Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 27June 2020

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by news from other countries around the globe.

US totals are rising again due to sharp increases in the sunbelt. We set a record for new cases Thursday and beat that record by 17% on Friday. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.

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Mysterious deaths of infants and others raise questions about how early coronavirus hit California – A cluster of mysterious deaths, some involving infants and children, is under scrutiny amid questions of whether the novel coronavirus lurked in California months before it was first detected. But eight weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide hunt for undetected early COVID-19 deaths, the effort remains hobbled by bureaucracy and testing limits. Among those awaiting answers is Maribeth Cortez, whose adult son, Jeremiah DeLap, died Jan. 7 in Orange County while visiting his parents. He had been healthy, suffering on a Friday from what he thought was food poisoning, and found dead in bed the following Tuesday, drowned by fluid in his lungs. China didn’t announce its first COVID-19 death until four days later. But by DeLap’s Feb. 1 funeral service, frightening stories of a deadly new virus in Wuhan dominated the news. “Everybody that knew him when they were talking to me after this all started would say, ‘Do you think he died from that?’” Cortez said. “And I said, ‘I don’t know.’” She still doesn’t. Preserved samples of DeLap’s lungs are among tissue from more than 40 California deaths waiting for a decision by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on whether to test for COVID-19. Orange County has nine of the cases, as does Los Angeles County. Kern County has identified two respiratory deaths that might suggest COVID-19, both of young women, one of whom died Dec. 21. Interviews and internal documents show medical examiners in Shasta, Sacramento and Santa Clara counties, meanwhile, are scrutinizing the deaths of children and babies, amid growing recognition of COVID-19 infection rates in children who show mysterious inflammatory symptoms.

Influenza-like illness surveillance reveals spike in undetected COVID-19 cases in March – A surge in flu-like infections in the U.S. in March of 2020 suggests that the likely number of COVID-19 cases was far larger than official estimates, according to a new study of existing surveillance networks for influenza-like infections (ILIs). The findings support a scenario where more than 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections appeared in the U.S. during March, and estimate that more than 80% of these cases remained unidentified as the outbreak rapidly spread. Furthermore, the results suggest that surveillance networks for influenza-like disease offer an important tool to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19, which has been hard to pin down. Many scientists suspect that the true rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections is higher than the number of confirmed cases due to the low availability of testing and because some infected individuals show no symptoms or only mild flu-like symptoms. Using an outpatient surveillance system for diseases with symptoms that resemble influenza, Justin Silverman and colleagues determined the prevalence of non-influenza ILIs in the U.S. annually using surveillance data starting from 2010. In March of 2020, they observed a huge spike in ILIs exceeding normal seasonal numbers in various states – New York, for example, showed twice its previous record for ILIs in the fourth week of March. The authors also saw that the dynamics of non-influenza ILIs closely matched patterns of confirmed COVID-19 cases. After calculating that approximately 32% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 sought medical care, Silverman et al. found that at least 8.7 million SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred between March 8 and March 28 in the U.S., with new deaths doubling approximately every 3 days. The team concludes that the initial spread of COVID-19 therefore included a large undiagnosed outpatient population who potentially showed milder symptoms compared with those who were hospitalized.

The coronavirus death rate in the US is almost 50 times higher than that of the flu. See how they compare by age bracket.Though some symptoms of the flu and the coronavirus overlap, comparing the death rates of the two shows just how much worse the coronavirus is. While about 0.1% of people who got the flu died in the US last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the coronavirus’ death rate is currently about 5.2%, based on the reported totals of cases and deaths. That makes the coronavirus’ average death rate 52 times higher than that of the flu. Death rates of both the flu and the coronavirus vary widely between age groups, and both seem to be most fatal among people over 65. The chart below shows how they compare. Globally, coronavirus cases have topped 9.1 million and more than 472,000 people have died. So no, this new disease isn’t “just another flu.” The number of people killed by influenza each year isn’t reported the same way that COVID-19 deaths are – a discrepancy that can cause confusion when comparing the numbers. The CDC estimates the total number of flu infections in the US via its influenza-surveillance system, which gathers data from state and local partners and projects nationwide totals using infectious-disease models. The estimations are meant to account for flu deaths that occur outside hospitals and other circumstances in which a person dies without getting a flu test. For that reason, the totals can lag by up to two years because it takes CDC researchers a while to collect flu data and look through death certificates. During the 2018-19 flu season, about 35 million people in the US contracted the flu and about 34,000 died, according to the CDC. In that season, about one out of every 1,000 people who got the flu died.

CDC adds 3 new coronavirus symptoms to list – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appears to have recently added three new symptoms of the novel coronavirus to its ongoing list. Congestion or runny nose, nausea, and diarrhea were added, joining the federal agency’s list that already included fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell and sore throat. “This list does not include all possible symptoms. CDC will continue to update this list as we learn more about COVID-19,” per the CDC. The new symptoms were quietly added, with one news outlet reporting that the changes were made on May 13. The CDC made a similar change in April when officials added six additional symptoms to the list. At the time, these new changes included chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell. When the pandemic first began, fever, cough, and shortness of breath were reported to be the most common signs of a COVID-19 infection. Symptoms can range from mild to severe, with most people beginning to experience them two to 14 days following exposure to the novel virus, or SARS-CoV-2.

You May Have Antibodies After Coronavirus Infection. But Not for Long. – NYTimes – It’s a question that has haunted scientists since the pandemic began: Does everyone infected with the virus produce antibodies – and if so, how long do they last? Not very long, suggests a new study published Thursday in Nature Medicine. Antibodies – protective proteins made in response to an infection – may last only two to three months, especially in people who never showed symptoms while they were infected.The conclusion does not necessarily mean that these people can be infected a second time, several experts cautioned. Even low levels of powerful neutralizing antibodies may still be protective, as are the immune system’s T cells and B cells. But the results offer a strong note of caution against the idea of “immunity certificates” for people who have recovered from the illness, the authors suggested.Antibodies to other coronaviruses, including those that cause SARS and MERS, are thought to last about a year. Scientists had hoped that antibodies to the new virus might last at least as long.Several studies have now shown that most people who are visibly ill with Covid-19 develop antibodies to the virus, although it has been unclear how long those antibodies last. The new study is the first to characterize the immune response in asymptomatic people.The researchers compared 37 asymptomatic people to an equal number who had symptoms in the Wanzhou District of China. The investigators found that asymptomatic people mount a weaker response to the virus than those who develop symptoms.Antibodies fell to levels below the threshold for a seropositive diagnosis in 40 percent of asymptomatic people, compared with just 13 percent of symptomatic people.The sample size is small, however, and the researchers did not take into account protection offered by immune cells that may fight the virus on their own or make new antibodies when the virus invades. A few studies have shown that the coronavirus stimulates a robust and protective cellular immune response.

Effect of Dexamethasone in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 – Preliminary Report – ABSTRACT Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with diffuse lung damage. Corticosteroids may modulate immune-mediated lung injury and reducing progression to respiratory failure and death. Methods: The Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 therapy (RECOVERY) trial is a randomized, controlled, open-label, adaptive, platform trial comparing a range of possible treatments with usual care in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. We report the preliminary results for the comparison of dexamethasone 6 mg given once daily for up to ten days vs. usual care alone. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality. Results: 2104 patients randomly allocated to receive dexamethasone were compared with 4321 patients concurrently allocated to usual care. Overall, 454 (21.6%) patients allocated dexamethasone and 1065 (24.6%) patients allocated usual care died within 28 days (ageadjusted rate ratio [RR] 0.83; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74 to 0.92; P<0.001). The proportional and absolute mortality rate reductions varied significantly depending on level of respiratory support at randomization (test for trend p<0.001): Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation (29.0% vs. 40.7%, RR 0.65 [95% CI 0.51 to 0.82]; p<0.001), by one-fifth in patients receiving oxygen without invasive mechanical ventilation (21.5% vs. 25.0%, RR 0.80 [95% CI 0.70 to 0.92]; p=0.002), but did not reduce mortality in patients not receiving respiratory support at randomization (17.0% vs. 13.2%, RR 1.22 [95% CI 0.93 to 1.61]; p=0.14). Conclusions: In patients hospitalized with COVID-19, dexamethasone reduced 28-day mortality among those receiving invasive mechanical ventilation or oxygen at randomization, but not among patients not receiving respiratory support.

UV-C Light Kills SARS-CoV-2, Triggering Novel Lighting Options for Public Spaces – UV-C light has been used as a disinfectant against viruses and bacteria for more than 40 years. Now, researchers at Boston University and Signify (formerly Phillips) have confirmed that it also effectively eradicates the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Specifically, a 5mJ/cm2 dose of UV-C light eradicated 99% of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 6 seconds, according to testing by Anthony Griffiths, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology, in Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL). Based on the data, he and his team determined that a 22mJ/cm2 dose of UV-C light will result in a reduction of 99.9999% of the virus in 25 seconds. That translates, at a basic level, to needing a 13W UV-C light bulb to kill viruses in a 10 x 16 foot (15 square meter) room, for an undetermined period of time. UV-C light kills bacteria and viruses using radiation to destroy or inactivate the microbes. Effects depend on the microbe in question, but in some, the light causes thymine bases in the DNA to bond and thereby creating a dimmer. If enough dimmers are created, they can’t multiply. In other microbes, UV-C light splits the bonds that keep DNA intact, forming free radicals and inactivating the organism. As to the degree of inactivation needed to prevent transmission of SARS-/CoV-2, Dr. Griffiths told BioSpace, “We do not know. More studies in the area of transmission need to be performed.”

As Problems Grow With Abbott’s Fast COVID Test, FDA Standards Are Under Fire -In mid-May, the Food and Drug Administration issued a rare public warning about an Abbott Laboratories COVID-19 test that for weeks had received high praise from the White House because of its speed: Test results could be wrong.The agency at that point had received 15 “adverse event reports” about Abbott’s ID NOW rapid COVID test suggesting that infected patients were wrongly told they did not have the coronavirus, which had led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. The warning followed multiple academic studies showing higher “false negative” rates from the Abbott device, including one from New York University researchers who found it missed close to half of the positive samples detected by a rival company’s test.But then, in a move that confounded lab officials and other public health experts, a senior FDA official later that month said coronavirus tests provided outside lab settings would be considered useful in fighting the pandemic even if they miss 1 in 5 positive cases – a worrisome failure rate.The FDA has now received a total of 106 reports of adverse events for the Abbott test, a staggering increase. The agency has not received a single adverse event report for any other point-of-care tests meant to diagnose COVID-19, an agency spokesperson said.In a statement, Abbott Laboratories said the NYU research was “flawed” and “an outlier,” citing studies with higher accuracy rates. Though the Abbott rapid test is one of over 100 COVID-19 diagnostic tests to receive FDA emergency use authorization during the pandemic, President Donald Trump has featured the product in the White House Rose Garden and the Health and Human Services Department’s preparedness and response division has issued more than $205 million worth of contracts to buy the test, according to federal contract records.

“Fast-Tracking” a Coronavirus Vaccine Sounds Great. It’s Not That Simple. Pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine, with the most ambitious timelines ever attempted in history. When announcing Operation Warp Speed, the government’s effort to develop a vaccine, President Donald Trump said in May, “We’re looking to get it by the end of the year if we can, maybe before.” Vaccine development under normal circumstances typically takes about 10 to 15 years. Now, developers are compressing the traditional timeline with both technological innovation and by putting vast amounts of money at risk. But one stage, the phase 3 clinical trial, which is the key to proving a vaccine’s safety and efficacy, is frustratingly hard to predict in terms of its timeline. It’s dependent on the rate of infection in the locations where the study is being conducted, because the goal is to compare how many people get sick in the vaccine arm of the trial versus the placebo arm. If public health measures, like social distancing, are working very well, and there are low rates of transmission, that’s good for the general public, but it could take a long time for enough trial participants to get sick and for the study to come to a conclusion. Note: If you develop emergency warning signs for COVID-19, such as difficulty breathing or bluish lips, get medical attention immediately. The CDC has more information on what to do if you are sick. One potential shortcut to approval, if phase 3 trials are taking too long, is for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize the use of a vaccine based on what’s known as an “immune correlate.” This was suggested by Dr. Philip Dormitzer, Pfizer’s vice president and chief scientific officer for viral vaccines, and Dr. Tal Zaks, chief medical officer of Moderna Therapeutics. The idea here would be to show that vaccinated participants have levels of neutralizing antibodies in their blood that are at least as high as patients naturally infected by the virus, and to greenlight the use of a vaccine based on its anticipated benefit, perhaps limited initially to some high-risk populations. Neutralizing antibodies are a type of antibody that can directly block a virus from infecting cells, but as of now, it’s still unclear if there’s a level of neutralizing antibodies that can guarantee immunity.

Another Study Finds School Children Typically Don’t Spread COVID-19 To Parents – The latest study of how COVID-19 manifests in schoolchildren suggests that children don’t play a major role in spreading the virus, according to a Bloomberg report. Ever since a mysterious inflammatory syndrome first emerged in children infected by SARS-CoV-2, researchers around the world, but especially in the US and Europe (where the syndrome was most widely found), have been working to determine the nature of the connection between this syndrome and the virus. Of course, there’s an important economic factor at play here as well: Before adults can be expected to return to work en masse, provisions must be made for schoolchildren, since childcare is prohibitively expensive for most families. Many colleges across the US have decided to resume classroom-based learning in the fall, even if students will abide by new COVID-19-sensitive social distancing guidelines. And while most expect elementary, middle and high school students to return to the classroom, most states have yet to make a formal decision.Scientists at Institut Pasteur, a massive French research institute named after the scientist who invented the pasteurization process for milk, studied 1,340 people in Crepy-en-Valois, a town northeast of Paris that suffered an outbreak in February and March. The study included 510 students from six primary schools.Among these students, researchers found three students who had contracted the virus. But in each example, it appears the kids didn’t pass the virus on to their parents, or teachers. Scientists at Institut Pasteur studied 1,340 people in Crepy-en-Valois, a town northeast of Paris that suffered an outbreak in February and March, including 510 students from six primary schools. They found three probable cases among kids that didn’t lead to more infections among other pupils or teachers. The study confirms that children appear to show fewer telltale symptoms than adults and be less contagious, providing a justification for school reopenings in countries from Denmark to Switzerland. The researchers found that 61% of the parents of infected kids had the coronavirus, compared with about 7% of parents of healthy ones, suggesting it was the parents who had infected their offspring rather than the other way around.This small study is one of several suggesting that young children do not often spread the coronavirus. Though there has been at least one study showing the opposite.But because of this small number of students studied, scientist believe they must study more schools like this one. So far, though, it appears a staggering 41% of the children who contracted the virus didn’t show any symptoms…

Mapping Covid-19 outbreaks in the food system – A beef plant in Colorado. A pork plant in Iowa. A hamburger plant in Pennsylvania. Since mid-March, outbreaks of Covid-19 have appeared in meatpacking plants across the country, infecting thousands of workers. The coronavirus has also reached workers in processed food facilities, which make frozen dinners, baked goods, and dairy products. And slowly, outbreaks are arriving at farms and ranches. The map below shows the location of meat processing plants, food processing plants, and farms or ranches where cases of Covid-19 and/or deaths from the disease have been reported. Hover over the icons for details on the plants. In some locations, you’ll need to zoom in to see all of the affected plants. According to data collected by FERN, as of June 19 at 12pm ET, at least 333 meatpacking and food processing plants (249 meatpacking and 84 food processing) and 44 farms and production facilities have confirmed cases of Covid-19, and two meat plants are currently closed. At least 32,049 workers (27,138 meatpacking workers, 2,190 food processing workers, and 2,721 farmworkers) have tested positive for Covid-19 and at least 109 workers (99 meatpacking workers, 8 food processing workers, and 2 farmworkers) have died.

Coronavirus spreading among agriculture and seafood workers in the US The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to the agricultural workers throughout the United States. Reports across the country show the virus is spreading rapidly among this critical section of the working class. About half of the 2.5 million farm workers in the US are undocumented immigrants, and a large percentage of the remainder hold temporary work visas. While farm workers are considered essential by the federal government, there have been no national mandates placed on the agricultural businesses to protect them from coronavrius, leaving it to states and individual farm owners’ discretion what, if any, safety measures to take. About a quarter of the migrant workers who travel into the US from Mexico and Central America will continue traveling throughout the summer and fall, following the different crop harvests up both the east and west coasts of the country. As the virus spreads among these workers, there is a serious risk that it will be introduced into more and more communities. Farm operations across the US have already reported widespread infections. Every single employee at one Tennessee farm has tested positive for the virus, about two hundred people altogether. In Yakima County, Washington, home to the nation’s largest tree fruit crop, 500 workers have fallen ill from the virus. There are nearly 1,000 cases in the Immokalee region of southern Florida, a major tomato-growing region. The workforce of the Louisiana seafood industry is made up primarily of immigrant workers, and, in May, three separate crawfish farms were found to have cluster outbreaks, with a total of over one hundred people infected. Immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable to the spread of the virus, above all because of their crowded living conditions. According to Julie Taylor, Executive Director of the National Farm Worker Ministry, physical distancing is nearly impossible for migrant farm workers who live in dormitory, bunk-bed style housing. Taylor explained that labor camps often consist of a series of barracks with two to three bedrooms on the bottom floor and two on the top floor. Each bedroom houses workers in two to three bunk beds. Each day workers are transported from these sparse and cramped living quarters to the farms on buses with sometimes 50 to 60 people per vehicle. Some farms have made the effort to provide masks to workers, however, as Taylor explained, masks present their own set of problems under the difficult working conditions faced by farm workers. For example, in North Carolina, where the tobacco harvest is just beginning, temperatures have already risen above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Within 20 minutes of working in the field, workers’ masks are soaked with sweat and covered in dirt and debris. This makes them very uncomfortable. Another major risk factor for these workers is their limited access to health care, and those who are undocumented have no health insurance at all. Those who have been provided with some form of insurance through the temporary visa program still face challenges accessing care, as they typically live in isolated, rural communities.

12 states show record spikes in coronavirus cases – Since Friday, 12 states have recorded record highs in new coronavirus cases, an ABC News analysis found. Using data from The COVID Tracking Project, the outlet confirmed that Florida, Texas, Arizona, Utah, South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, California, Tennessee, and Oklahoma all showed rising cases as results came in over the weekend.Multiple new developments have been made regarding the spread of the coronavirus throughout some of these states. In Florida, new health data indicated that it saw a staggering newly confirmed 4,049 coronavirus infections as of Saturday. Oklahoma posted a 478 day-over-day increase in new cases, culminating in 10,515 statewide infections as of June 21. President Trump held a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla, on Saturday, which reportedly brought in 6,200 thousand attendees – many indoors, in close quarters and sometimes without masks. On Sunday, Tulsa officials released a statement urging those who have attended “large-scale gatherings” to get tested for COVID-19. “As expected, Oklahoma’s urban areas as well as a few communities around the state are experiencing a rise in active COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due to increased social activity and mobility,” the press release said.In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently said that Texas’s high new case count stems from congregate living facilities, like prisons and nursing homes, and that testing remains strong across the state. Speaking in a press conference with reporters last week, COVID-19 Response Incident Manager Jay Butler notes that rises in cases have multiple culprits.”Sometimes an increase [in cases] is driven by an increase in availability in testing, sometimes it is driven by outbreaks,” Butler said. “And we’ve seen outbreaks in certain educational settings, in long-term care facilities, early on we saw clusters of infections in shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and sometimes there’s an increase in transmission in the community as well.” The same ABC analysis also found that hospitalizations for severe coronavirus cases are rising in 17 states, namely Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Hospitalizations are regarded as a better metric to determine the severity of coronavirus infections. Another burgeoning trend within new cases are infections among younger individuals between the ages of 20 and 30. The most troubling hotspots are in Arizona, California, Florida, North Carolina and Texas. The spikes among young adults are likely because this demographic hold front-line service jobs putting them at risk of infection, and are also more likely to ignore some of the social distancing measures advised by health experts.

WHO: More testing doesn’t explain COVID-19 spikes in US – A top official at the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that a spike in the number of U.S. coronavirus cases is not solely the result of increased testing, a sign the virus is spreading widely in states across the country.Nearly 60,000 new cases were identified in the United States over the weekend, the highest rate since the beginning of May. States like Arizona, Texas, California and Florida have all confirmed thousands of new cases each day for the past week.Some have pointed to an increase in tests, which identify a larger number of asymptomatic and low-symptomatic COVID-19 cases, as the reason for the recent spikes.But most of those states are also seeing an increase in the percentage of tests that come back positive, indicating the virus is spreading quickly. If the virus were stable, the percentage of positive tests would be declining. More than one in five tests are coming back positive in Arizona, according to state data. The positivity rate is north of 10 percent and on the rise in Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. The number of coronavirus victims who have been admitted to the hospital is growing quickly in Arizona, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. In Texas, the number of people hospitalized has jumped 63 percent in the last two weeks. The troubling rise in cases, positivity rates and hospitalizations may force some local governments to consider new lockdown measures to stem transmission. Ryan pointed to countries like South Korea, where local transmission has been snuffed out through robust local responses.”There may be a need to put some restrictions in place in order to suppress infection,” Ryan said. “We’ve seen countries do that at a micro level. Not at a state or a national level, but where needed.”Positivity and hospitalization rates have been falling in other states, especially those that were hit hardest by the virus early in the pandemic. The number of New Yorkers in the hospital has declined by half in the past two weeks, and just 1 percent of the tests conducted in New York are coming back positive.Hospitalizations have fallen by more than half in Connecticut and Wisconsin, and by more than a third in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.Twenty-one states have the capacity to conduct more tests on a daily basis than their target goals, according to standards set by the Rockefeller Foundation’s National Testing Action Plan.The issue of testing was thrust back into the spotlight over the weekend after President Trump said he told staff to “slow the testing down, please.”Trump on Monday refused to say whether he told staff to slow down COVID-19 testing to make it look like the U.S. had fewer cases, while White House officials denied he had ever given such an order. Almost 2.3 million people in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, more than double the number of cases in any other nation and more than the next three most-infected nations — Brazil, Russia and India — combined. Just over 120,000 people in the United States have died, about a quarter of the global death toll.

Younger People Now Driving Spikes in New Coronavirus Cases – The rush to reopen states across the South and the Sun Belt has led to a surge in coronavirus cases. Public health officials are now noticing that people in their 20s and 30s seem to be driving the spikes in the infection rate across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona and other states as CNN reported. Data from Johns Hopkins University finds that at least 23 states are seeing a rise new cases compared to the previous week. Ten of those 23 reported more than a 50 percent spike, including the first states to start reopening.Public health officials have lamented the resistance to social distancing orders in those states. In Mississippi, for example, officials pinpointed a surge in cases due to fraternity rush parties at the University of Mississippi, according to CNN.Officials in South Carolina warned that a rising number of people under 30 were testing positive for coronavirus, with an official at the local department of health saying that the rise shows “younger South Carolinians are not taking social distancing seriously,” according to Forbes. The rise in cases in clusters of young people has also been observed in California, Washington, Colorado, Wisconsin and North Carolina, according to NPR.As Forbes reported, the chief medical officer at Georgia’s largest hospital, Dr. Robert Jansen, told the localpress that he was seeing more patients in their 20s and 30s: “What frightens me is not only that they are younger, the potential of them infecting other people, particularly parents and grandparents.” Texas Governor Gregg Abbot attributed the rise in cases in his state to bar-type settings where young people have congregated since Memorial Day weekend, according to The Hill. “What we’re seeing there is that people of that age group, they’re not following these appropriate best health and safety practices,” Abbott said in an interview this week with KLBK, a McAllen television station, as The Hill reported. “They’re not wearing face masks. They’re not sanitizing their hands. They’re not maintaining the safe distancing practices. And as a result, they are contracting COVID-19 at a record pace in the state of Texas.” In Washington state, where the virus’s arrival in the U.S. was first detected, the number of hospitalizations among older people has continued to fall even as the number of new cases has started to rise, according to NPR. “This creates a reservoir of disease moving around in the population, simmering, if you will,” said Judith Malmgren, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington to NPR. “This can spike to uncontrollable levels in more vulnerable adults very quickly.”

Why It Would Be Hard to Link a Coronavirus Spike to Recent Protests – After months of being cooped up at home to prevent the spread of coronavirus, people have taken to the streets by the thousands over the past few weeks to protest against police killings of Black people and decades of systemic racism. The gatherings have some people worried about a spike in coronavirus infections – but they have also been defended by some public health experts, who argue that racial injustice is itself a major public health threat. The risk of transmitting coronavirus is likely lower outdoors, and many of the protesters have been wearing masks. But some experts note there is still risk – especially given the close interactions between police and protesters, the use of chemicals such as tear gas and pepper spray that irritate the mucous membranes (causing tearing, runny noses and coughing), and the corralling of arrested protesters in crowded vans and jail cells. There is not much evidence that the protests have caused spikes in coronavirus infections so far. And any increase in cases from the protests would be hard to separate from the fact that states are reopening in general, according to Caroline Buckee, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Scientific American spoke with Buckee about the risks posed by protesting, the difficulty of tracing infections back to the protests, and how to stay safe while exercising one’s democratic rights. [An edited transcript of the conversation follows.]

The worst-case scenarios for COVID-19 are still in play – Coronavirus is back in a serious way, although it never really left. Though new cases are still declining in some states, in others they are rising fast – like California, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Florida, and Arizona. In every one of those states positive test rates are eitherincreasing or flat, implying it is not increased testing producing these increases, but increased spread. These latter two states are especially worrisome, given their large population of seniors in retirement communities and nursing homes, where a large portion of deaths have occurred. When the pandemic first struck, I figured – based on our total lack of a serious federal containment effort, and our abysmal health care system – that it would be worse here than any other rich country. That has turned out to be extremely true in terms of total cases and deaths, but not in per-person terms so far; only the New York City area had a really severe outbreak on the scale of Italy’s Lombardy region. But that could very much still happen. Exponential outbreaks are clearly in progress once again in many states, and they could easily spread to others. Judging from the eagerness of many states to ditch their lockdown measures, the continuously AWOL Trump administration, and the blitheness much of the population is showing about containment precautions, it might even be more likely than not. It is still somewhat mysterious why America did not suffer galloping outbreaks in every state. Since the worst one happened in the only American city seriously dependent on public transit, it could be our dispersed and car-dependent cities provided some modest natural protection. The warmer American climate might have helped a little as well. It also appears that outside New York, lockdown measures were largely implemented before outbreaks really got going.

New York Governor Cuomo reopens economy as COVID-19 infection rate rises across US – New York state and, in particular, New York City and its environs have been among the world centers of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 19, the state had seen more than 386,000 confirmed cases and close to 25,000 recorded deaths. New York City alone had experienced over half of the reported fatalities. These numbers are likely undercounts. Due to the imposition of social distancing, stay-at-home orders and other hygienic measures implemented in mid-March, the rate of new infections and deaths has been dramatically reduced. From a peak of over 11,500 reported new cases per day state-wide in mid-April, the rate of new cases had dropped to less than 1,000 on June 6, the culmination of a steady decline during the month of May. Since then, the daily count of new cases has ranged between 916, on June 12, and 618, on June 17. This reduction by two orders of magnitude is testimony to the effectiveness, absent a vaccine, of the “lockdown” in bringing the pandemic under some degree of control and saving thousands of lives. It does not mean, however, that the danger has passed. Rather, the relatively stable rate of new infections indicates that the limit of the effectiveness of the containment measures has been reached. Logically, since no other significant factors have changed since March, maintenance of the lockdown would maximize the probability of the ravages of the disease being kept as low as possible until a vaccine or at least an effective treatment was developed. However, under capitalism, logic, not to mention the well-being of the mass of the population, are minor concerns as compared to the accumulation of profit by the wealthy elite. In New York, the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, has acted in concert with state and municipal officials of both major parties across the country, following the lead of the Trump administration, to “reopen” the economy, a euphemism for forcing workers back to their job sites despite the ever-present danger of a resurgence of infections. As one of the centers of the pandemic, New York’s economy has taken a major hit and the state budget is projected to record a deficit in excess of $10 billion this year alone. The state’s financial and corporate elite is desperate to resume business as usual to renew the accumulation of profit. In early May, the governor announced a “reopening” plan that would gradually lift the restrictions imposed in March to slow the spread of COVID-19. In a recent news conference, Cuomo proclaimed the success of the lockdown measures, calling New York an “anomaly” in relation to other parts of the US. “We have tamed the beast,” he declared..

Louisiana Extends ‘Phase 2’ For Another Month As COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Soar- In what appears to be the first sign of a state delaying, or at the very least elongating, the process of reopening its economy, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards just announced that his state will remain under ‘Phase 2’ for another 28 days, instead of moving into ‘Phase 3’ at the end of the week. JUST IN: @LouisianaGov says Louisiana will NOT move into phase three when the order expires at the end of the week. Instead, we’ll stay in Phase Two for another 28 days @wdsu – Christina Watkins (@CWatkinsWDSU) June 22, 2020 The state reached two grim milestones on Monday: It passed 50k cases, and 3k deaths linked to the virus. The phase two order will now expire on July 28, and has been extended because of a rise in new cases and hospitalizations. “A lot of people say they are done with the virus…but this virus is not done with us,” Bel Edwards said. This is the #COVID19 incidence in Louisiana. High in all but one region, per @AlexBillioux of @LADeptHealth. #lalege #lagov pic.twitter.com/0yLdE7vpAo In other news, 2 more Trump Campaign staffer who were on the advance team that staged the event in Tulsa have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total to 8.

D.C. Is Entering Phase 2 Today, and D.C. Should Wait – Mike the Mad Biologist – Today, D.C. is entering phase 2 of its reopening. The big changes are restaurants can have indoor seating, gyms can reopen with limited attendance, and houses of worship can allow up to 100 people or 50 percent occupancy (whichever is lower). I have a bad feeling about this. While most of the numbers for D.C. are trending in the right direction, with the exception of daily deaths which is holding constant and seems kind of important(though it’s a lagging indicator), they simply aren’t low enough in absolute terms. That is, there are still too many infected people. To put this in context, D.C. has roughly the same number of new cases per day as does South Korea, which has 71 times the population. D.C. needs to get down to single digits in terms of new cases per day. If we use the number of people who have tested positive over the last two weeks as an approximate count of the number of people who potentially could transmit an infection to the general population*, we realize that the church gathering of 100 people or the restaurant with fifty is not risk-free at all. If we look at the period between June 4 and June 17, here’s the frequency of infected people for D.C. as a whole and by ward: […] But these seem low? Well, in Ward 4, there’s a fourteen percent chance that a church gathering of 100 people has one or more infected people; even in Ward 2, that gathering has a three percent chance of having one or more infected people. Using the D.C. average, that 100 person gathering will have one or more infected people five percent of the time. Now, that is not a transmission rate, just the probability of one or more infected people. Hopefully, people are wearing masks and spacing, though wearing masks in a restaurant seems unlikely, at least while eating. If we could knock down the number of infected people ten-fold, then even in the most affected ward, that 100 person gathering will have one or more infected people less than two percent of the time, down from fourteen percent; in Ward 2, the probability drops to 0.3%. That’s what we need for safety – less than ten new cases per day. That also means, if there is a rebound, it will be easier to tamp it down again; we also get more time to do so. Critically, that’s how we allow people to return to some sense of normalcy their lives. When group activities are safe enough that we can reliably survive our own stupidity (and no one, not even professionals, is perfect about adherence), that’s when it’s time to relax. Right now, D.C. is close, but not close enough.

US passes 120,000 virus deaths: Johns Hopkins – The United States on Monday passed the grim benchmark of 120,000 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak when it added another 425 fatalities in 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tally showed. The world’s largest economy is the hardest-hit country by the pandemic, with more than 2.31 million official cases — out of which about 640,000 people have fully recovered, according to the Baltimore-based institution at 8:30pm (0030 GMT Tuesday). The previous day’s toll of 305 deaths in 24 hours was one of the lowest in months, but numbers have tended to be lower during the weekend and just after, depending on the feedback from local health authorities. Many states have largely lifted lockdown measures, and New York — the country’s epicenter for the pandemic — took a big step Monday by allowing non-essential businesses to reopen. But some 20 states, primarily in the south and west, have seen a rebound in infections. Among them, Florida passed 100,000 cases, of which nearly 3,000 were diagnosed on Monday alone, according to local health officials. President Donald Trump said Monday that the virus death toll in the US could surpass 150,000, though he insisted that two to four million lives would have been lost if the country had not taken steps to slow the spread of the disease.

California Smashes Daily New Cases Record For Second Day In A Row- Live Updates – For the second day in a row, California has shattered a daily record for new cases, reporting more than 6,600 infections on Tuesday, after reporting more than 6k on Monday, leaving the state with its second consecutive record for the largest single-day count since the outbreak began. Florida has reported another increase in daily new cases. The Florida Department of Health reported that there are 5,511 new coronavirus cases in Florida today. The previous record was 4,049, set this past Saturday. It also saw new hospitalizations climb by 256, the highest in a month and second-biggest on record. The biggest was 265 on May 21. The latest numbers from the Florida Department of Health show that there have been 109,014 cases of COVID-19 statewide, resulting in 3,281 deaths. The state’s positivity rate, meanwhile, has climbed to 15.9% of all tests up from 10.8%.On the bright side, the state reported just 44 deaths, a sign that deaths in the sun belt states seeing a surge in cases haven’t been rising nearly as fast as the total cases. Despite this, a 17-year-old Florida resident became the state’s youngest coronavirus-related death, according to state health data reported today. Workers at Disney World in Orlando, which is set to reopen next month, have gathered to sign a petition asking the company to delay its reopening. Most alarmingly, the US is on track to seeing the average number of new infections reported daily eclipse the highs from the “peak” of the outbreak back in April, when New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut saw the number of patients hospitalized and in the ICU hit their peaks. While deaths have lagged amid evidence that the rising case counts in the US are being driven primarily by young people acting irresponsibly, in roughly a week, the US will eclipse the 50k cases per day mark, at which point a surge in deaths and more severe cases will be virtually inevitable. At this point, the alarming surge in new cases seen along the sunbelt states from Florida to Arizona on to California is clearly being driven by loosening restrictions on the economy, as states that waited the longest to close down have also been among the first to reopen. At first, it looked like this strategy had been vindicated as Georgia appeared to have dodged the feared second wave. But the state has since seen its daily case counts move back into record territory: Arizona, California, Texas and Mississippi all reported record increases in new cases yesterday, along with other states. A staggering 27 states are now seeing cases increase, according to the NY Times.

Coronavirus dashboard for June 22: a pandemic newly focused on the young appears to be changing the dynamics – Confirmed US coronavirus infections: 2,280,969. Confirmed US coronavirus deaths: 119,977. The 7 day average of new infections in the US has risen 30% from its low of 20,357 on June 9 to 26,546 yesterday: On a per capita basis, US infections are now roughly 4x those in Europe: Curiously, the 7 day average of deaths has continued to decline, to 605 as of yesterday: On a per capita basis, US deaths from coronavirus are only 2x those in Europe: Within the US, the per capita rate of infections has continued to fall in the Northeast megalopolis, risen slightly in the Midwest, but is rising at what may be exponential rates in the South and West: The poster child for confirmed new exponential spread remains Arizona, which now has a rate of new infections 2/3’s that of NY at its peak, and is likely to match that within a week: The remaining “top 10″ for new infections per capita are all from the Confederacy, plus Utah – and they are also all rising, in the 100 to 160 new cases per million per day range. When it comes to deaths, however, the “top 10″ are almost all from the Northeast megalopolis, led by Massachusetts, but they are in serious decline: Only Arizona from the new outbreaks has risen into the “top 10″ for deaths. The continued decline in new deaths may just be a lag in the data, but there are several other possibilities as well: – better hospital treatment – shutting down nursing home spread (since nursing homes were responsible for over 1/3 of all deaths in the first several months of the pandemic. Perhaps most significantly, the paradox may be explained by the average *age* of those newly infected. The evidence is, it has dropped precipitously. Unfortunately, I failed to copy the graph I saw of the total US statistic for that measure, but here is an age-breakdown for US testing and % positive: Those in age group 18-49 years saw a much bigger increase in tests administered, and less of a decline in the % positive – meaning a higher rate of diagnosed infections in that age group. Here is the age breakdown for Mississippi: And here is a chart of the age breakdown for Maricopa County, Arizona: Officials in states across the South and Southwest are reporting that an increasing share of coronavirus cases are among the young. It appears that the de facto US policy is to allow the virus to run through the younger population, while the older part of the population voluntarily continues to self-quarantine. Even with a low fatality rate like 0.2% among the younger demographic, that would translate into roughly 300,000 deaths among that group alone. My take has been that the US simply lacks the political and social will to take the necessary steps to effectively contain the virus. Arizona is going to be the canary in the coal mine for whether States with Trumpist governors and GOP legislatures will ever be scared into action, and we should get that answer within the next 2 weeks

Texas Governor Says ‘Massive’ Virus Outbreak Sweeping the State — Texas is experiencing a “massive outbreak” as Covid-19 cases multiply, Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday as hospital systems in the state’s biggest cities strained to handle the influx of patients.Texas posted its worst day so far for new cases, with a jump of 5,551 to 125,921, according to the state health department. The 4.6% one-day rise exceeded the 3.7% seven-day average. Hospitalizations climbed by 7.3% to 4,389.“Our infrastructure is overwhelmed,” David Persse, Houston’s director of emergency medical services, said during a media briefing on Wednesday. Earlier, Houston-area hospitals predicted they may exceed intensive-care capacity as soon as Thursday. Such an overflow will force hospitals to tap so-called surge capacity as patient numbers grow, according to Texas Medical Center data. At current rates of infection, sustainable surge capacity would be exhausted in another 10 days.“There is a massive outbreak of COVID-19 across the state of Texas,” Abbott, who was among the most aggressive governors on re-opening, said during an interview with KFDA TV.“The numbers are moving in the wrong direction,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said during a media briefing.Houston police and fire departments will step up monitoring of taverns and clubs to ensure compliance with occupancy limits and mask requirements.“We want to really crack down on people who are not adhering to the rules,” Turner said. “We want to create a board of shame for those who are violating the rules.”

Record spikes in U.S. coronavirus cases push up hospitalization rates in 16 states The U.S. reported more than 34,400 coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data, after health officials in California, Florida and Texas all reported record-high single-day spikes.As of Wednesday, the nation’s seven-day average of daily new Covid-19 cases was 31,172. This number has increased more than 34% compared with a week ago, according to the analysis of Johns Hopkins data. Cases are growing by 5% or more in 31 states across the U.S., including Arizona, Florida, Texas and California. Twelve states hit record highs in daily new cases on Wednesday based on their seven-day average, the analysis found. They include Arizona, Arkansas, California and Florida. Arizona also hit a record high in average daily new deaths with a seven-day average of nearly 31 new lives lost. Coronavirus hospitalizations, like new cases and deaths, are an important measure of the outbreak as it helps health officials gauge how severe it may be. Hospitalizations from Covid-19 are also rising in 16 states as of Wednesday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. Some states are hitting new highs every week as the number of cases continues to rise at an alarming rate. While some of these surges can be attributed to increases in testing, hospitalizations from Covid-19 have also grown substantially. The California Department of Public Health reported its second straight record jump in coronavirus cases on Wednesday, adding 7,149 new cases. The previous highest spike in daily new cases was 5,019, reported on Tuesday by the state’s department of health. As of June 24, the state is seeing a seven-day average of nearly 4,732 daily new cases, according to Johns Hopkins data. This number has increased by more than 43% compared with a week ago. About 4,814 people are hospitalized in California based on a seven-day moving average, which is almost a 9% increase compared with a week ago, according to Covid Tracking Project data.

US Sets New Record For Largest Daily Jump In COVID-19 Cases As 39k Infected- Live Updates – Several early indicators of the number of cases being recorded on Wednesday (typically numbers are reported with a 24 hour delay) suggest that with the new daily records in florida, texas, california, oklahoma etc, we might see the total confirmed number of cases surpass the previous record set in mid-April. According to the COVID Tracking Project, the US just recorded its largest one-day increase in coronavirus cases, as seven states, mainly in the south and west, reported new record increases over the last 24 hours (remember all of these data are reported with a one-day lag, and not every state has finished reporting all of its daily numbers), with the nationwide tally rising by 38,672, according to the Covid Tracking Project.The real news today is that the U.S. set a record for new cases today: 38,672.The previous record was April 25 at 36,001. pic.twitter.com/pcFcLUeeKk – The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 24, 2020 Already, the US is seeing the percentage of tests coming back positive at 7.7%, the highest number since May 10, which doesn’t put us back to the worst days of the outbreak in New York and the surrounding area, but is definitely still pretty alarming. The coronavirus tracking project housed at the Atlantic also noted that the picture, as far as new cases are concerned (the increase in deaths has been more muted), is pretty startling, with the uptick in cases starting in the south late last month, just as many governors were celebrating a premature victory over the holiday weekend. According to BBG, Texas Gov Greg Abbott warned Wednesday that the massive outbreak was making things extremely precarious in the state, although another round of lockdowns wouldn’t be necessary. As we said earlier, Texas just saw its worst day so far for new cases, with a jump of 5,551 to 125,921. The 4.6% one-day rise exceeded the 3.7% seven-day average. Hospitalizations climbed by 7.3% to 4,389.Health officials warned that the state is on track to fill normal COVID capacity by the end of the week, and would then need to bring on line overflow capacity, which would only last for 11 days, assuming hospitalizations continue to climb at the current levels.”Our infrastructure is overwhelmed,” said David Persse, Houston’s director of emergency medical services, during a Wednesday briefing.

New York, New Jersey & Connecticut Orders Visitors To Quarantine For 2 Weeks The tables have turned…Recalling the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey are ordering all visitors to their states, which have only recently gotten over the worst of the viral outbreak, to quarantine for two weeks first. Notably, states like Florida imposed restrictions on travel from the northeast during the early days when NYC was the undisputed national epicenter of the outbreak. Gov Cuomo once threatened to sue Rhode Island after the state’s governor asked state troopers to stop drivers with out of state license plates to see if they were violating quarantine rules.Cuomo holding joint briefing with NJ Gov Phil Murphy, CT Gov Ned Lamont #COVID19 https://t.co/eaAlf1T8YS Cuomo: We’re (NY, NJ, CT) announcing today a joint travel advisory – people coming in from states that have a high infection rate must quarantine for 14 days, and we have a calibration for the infection rate. #COVID19 – Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) June 24, 2020 Per WaPo: “The governors of the tri-state area jointly announced the travel advisory, which requires a 14-day quarantine for visitors from states whose infection rates meet certain thresholds indicating “significant community spread,” according to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). Nine states currently meeting that threshold, Cuomo said: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas.”

June 23 COVID-19 Test Results, Highest Percent Positive since Mid-May — I started posting this graph when the US was doing a few thousand tests per day. Clearly the US was way under testing early in the pandemic. I’ll continue posting this graph daily at least until the percent positive is continuously under 3% and the daily positive is significantly lower than today.The US is now conducting over 500,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.According to Dr. Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day .There were 511,484 test results reported over the last 24 hours. There were 32,984 positive tests. This is the most positive tests since May 1st. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 6.4% (red line). For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

Coronavirus: US has ‘serious problem’, says Fauci – BBC. US infectious disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci says the nation has a “serious problem” as 16 states reel from a spike in Covid-19 cases. At the first White House task force briefing in two months, Dr Fauci said: “The only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together.” As health experts said more must be done to slow the spread, Vice-President Mike Pence praised US “progress”. More than 40,000 new cases were recorded across the US on Friday The total of 40,173, given by Johns Hopkins University, was the highest daily total so far, exceeding the record set only the previous day. There are over 2.4 million confirmed infections and more than 125,000 deaths nationwide – more than any other country. During Friday’s briefing, the White House task force also urged millennials to get tested, even if they are asymptomatic. Mr Pence said the president requested the task force address the American people amid surges in infections and hospital admissions across southern and western states. In Texas, Florida and Arizona, reopening plans have been paused due to the spike. While some of the increase in daily cases recorded can be attributed to expanded testing, the rate of positive tests in some areas is also increasing. Health officials in the US estimate the true number of cases is likely to be 10 times higher than the reported figure. Dr Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator, thanked younger Americans for heeding official guidance on testing. “Whereas before we told them to stay home, now we are telling them to get tested.” She noted this “great change” in testing guidance would allow officials to find “the asymptomatic and mild diseases that we couldn’t find before”.

June 24 COVID-19 Test Results, Highest Daily Positive Cases Ever The US is now conducting over 500,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly. According to Dr. Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day .There were 502,290 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 38,672 positive tests. This is the most positive tests ever. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 7.7% (red line). This is the highest percent positive since early May. For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

Texas, at center of new U.S. coronavirus surge, pauses reopening – (Reuters) – The governor of Texas temporarily halted the state’s reopening on Thursday as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations surged in the state and new daily cases around the country climbed to a near-record high. Texas, which has been at the forefront of efforts to reopen devastated economies shut down in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, has seen one of the biggest jumps in new cases, reporting over 6,000 in a single day on Monday. “This temporary pause will help our state corral the spread until we can safely enter the next phase of opening our state for business,” Governor Greg Abbott, a two-term Republican, said in a statement. Texas has also set record hospitalizations for 13 days in a row. Abbott has suspended elective surgeries in the Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio areas to free up hospital bed space. Texas’ rising numbers are part of a nationwide resurgence in states that were spared the brunt of the initial outbreak or moved early to lift restrictions on residents and businesses. Also reporting record rises in cases this week were Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming.

Gov. Greg Abbott orders Texas bars to close again and restaurants to reduce to 50% occupancy as coronavirus spreads Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday took his most drastic action yet to respond to the post-reopening coronavirus surge in Texas, shutting bars back down and scaling back restaurant capacity to 50%.He also shut down river-rafting trips, which have been blamed for a swift rise in cases in Hays County, and banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless local officials approve.“At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” Abbott said in a news release. “The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health.”Bars must close at noon Friday, and the reduction in restaurant capacity takes effect Monday. Before Abbott’s announcement Friday, bars were able to operate at 50% capacity and restaurants at 75% capacity. As for outdoor gatherings, Abbott’s decision Friday represents his second adjustment in that category this week. Abbott on Tuesday gave local governments the choice to place restrictions on outdoor gatherings of over 100 people after previously setting the threshold at over 500 people. Now outdoor gatherings of over 100 people are prohibited unless local officials explicitly approve of them. State officials have noted that case numbers in Texas began to increase around Memorial Day weekend, and have expressed worry about big public gatherings for Fourth of July. Abbott’s actions Friday were his first significant moves to reverse the reopening process that he has led since late April. He said Monday that shutting down the state again is a last resort, but the situation has been worsening quickly.

The Coronavirus Surge in Florida, Arizona, Texas Isn’t the Same as New York’s Crisis – The virus that ravaged Northeastern U.S. cities is surging through Southern and Western states. It’s different this time. Younger people are getting sick with Covid-19. States that had brief coronavirus lockdownsare struggling to encourage social distancing and mask-wearing. Many people appear to have embraced their usual summer rituals. Health officials are sounding alarms about a surge in cases racing not through nursing homes, but bars and house parties. Hospitals are fillingwith medically-vulnerable elderly – but also 20-somethings and patients in their 30s and 40s. Some took the end of stay-home orders as permission to live their lives again, unimpeded. Phoenix entrepreneur Jimmy Flores, 30, spent the night of June 6 at a nightclub with friends, sharing drinks. Two days later, he felt sick. The next week, he was on a hospital oxygen tube after testing positive for Covid-19. “I’m a young, active, healthy person with no previous conditions,” he said. “I didn’t take it seriously for myself. I was not practicing the social-distancing guidelines. I didn’t wear a mask. I thought I was invincible.” Mr. Flores said he went from not knowing anyone with Covid-19 to knowing 15 victims. After eight days’ hospitalization, he is recovering at home. The U.S. has confirmed more than 2.4 million Covid-19 cases, and more than 124,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data as of Friday morning. New cases have climbed to more than 30,000 a day – back to their April peak – after dropping to around 20,000 a day in May. Nearly 40,000 new cases were reported on Thursday, a record; Florida, Texas, California and Arizona accounted for nearly half of the new cases. While states in the Northeast have flattened the Covid-19 curve, states in the West and South are seeing a surge of new infections. But younger people in Texas and Arizona are taking hospital beds and straining the health-care system, he said. “These hot spots that we see, I don’t minimize them. They’re significant,” he said. Arizona’s Covid-19 hospitalizations since it reopened May 15 have grown from 789 to 2,110, according to state data Thursday. Nine of 10 hospital ICU beds were full this week, state data show.In Texas, nearly 6,000 tested positive for Covid-19 Thursday, versus just over 600 new diagnoses on Memorial Day, state data show; hospitalizations rose to more than 4,700 from just over 1,500 in that period.

Florida Governor Scoffs at Fresh Virus Tactics: ‘Like What?’ – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dismissed the need for major changes in his Covid-19 strategy after the state reported a record number of new cases Friday.Asked by an NBC reporter why he isn’t implementing new measures to combat the virus, DeSantis responded: “Like what?”He went on to point out that the state had already banned on-premises bar drinking earlier on Friday, as Texas has also done, and that he had taken measures to secure nursing homes. But DeSantis, a Republican who has mimicked President Donald Trump’s unconcern about the pandemic, showed no sign he was willing to reverse the state’s reopening seven weeks after it began. He said a growing number of young people contracting the disease was an optimistic sign. “An individual case to me — I’ve said from the beginning — is not the most important thing to look at,” DeSantis said Friday from Fort Myers. “Because as you see the cases shift younger, that’s not going to be as significant clinically as if you have nursing home outbreaks or outbreaks among elderly who are going to be more vulnerable.” Florida reported 122,960 Covid-19 cases on Friday, up a record 8,942 cases. Hospitalizations are also climbing, although DeSantis says the state continues to have ample capacity to meet patients’ needs. Florida hasn’t suspended elective surgeries, as Texas has in its largest cities, which frees hospital beds. DeSantis said Friday’s numbers showed a continuation of the trend from the rest of the week. Indeed, the Friday report — based on Thursday data — showed the highest number of total tests in at least four weeks. A month ago, DeSantis was regularly boasting about how Florida, with one of the nation’s largest 65-and-over populations, had avoided dire Covid-19 predictions. He was also lambasting reporters. “You’ve got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York,” he said on a trip to Orlando on May 20 with Vice President Mike Pence. “We’ve succeeded, and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative, it challenges their assumptions, so they’ve got to try to find a bogeyman. Maybe it’s that there are black helicopters circling the Department of Health.”

Florida Fudges COVID Numbers Downward as Infections Surge Up — President Donald Trump’s weekend claim that he told officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing across the U.S. in order to avoid higher case totals led to a furious round of backpedaling by members of his staff, who said Trump was “obviously kidding” and that his words marked “a light moment for him” at a rally in Tulsa, Okla.But as recent developments in Florida make clear, there is more than one way to suppress the kinds of numbers that reveal the virus’s true human cost – even as those numbers rise dramatically in states that have pushed aggressive reopening strategies. At the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida late last week changed its guidelines for how hospitals count the patients in their intensive care units. Specifically, Scott Rivkees, the state’s surgeon general and secretary of the Department of Health, told hospital providers to stop reporting the number of adults who occupy ICU beds. Instead, Rivkees said, the hospitals were to report only those patients within the ICU who required what he called “intensive-level care.”Rivkees’ logic was that many hospitals had located COVID-19 wards within ICUs, and therefore were reporting all the virus patients there as ICU patients. Although there is no evidence to suggest any of those patients shouldn’t be there, hospital administrators now apparently need to identify who among them is not actually receiving intensive care.The policy change comes as Florida has experienced an explosion of new virus cases, weeks after DeSantis declared an aggressive reopening, and as several counties reported they were running low on ICU bed space. As of Tuesday, less than a quarter of the adult ICU beds across the state were available.DeSantis last week doubled down on his reopening strategy – even as health experts warnedthat Florida was poised to become “the next large epicenter of coronavirus transmission.” Its recent surge in positive test results pushed Florida’s COVID-19 number above 100,000 on Monday.“We’re not shutting down. We’re going to go forward…We’re not rolling back,” DeSantis saidon Tuesday. “You have to have society function.” The governor, a Trump ally who successfully pushed for Jacksonville to host the Republican National Convention after North Carolina officials expressed concern over health safety and a likely lack of physical distancing, initially blamed Florida’s spike in positive cases on a rise in testing. Under heavy criticism, he conceded over the weekend that more testing alone did not explain Florida’s wild spike in the numbers. But his position on reopening did not change.

The US sees a record number of new coronavirus cases in a single day – CNN – The United States saw a record number of new coronavirus cases in a single day with 37,077 reported Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University. Coronavirus has infected more than 2.4 million people and killed over 124,000 in the United States.Thursday’s total eclipses the previous high on April 24, when 36,291 new coronavirus cases were reported across the country.Meanwhile, as coronavirus numbers skyrocket, some states are holding back on easing restrictions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott paused any further phases to reopen the state on Thursday and issued an order to ensure hospital beds be available for Covid-19 patients.Abbott’s moves came as his state, California and Florida — the three-most populous — set records for new coronavirus cases daily amid fears of “apocalyptic” surges in major Texas citiesif the trend continues. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also indicated that his state would not be moving to relax present restrictions.California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a budget emergency to free up $16 billion to fight the pandemic, according to a release from his office.The state could pause further reopening of its economy — and even “toggle back” — if health officials continue to see increases in infections and hospitalizations, Newsom suggested at a press conference Thursday.And the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the US has only counted about 10% of coronavirus infections. That might mean as many as 20 million Americans have been infected.Officially, coronavirus has killed at least 122,481 people and infected more than 2.4 million nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus may have infected 10 times more Americans than reported, CDC says – (Reuters) – Government experts believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts, indicating many people without symptoms have or have had the disease, senior administration officials said. The estimate, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is based on serology testing used to determine the presence of antibodies that show whether an individual has had the disease, the officials said. The officials, speaking to a small group of reporters on Wednesday night, said the estimate was based on the number of known cases, between 2.3 million and 2.4 million, multiplied by the average rate of antibodies seen from the serology tests, about an average of 10 to 1. “If you multiply the cases by that ratio, that’s where you get that 20 million figure,” said one official. If true, the estimate would suggest the percentage of U.S. deaths from the disease is lower than thought. More than 120,000 Americans have died from the disease since the pandemic erupted earlier this year. The estimate comes as government officials note that many new cases are showing up in young people who do not exhibit symptoms and may not know they have it.

We Will Be Living With the Coronavirus Pandemic Well Into 2021 -The virus is winning. That much is certain more than six months into a shape-shifting pandemic that’s killed more than 454,000 people worldwide, is gaining ground globally and has disrupted lives from Wuhan to Sao Paulo. While promising, fast-moving vaccine projects are underway in China, Europe and the U.S., only the most optimistic expect an effective shot to be ready for global distribution this year.If, as most experts believe, an effective vaccine won’t be ready until well into 2021, we’ll all be co-existing with the coronavirus for the next year or longer without a magic bullet. And this next phase of the crisis may require us to reset our expectations and awareness and change our behavior, according to public-health professionals.In their view, success isn’t defined as returning to life as it was in 2019. Rather, it’s about buying time and summoning the staying power and policy flexibility to limit the destructive capacity of an expanding pandemic, which may result in global deaths of more than one million according to one estimate, until there are medical tools to effectively treat and immunize against the virus. “People are fatigued. They mistakenly feel that things were going away,” said Cameron Wolfe, an infectious-disease doctor and associate professor of medicine at Duke University. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to live with this.” Complicating matters, the perceived threat varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, let alone country to country. Much depends on the severity of local outbreaks and the effectiveness of testing, contact tracing, social distancing, hospital systems and public-health messaging that is free of political shading.

Coronavirus testing indicates transmission risk increases along wildlife supply chains for human consumption in Viet Nam (preprint) bioRxiv. From the abstract: “Our analysis also suggested either mixing of 68 animal excreta in the environment or interspecies transmission of coronaviruses, as both bat and 69 avian coronaviruses were detected in rodent feces in the trade. The mixing of multiple 70 coronaviruses, and their apparent amplification along the wildlife supply chain into restaurants, 71 suggests maximal risk for end consumers and likely underpins the mechanisms of zoonotic spillover to people.” Also bat guano (used as fertilizer).

WHO Warns Mink Have Spread Virus To Humans “In Limited Cases” –Following warnings that first surfaced late last week, he WHO warned on Monday that a limited number of human coronavirus infections have been traced back to direct infection from minks, the small rodent-like mammals that are prized for their fur. Though the virus’s primary means of transmission is human to human, Dr. Tedros confirmed that there have been cases of minks spreading the virus to humans in the Netherlands.Since mid-April, the mink on fur farms across Denmark and the Netherlands have started getting sick, with symptoms ranging from runny noses to potentially fatal respiratory distress. Veterinarians soon concluded that the mink had caught the virus from their human handlers.Nearly half a million mink have since been culled from more than a dozen fur farms in the Netherlands.What PETA and other animal rights groups have denounced as “brutality” are intended to eliminate the possibility that the mink could become a reservoir for the virus that causes COVID-19, complicating efforts to eradicate the virus. Researchers at a university in London have warned that surveillance on pets should begin since we already know dogs and cats can carry the virus.Though the chances probably aren’t huge, it’s technically possible that pets could become meat shields for the virus.“We need to develop surveillance strategies to ensure we don’t get taken by surprise by a large outbreak in animals, which could pose a threat not just to animal health but to human health as well,” co-author Joanne Santini, a professor of structural and molecular biology, said in a statement. For all we know, animals could one day play a critical role in helping to spread the virus, even if humans are overwhelmingly driving its spread. The Netherlands has undertaken among the broadest efforts to understand how a zoonotic virus that originated in animals before hopping to humans may now be spreading back to animals.

Antibody levels in recovered COVID-19 patients decline quickly: Research – Levels of an antibody found in recovered COVID-19 patients fell sharply in 2-3 months after infection for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, according to a Chinese study, raising questions about the length of any immunity against the novel coronavirus. The research, published in Nature Medicine on June 18, highlights the risks of using COVID-19 ‘immunity passports’ and supports the prolonged use of public health interventions such as social distancing and isolating high-risk groups, researchers said. Health authorities in some countries such as Germany are debating the ethics and practicalities of allowing people who test positive for antibodies to move more freely than others who don’t. The research, which studied 37 symptomatic patients and 37 asymptomatic patients, found that of those who tested positive for the presence of the IgG antibody, one of the main types of antibodies induced after infection, over 90% showed sharp declines in 2-3 months. The median percentage decrease was more than 70% for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. For neutralizing serum antibodies, the median percentage of decrease for symptomatic individuals was 11.7%, while for asymptomatic individuals it was 8.3%. The study was conducted by researchers at Chongqing Medical University, a branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutes.

Coronavirus cases surge in U.S., Brazil and rise in Germany – A surge in coronavirus cases in the U.S. and Brazil, and further outbreaks in Germany – where the reproduction rate of the disease has risen substantially – are concerning global health experts, but international financial markets don’t seem too worried.The largest single-day increase in global coronavirus cases was recorded on Sunday, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), after more than 183,000 new cases were reported worldwide.Brazil, with nearly 55,000 new infections, saw the largest number of cases reported, followed by the U.S., with more than 36,000 new cases reported Sunday. India, meanwhile, saw more than 15,000 new infections, the WHO said.It should be noted that increases in the numbers of coronavirus cases could be down to increased and more widespread testing, and also anomalies in data collection. Brazil’s large spike in cases on Sunday, for instance, was in part due to a lag in reporting from three states (Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo) compounding data from two days, WHO noted.Nonetheless, the surge in cases does not appear to be a one off. In the U.S., more than 30,000 new coronavirus cases were reported on both Friday and Saturday, with infections rising in states across the South, West and Midwest.Still, global markets don’t seem too perturbed by the uptick in coronavirus cases; U.S. stock futures rose early Monday morning following a solid weekly performance on Wall Street, while in Asia, shares were mixed Monday.European markets opened lower but pared early losses to trade 0.2% higher.The total number of global confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak is now nearing 9 million and the death toll is close to half a million, with 468,331 reported deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.Even Germany, a country which has been heralded as a poster-child for its coronavirus strategy, saw its reproduction rate jump to 2.88 on Sunday.The closely-watched “R” rate refers to the number of people that an infected individual goes on to infect, on average. Germany’s current R rate means that 100 people infected with the virus would, on average, go on to infect 288 people. Experts want to keep the reproduction number, or R rate, under one to slow the spread.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro ordered to wear mask in public – A judge in Brazil has ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a protective mask when he is in public spaces in the capital, Brasilia, and the surrounding federal district. The far-right president has been criticised for belittling the risk posed by coronavirus. He dismissed it as “a little cold” at the start of the pandemic. Brazil has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases and Covid-related fatalities in the world after the US. There are more than 1.1m confirmed cases of coronavirus in Brazil and more than 51,000 coronavirus-related deaths have been recorded, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Despite these high figures, President Bolsonaro has repeatedly appeared in public without a mask while greeting his supporters. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (C) leaves the Palacio do Alvorada, headquarters of the Presidency, in Brasilia, Brazil, 15 June 2020. At one rally, he was filmed coughing without covering his mouth and on another occasion he was seen sneezing into his hand and shaking the hand of an elderly woman immediately afterwards. The requirement to wear masks in the federal district came into force on 30 April. The rule was brought in by the governor of the federal district, Ibaneis Rocha, and requires people to cover their nose and mouth in all public spaces, including public transport, shops and commercial and industrial premises. On 11 May, the rule was further tightened with those flaunting it facing fines of 2,000 reais ($387; £310) per day. Federal Judge Renato Borelli’s ruling means Mr Bolsonaro is not exempt and that the president and any other public officials who do not comply with the requirement will also incur the 2,000-reais fine. President Bolsonaro has argued from the start of the pandemic that measures taken to curb the spread of the virus could be more damaging than the pandemic itself. On Monday, he renewed his call for the easing of lockdown measures and the reopening of shops and businesses. He said that the way the pandemic had been handled had “maybe been a bit over the top”.

Global COVID-19 total quickly tops 9 million — Fueled by surges in countries with large populations such as Brazil, the United States, and India, the global COVID-19 total jumped to 9 million cases today, as the world registered its highest 1-day total of 183,000 cases.It only took 6 days for the pandemic total to rise from 8 million to 9 million cases, 2 days less than it took for the number to rise from 7 million to 8 million. The total now stands at 9,015,582, and 469,378 people have died from their infections, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. At a World Health Organization (WHO) media briefing, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said while some countries are seeing a rapid rise in cases and deaths, others that successfully suppressed transmission are seeing an upswing in cases as they reopen their economies and unwind restrictions.”All countries are facing a delicate balance, between protecting their people, while minimizing the social and economic damage,” he said. “It’s not a choice between lives and livelihoods. Countries can do both.”Tedros urged countries to get creative with keeping people safe as they get on with their lives, but with a foundation of the public health measures that work, including finding and testing cases, isolating and caring for people who are sick, tracing contacts, and protecting healthcare workers. He also called on individuals to do their part by maintaining physical distance, washing their hands, and wearing masks where appropriate. With no let-up in pandemic activity, Tedros said the WHO has fielded requests from 48 countries for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other supplies worth $92 million, and is in the process of shipping 140 million pieces of PPE to 135 countries, along with 14,000 oxygen concentrators and millions of tests.

Virus numbers surge globally as many nations ease lockdowns (AP) – Renewed lockdown measures in a German region where hundreds of coronavirus cases sprung up at a slaughterhouse and news that the world’s top-ranked tennis player has also been infected provided a stark reminder to Europeans on Tuesday that the pandemic is far from gone. Meanwhile, Britain, which has recorded the most coronavirus-related deaths in Europe, pressed on with its easing of the lockdown by confirming that restaurants, bars, hair salons and cinemas can reopen on July 4. By contrast, Germany was reimposing some lockdown restrictions in North Rhine-Westphalia state after more than 1,550 people have tested positive for coronavirus at the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck and thousands more workers and family members were put into quarantine to try to halt the outbreak.On Tuesday, North Rhine-Westphalia Gov. Armin Laschet said people in Guetersloh and parts of a neighboring county will now face the same restrictions that Germany saw in March and April, including curbs on social gatherings and bar closures. Word of Novak Djokovic’s infection again illustrated that there’s little room for complacency in doing what’s necessary to beat back the disease. The world’s number one tennis player, said he and his wife contracted the coronavirus after he played in a series of exhibition matches he organized in Serbia and Croatia with zero social distancing. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a major rollback of lockdown measures that will let millions in England back into pubs, cinemas, churches and hair salons starting July 4. The move came amid strong pressure from businesses to ease social distancing rules. But some scientists worried the move is too hasty, especially since measures like a track-and-trace system to stamp out any outbreaks isn’t yet in place. The World Health Organization says the pandemic is still in its ascendancy. “The epidemic is now peaking or moving towards a peak in a number of large countries,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief. South Africa braced for an anticipated surge of COVID-19 cases by opening a large field hospital with 3,300 beds in a converted car manufacturing plant.

A strain of the coronavirus imported from Europe is most likely to blame for the outbreak in Beijing, WHO believes –World Health Organization (WHO) officials have said the coronavirus sequence in the latest Beijing outbreak is most likely related to the European strain.Speaking at a press conference on Friday, WHO’s executive director of the Health Emergencies Program, Dr. Michael Ryan, said the outbreak in Beijing appears to be a human-to-human transmission and not another cross-species infection. “What it’s saying most likely is that the disease was probably imported from outside Beijing at some point,” Ryan said, adding that “establishing when that happened and how long the chain of transmission is important.”WHO’s announcement came a day after the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials released data revealing the gene sequence of the COVID-19 virus that broke out in Beijing’s Xinfadi market last week.CDC official Zhang Yong said that while the virus strain is from Europe, it seems to be an older version of what is currently spreading across the continent.

Coronavirus was already in Italy by December, waste water study shows – The coronavirus was already present in northern Italy in December, more than two months before the first case was detected, a national health institute study of waste water has found. Researchers discovered genetic traces of Sars-Cov-2 – as the virus is officially known – in samples of waste water collected in the northern cities of Milan and Turin at the end of last year, and in Bologna in January, the ISS institute said in a statement seen by AFP on Friday. Italy’s first known native case was discovered in mid-February. The results “help to understand the start of the circulation of the virus in Italy,” the ISS said. They also said they “confirm the by-now consolidated international evidence” that sewer samples work as an early detection tool. IN NUMBERS: What is the coronavirus situation in Italy now? Italy was the first European country to be hit by the virus and the first in the world to impose a nationwide lockdown. Italy has now recorded over 34,500 deaths. The first known case, other than a couple of visiting Chinese tourists in Rome, was a patient in the town of Codogno in the Lombardy region. On February 21st the government designated Codogno a so-called “red zone” and ordered it shuttered, followed by ten other towns across Lombardy and Veneto. By March 9th it had extended the shutdown across the country. In February, medical experts in Milan said they believed the virus had already been “circulating unnoticed for weeks” in Italy.

Coronavirus: Tests show half of people in Italy′s Bergamo have antibodies – More than half of Bergamo residents who submitted a blood sample tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, health authorities in the northern Italian city reported Monday.Out of nearly 10,000 Bergamo residents who had their blood tested between April 23 and June 3, 57% had antibodies, indicating they had come into contact with the virus and developed an immune response.Health authorities said the sample size was “sufficiently broad” to be a reliable indicator of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 among Bergamo province’s population.Bergamo was the Italian city worst hit by COVID-19, with images of overflowing hospitals and bodies being carried away by trucks illustrating the horrifying impact of the pandemic.According to Italy’s National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), at the height of the outbreak in March, 568% more people died in Bergamo compared with the 2015-2019 average. The city and the surrounding province have reported 13,600 total COVID-19 cases. ISTAT, along with the Ministry of Health, has launched a nationwide blood testing campaign to map out the severity of Italy’s epidemic region by region. The goal is to obtain a representative sample of around 150,000 people. If SARS-CoV-2 antibodies are found in a person’s blood, they are put under quarantine until a swab test is taken to reveal if they are positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. An antibody test does not check for the virus itself, rather it detects whether the immune system has responded to the presence of a viral pathogen in the body. Scientists around the world are exploring antibody therapy to treat COVID-19 patients. One method is using the blood plasma of recovered.

Asia Today: 4th-worst-hit India sees rural virus cases soar – India’s coronavirus caseload has risen to 425,282 as infections soar in rural areas to which migrant workers fleeing major cities have returned in recent weeks. India’s health ministry on Monday reported 14,821 new cases and about 300 new deaths, bring the toll of fatalities up to more than 13,000. The coastal state of Goa reported its first COVID-19 death. India is the fourth most-affected country globally after the United States, Brazil and Russia. India’s government planning body Niti Aayog says infections have now emerged in 98 out of 112 of the country’s poorest districts. The Indian government ran special trains to bring thousands of migrant workers back to their ancestral villages in recent weeks. Still, about 60% of India’s cases have been reported in the states of Delhi, which includes the national capital of New Delhi; Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai; and Tamil Nadu, where manufacturing hub Chennai is located.

India registers highest single-day Covid-19 cases, record recoveries – India has been recording daily spikes in the number of coronavirus disease cases. From over 6,000 a day, the daily caseload has now crossed 17,000. On Friday, India recorded 17,296 fresh cases of the coronavirus disease – the country’s highest single-day surge. This pushed India’s tally to 4,90,401, while the death toll climbed to 15,301 with 407 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry update at 8 am. India registered over 14,000 cases for the seventh day in a row and witnessed a surge of 2,99,866 infections from June 1 till 26, according to an analysis of the government data. Our World in Data, quoted by Hindustan Times’ sister publication Hindustan, reported that the number of Covid-19 cases increased by 28.5 per cent in the last one week in India, which is higher than worst-affected US, Brazil and Russia.Of the 407 new deaths reported till Friday morning, 192 were in Maharashtra, 64 in Delhi, 45 in Tamil Nadu, 18 in Gujarat, 15 each in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, 12 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Haryana, eight in Madhya Pradesh, seven in Punjab, six in Karnataka, five in Telangana, four in Rajasthan and two in Jammu and Kashmir. More than 70 per cent deaths took place due to co-morbidities, the health ministry said. Though the rate of new cases has been increasing since the lockdown has eased, the number of recovered patients has also reached a new high. In fact, of 13,940 patients were declared cured in a single day, according to health ministry data.

India’s Covid tally now 500,000+ – India’s number of Covid-19 infections crossed 500,000 on Friday, making the country one of only four where the tally has breached this milestone. Fatality and recovery numbers offer some signs that the outbreak is still under manageable levels, although experts warned that this control was fragile and the situation could drastically turn if citizens and the government are not careful. According to HT’s dashboard of state-level statistics, the total number of infections grew by 18,370on Friday, and 383 new deaths were recorded. In all, the country now has had 509,306 infections and 15,689 fatalities, translating to a case fatality ratio (CFR) of 3.08%. Nationally, however, the total number of recoveries crossed 295,852and — on an average over the past week — for every five people testing positive in a day, four were being discharged after recovery. In terms of total cases, Maharashtra continued to have the highest numbers – roughly twice of Delhi that has the second-most number of infections. Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are the other states in top five. The states were ranked similarly if fatalities are taken as a parameter. According to experts, these trends could determine how the disease peaks, which is likely to be at different periods in different regions. “It will probably start peaking in the next few next few weeks in places like Mumbai and Delhi, but in other areas it may take a little longer time for the infections to stabilise. Guleria said in his assessment the country avoided being overwhelmed by going for an early lockdown, which helped create a gradual rise instead of a sharp surge of the kind seen in some early hot spot countries such as Italy. But the pace of the outbreak has still quickened. The latest 100,000 cases came in six days, compared to the eight days that it took for the 100,000 cases before that. “The surge was kind of expected, given our poor discipline in hygiene practices, it was too optimistic to believe that behaviour patterns will change in a few weeks. Masks and hand-washing are the way ahead as social distancing is difficult in densely populated areas, like urban slums,”

Iraq sees record-high Covid-19 deaths – Iraq registered nearly 2,500 new coronavirus cases and over 100 deaths, setting new records in a country whose health sector had been bracing itself for such a spike. Hospitals across the country have been overwhelmed over the last week by a jump in cases and deaths, following months of the virus spreading relatively slowly. On Thursday, the health ministry said it had confirmed 2,437 new cases over the last day, bringing the total in the country to over 39,000 – of whom about half have recovered. Another 107 people died of coronavirus-related causes, pushing the total death toll to 1,437. Daily recoveries in Turkey from the novel coronavirus once again exceeded new cases, the country’s health minister has said. A total of 1,472 people beat Covid-19 over the past day, bringing the overall count to 165,706 Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, citing Health Ministry data. The country’s death toll from the virus rose to 5,046, as it reported 21 new fatalities in the past 24 hours. Some 941 patients remain in intensive care, Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter. Health care professionals conducted 52,303 tests for the disease in the past day, raising the total count to over 3.13 million. According to test results, the total number of Covid-19 cases nationwide reached 193,115 with nearly 1,458 new infections. “There is an increase in our number of intensive care patients. However, the duration our patients spend in intensive care and under treatment has come down considerably,” he said in a tweet.

Global Coronavirus Cases Approach 10 Million (Reuters) – Global coronavirus cases neared 10 million on Sunday according to a Reuters tally, marking a major milestone in the spread of the respiratory disease that has so far killed almost half a million people in seven months. The figure is roughly double the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to the World Health Organisation. The milestone will come as many hard-hit countries are easing lockdowns while making extensive alterations to work and social life that could last for a year or more until a vaccine is available. Some countries are experiencing a resurgence in infections, leading authorities to partially reinstate lockdowns, in what experts say could be a recurring pattern in the coming months and into 2021. North America, Latin America and Europe each account for around 25% of cases, while Asia and the Middle East have around 11% and 9% respectively, according to the Reuters tally, which uses government reports. There have been more than 497,000 fatalities linked to the disease so far, roughly the same as the number of influenza deaths reported annually. The first cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed on Jan. 10 in Wuhan in China, before infections and fatalities surged in Europe, then the United States, and later Russia. The pandemic has now entered a new phase, with India and Brazil battling outbreaks of over 10,000 cases a day, putting a major strain on resources. The two countries accounted for over a third of all new cases in the past week. Brazil reported a record 54,700 new cases on June 19. Some researchers said the death toll in Latin America could rise to over 380,000 by October, from around 100,000 this week. The total number of cases continued to increase at a rate of between 1-2% a day in the past week, down from rates above 10% in March.

How Did Vietnam Become Biggest Nation Without Coronavirus Deaths? In Vietnam, those who enter a cafe have a good chance of meeting a security guard who sprays their hands with disinfectant. Or, if getting on a bus, they will be told to put on a mask and sit one row apart from others. Half a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnamese still practice health measures here and there, though the nation reported no deaths from the disease and, for more than two months, no local infections. The statistics put Vietnam in a unique spot as the biggest nation by population to report no deaths, despite its border with China and limited resources. The statistics have ignited a debate, pitting those skeptical that a one-party state could have such success without fixing the data against those who resent the criticism. There are autocracies like China and Iran, suspected of covering up COVID-19 deaths, and open societies like New Zealand and South Korea, whose success has gone unquestioned. Vietnam finds itself somewhere in between. It is hard for outsiders to verify official data, though health experts say Vietnam headed off a full-blown calamity because of its drastic and early action. The government was hyper-aware of the threat to hospital and quarantine capacity. In a meeting March 24, Ho Chi Minh City leaders said the nation could handle 1,000 cases of the coronavirus. Beyond that, they feared the health system could be inundated, as in Italy and Spain. “During the next 10 days to two weeks, do not allow the number of cases to exceed 1,000 nationwide, otherwise the risk of disease outbreaks is very high,” a summary of the meeting on the city government website said. Vietnam reported 349 coronavirus cases so far in 2020. Timing was nearly as important as substance. The U.S. and Vietnam both reported their first cases in the same week in January. The U.S. could have avoided 36,000 COVID-19-related deaths if it had begun a lockdown March 8 instead of March 15, according to Columbia University. By contrast, Vietnam saw the disease as a threat early on, treating its first patient in January and proceeding to contact trace and restrict movement. Timing was critical because of the virus’ ability to spread exponentially. The Ho Chi Minh City government said, for instance, that for every 300 people infected, 84,000 people had to quarantine. It is likely that Vietnam did not have to cover up mass infections and deaths because it acted before the virus could reach that point.

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