claims Wuhan Lab ‘Did Absolutely Crazy Things’ With Coronavirus — A world renowned Russian microbiologist says that the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of Wuhan scientists doing “absolutely crazy things” in their laboratory. Dr. Peter Chumakov of the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology and Russian Academy of Sciences claims that while the Wuhan scientists’ goal in creating the coronavirus was not malicious – instead, they were trying to study the pathogenicity of the virus, according to the Daily Mail. “In China, scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over ten years,” he said. “Moreover, they did this, supposedly not with the aim of creating pathogenic variants, but to study their pathogenicity.” “They did absolutely crazy things, in my opinion,” he said, adding ” For example, inserts in the genome, which gave the virus the ability to infect human cells. Now all this has been analyzed.” He told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper: ‘There are several inserts, that is, substitutions of the natural sequence of the genome, which gave it special properties.‘It is interesting that the Chinese and Americans who worked with them published all their works in the open (scientific) press.‘I think that an investigation will nevertheless be initiated, as a result of which new rules will be developed that regulate the work with the genomes of such dangerous viruses..’–Daily MailChumakov suggested that Chinese scientists were possibly searching for an HIV vaccine. The Mail notes that the professor works for Russia’s Federal Research Center for Research and Development of Immunobiological Preparations – while Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, advised against speculation that the virus was manmade.

China Denies US Request For Access To Wuhan Lab Which May Be Source Of Coronavirus Pandemic – China has denied a request by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to grant international inspectors access to labs in order to assess whether dangerous pathogens might be accidentally released, according to Fox News. The request comes amid a US investigation into whether the Wuhan coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they were conducting a host of experiments on bat coronavirus – and had collected bats in a cave over 1,000 miles away in Yunnan which carried COVID-19. “There are multiple labs inside of China that are handling these things,” Pompeo said on Wednesday at the State Department. “It’s important that those materials are being handled in a safe and secure way such that there isn’t accidental release.” “We have to make sure that the Chinese Government is handling those materials in an appropriate way not only in the Wuhan Institute of Virology but elsewhere,” Pompeo added, according to the report. “Any objective person will see that some U.S. politicians have been peddling lies that discredit China’s anti-epidemic efforts to fuddle people’s minds and deflect attention from the fact that they fell short of fulfilling their own anti-epidemic responsibilities,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Thursday in response to Pompeo’s call for inspections at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other Chinese labs studying coronaviruses and other pathogens.

Africa Has a Troubling Shortage of Ventilators, Masks and Soap – The glaring lack of adequate medical resources is becoming increasingly pronounced as developing nations try to prepare for a COVID-19 outbreak. In Africa, for example, there are fewer than 2,000 working ventilators in public hospitals across 41 African countries, the World Health Organization says, compared with more than 170,000 in the U.S., as The New York Times reported.Ten countries in Africa have none at all. Somalia’s Health Ministry has none. The Central African Republic has three. South Sudan has four, which is one fewer than the number of vice presidents it has. Liberia has five. Nigeria, with a population of over 200 million, has fewer than 100, as The Washington Post reported.. The paltry number of ventilators across the continent means that patients who appear at hospitals with the most severe acute respiratory symptoms from the novel coronavirus have little chance of surviving. While the number of ventilators is expected to increase as donations trickle in, few doctors across the continent have had the extensive training necessary to use them. Also, the ventilators usually require an anesthesiologist to intubate patients, or at least supervise the process, but anesthesiologists are scarce in Africa, according to The Washington Post. The shortage of ventilators, training and specialists required to make them functional is only part of the massive shortage in resources that poorer countries face during the global pandemic. Health officials have also warned about a dire shortage of oxygen and masks. Even soap and water are in short supply. According to the United Nations, only 15 percent of sub-Saharan Africans had access to basic hand-washing facilities in 2015. In Liberia, UN numbers showed that in 2017, 97 percent of homes did not have access to soap and clean water, according to The New York Times. “The things that people need are simple things,” said Kalipso Chalkidou, the director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, a research group, as The New York Times reported. “Not high-tech things.” As of Saturday, there were more than 21,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,000 deaths across the continent. The World Health Organization said that the virus appears to be spreading away from Africa’s capital cities. The UN Economic Commission for Africa warned that 300,000 could die and called for a $100 billion safety net for the continent, including halting external debt payments, as the BBC reported.

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