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 a few items from other countries around the globe. US totals are rising again due to sharp increases in the sunbelt but the rate of increase leveled off this week. New cases have more than tripled since the 2nd week of June. Deaths were more numerous this week than any time since May. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.
Coronavirus can live for four days on animal skin: US military study – The novel coronavirus can live for days on animal skin, according to researchers from the biggest US military bioweapons laboratory. In Fort Detrick, Maryland, army researchers tested the virus on the surface of various substances, including uncirculated paper currency supplied by the US Secret Service and unused cotton-polyester fabric, according to a non-peer-reviewed paper posted on the preprint site medRxiv.org on Friday. They found that of the samples, the virus could survive the longest at room temperature on pig skin – up to four days. And it remained stable on the skin in refrigerated temperatures throughout the two-week experiment. The researchers with the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases said they were concerned that meat plants could help the coronavirus spread. “Without an extensive testing and contract tracing programme, transmission around meatpacking plants will likely continue to be an issue,” said the team led by David Harbourt from the base’s biosafety division. The US study followed a surprise outbreak of the coronavirus in Beijing last month. Most of the 300-plus cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen, were linked to a food market selling meat and vegetable products from home and abroad. The outbreak led to a partial lockdown of China’s capital and virus testing for more than 10 million residents.
Australian researches detect SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater from planes and cruise ships –Previous reports have shown that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has been found in untreated wastewater. While the data is limited, there are no reported cases of a person becoming infected with the virus due to exposure to contaminated water. Now, a team of researchers from Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, and the University of Queensland have found genetic fragments of SARS-CoV-2 after testing aircraft and cruise ship wastewater once they reached their destinations.Published in the Journal of Travel Medicine, the study highlights the importance of using wastewater as a means to determine if infected passengers are coming into a country via ship or airplane.The researchers said testing the wastewater could be an additional data source for testing and managing passengers after disembarkation. The viral fragments are not infectious but may determine that there are infected people on board the ship or plane, which can narrow down the testing of passengers.Many people infected with the coronavirus are asymptomatic, which means that they are unaware that they harbor the virus. Testing can help determine those who may be exposed and infected with the potentially deadly virus. “The study indicates that surveillance of wastewater from large transport vessels with their sanitation systems has potential as a complementary data source to prioritize clinical testing and contact tracing among disembarking passengers,” the researchers concluded.
Smartphones and COVID-19 transmission: What we know so far -As uncertainty around COVID-19 transmission continues, experts say it’s unlikely you’ll be infected by your smartphone — but you should probably sanitize it anyway.Although there haven’t been any documented cases of transmission through a smartphone, experts say that sanitizing your phone is just good hygiene, akin to washing your hands.The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both say it’s theoretically possible for the virus that causes COVID-19 to live on surfaces and infect people, although it has not been proven. The WHO cites prior studies that found the virus can survive on surfaces like plastic, glass and metals for periods ranging from hours to days, depending on the environment, the type of surface and even the location, such as health care facilities where COVID-19 patients are being treated. Despite evidence of the survival of the virus on certain surfaces, there are no specific studies that have directly demonstrated transmission by touching surfaces.”This is not the primary source of transmission of the virus, but we have to minimize all possible sources,” said Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious diseases physician at South Shore Health in New York and contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. “Just like we recommend washing your hands, we can tell people to clean their phones.”
Double-Shot Covid Vaccines Multiply Immunization Challenges – When it comes to protecting the world from the coronavirus, two doses of a vaccine may be better than one. But doubling the number of jabs each person needs could complicate efforts to immunize billions of people.The latest results from front-runners in the sprint to come up with a vaccine, including the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca Plc partnership and Moderna Inc., highlight that prospect. Both efforts are conducting final-stage testing with two doses.Producing vaccines and deploying them to the world’s population in the midst of a pandemic would be a massive feat even if researchers are able to deliver single-dose inoculations. A need for two would make manufacturing and logistics even more complex.Those challenges would get even tougher if — as some experts think is possible — a vaccine’s efficacy wanes over time and repeat doses are needed, potentially every year.”A one-shot vaccine would be ideal, but the first vaccines are highly unlikely to meet this very high threshold,” said Michael Kinch, a vaccine specialist and associate vice chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis. “As we hopefully move from whether there will be a vaccine to how to apply this, logistics are going to become the absolute most important topic.” The two-shot approach is also looking increasingly likely for a fast-moving vaccine co-developed by CanSino Biologics Inc. and the Chinese military. It doesn’t seem to elicit a strong response in people with pre-existing immunity to the virus used as the vector, and researchers are exploring using a booster shot three to six months later.The early study of more than 1,000 participants receiving the Oxford vaccine achieved the strongest immune response in 10 who received two doses, according to research published Monday in The Lancet medical journal, indicating that it might be the surest approach. The university’s researchers noted that some recipients may get protection from just one dose, and that ultimately the data may show that the majority of people are protected by a single shot.
Covid-19 Vaccines With ‘Minor Side Effects’ Could Still Be Pretty Bad – MORE GOOD NEWS on progress toward an escape route from this pandemic: On Monday, vaccine researchers from Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced results from a “Phase I/II trial,” suggesting their product might be able to generate immunity without causing serious harm. Similar, but smaller-scale results, were posted just last week for another candidate vaccine produced by the biotech firm Moderna, in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health. As both these groups and others push ahead into the final phase of testing, it’s vital that the public has a clear and balanced understanding of this work – one that cuts through all the marketing and hype. But we’re not off to a good start. The evidence so far suggests that we’re getting blinkered by these groups’ PR, and so seduced by stories of their amazing speed that we’re losing track of everything else. In particular, neither the mainstream media nor the medical press has given much attention to the two vaccines’ potential downsides – in particular, their risk of nasty adverse effects, even if they’re not life-threatening. This sort of puffery doesn’t only help to build a false impression; it may also dry the tinder for the future spread of vaccine fearmongering. If journalists don’t start asking tougher questions, this will become the perfect setup for anti-vaccine messaging: Here’s what they forgot to tell you about the risks … Back in May, a CNN report described the Oxford group as being “the most aggressive in painting the rosiest picture” of its product, so let’s start with them. Just how rosy is the Oxford picture really? It’s certainly true that this week’s news shows the vaccine has the potential to provide protection from Covid-19. But there are flies in the ointment. After the first clinical trial for this vaccine began in April, for example, the researchers added new study arms in which people got acetaminophen every six hours for 24 hours after the injection. That’s not featured in their marketing, of course, and I saw no discussion of this unusual step in media coverage in early summer. Newspapers only said the vaccine had been proven “safe with rhesus monkeys,” and did not cause any adverse effects in those animal tests. It was a worrying signal though: How rough a ride were people having with this vaccine? Was the acetaminophen meant to keep down fever, headaches, malaise – or all of the above?
Teens and Tweens Are Fastest COVID-19 Spreaders, New Study Finds – In the debate over how to safely reopen schools and effective strategies to keep kids, teachers, school staff and extended family members safe, a new study from South Korea sheds light on the possible consequences of hastily reopening schools. The large study found that older children, mainly teens and tweens, are more likely to spread the virus than young children or adults, as Bloomberg reported. That means that kids going to high school and middle school are likely to pass the virus amongst each other and then bring it home, even if they do not have any symptoms. The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will start to see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts told The New York Times. “I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota. To conduct the study, researchers from the South Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied contact tracing reports from 59,073 contacts of 5,706 COVID-19 patients, as The New York Post reported. The scientists found that that kids nine years old and younger had much lower rates of transmitting the virus in their households. For people who lived with patients between the ages of 10 and 19, 18.6 percent tested positive for the virus within about 10 days after the initial case was detected. That was the highest rate of transmission among the groups studied, according to Bloomberg. Children younger than 10 spread the virus at the lowest rate, clocking in at a 5.3 percent transmission rate, though researchers warned that could change when schools reopen.
As Covid-19 Patients Skew Younger, Tracing Task Seems All But Impossible – Younger people are less likely to be hospitalized or die of COVID-19 than their elders, but they circulate more freely while carrying the disease, and their cases are harder to trace. Together, these facts terrify California hospital officials. People under 50 make up 73% of those testing positive for the disease in the state since the beginning of June, compared with 52% before April 30. That shift isn’t comforting to Dr. Alan Williamson, chief medical officer of Eisenhower Health in Riverside County’s Coachella Valley. As the virus spreads throughout the United States, figuring out how patients were exposed becomes increasingly difficult, which makes it nearly impossible to stop viral transmission. Younger people with COVID-19 are also less likely to pick up the phone when a contact tracer calls, health officials say. And hospitals are seeing case numbers rise among staffers, who are getting infected in their communities, not necessarily at work. The massive wave of new infections has caused deaths among people ages 18 to 40 to slowly mount, from six in the first 10 days of May in Los Angeles County, for example, to 22 in the same period of July. Hospitalizations have soared among the younger age group, which made up about 10% of people hospitalized in April but account for more than 25% now. Los Angeles County reported Wednesday that 2,193 people were hospitalized with the virus, the highest number since the pandemic started. It gave no detailed age breakdown. The first wave of patients in March and April at Eisenhower Medical Center, Eisenhower Health’s 463-bed flagship hospital, were mostly nursing home residents and retirees who lived in the area part time. Most were white. But in June, as the virus spread through the rest of the Coachella Valley – famous for producing dates, citrus and other crops – it also sickened people from the region’s year-round Latino agricultural workforce. While these patients are younger and usually don’t need hospitalization, Williamson has noticed a new trend among those who do. “Quite frequently, there would be in their history that there are two or three or more other family members that are home and COVID-positive,” he said. “I didn’t see that before.” In the eastern part of the valley, where multigenerational or multifamily households are common, COVID-positive patients don’t always have the space or resources to live in strict isolation as they recover. “These are young people living in a household with little kids, teenagers and 70-year-old grandparents,” he said. “That’s not a good formula.”
COVID-19 is quietly ravaging the LGBTQ community –A growing body of research is showing that Black people are being hit disproportionately hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, but a lack of LGBTQ-inclusive data designed to capture the experiences of people who are both racial and sexual minorities renders many of us invisible – and puts us at even greater risk of harm. There’s growing reason to worry that the pandemic is also particularly dangerous for diverse members of the LGTBQ and same gender loving (SGL), the affirming term some members of the Black community use to define themselves, particularly if they’re older. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know for sure because the government isn’t yet collecting the kind of detailed data that would show the extent of the problem – or provide a roadmap for mitigating the risks the disease poses to LGBTQ Americans who are already marginalized, discriminated against, and otherwise punished simply for being who they are. Compounding the challenge of data collection is the Trump Administration’s call to force hospitals to report data to an HHS contractor instead of the Center for Disease Control, creating further opaqueness around COVID-19 data collection. The limited data that we do have on the LGBTQ community offers a disturbing snapshot of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has on our communities. For one, there’s the economic toll. Two in five LGBTQ people work in the five industries most impacted by the pandemic – food service, hospitals, K-12 education, colleges, and retail – compared to just one in five non-LGBTQ people, according to a survey from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. All told, more than 5 million LGBTQ workers in these industries could be significantly affected by the pandemic. The numbers are even worse for LGBTQ/SGL people of color. Among this group, 38 percent have had their work hours reduced, compared to 34 percent of the general population, according to the HRC. And 22 percent have become unemployed during the pandemic, versus 13 percent of the general population. These job losses are even more dangerous in light of how many LGBTQ people already lived in poverty before COVID-19 struck. One 2019 analysis from the Williams Institute found that 22 percent of LGBTQ adults – including an alarming 29 percent of transgender adults – live in poverty, compared to 16 percent of straight and cisgender peers. LGBTQ Americans also frequently lack reliable access to health care – a literal life-and-death danger in the midst of a pandemic. A national survey conducted by the Center for American Progress found that 29 percent of transgender adults had been refused care. Nine percent of LGBTQ people reported that a physician had used harsh or abusive language while treating them.
Why COVID-19 is killing U.S. diabetes patients at alarming rates –(Reuters) – Darrell Cager Sr., 64, had diabetes. So his youngest daughter urged him to seek care. The next day, he collapsed and died in his New Orleans home. The daughter soon learned the cause: acute respiratory distress from COVID-19. His death certificate noted diabetes as an underlying condition. Brumfield, who lives in Texas and also has type 2 diabetes, is “terrified” she could be next. She has good reason to fear. As U.S. outbreaks surge, a new government study shows that nearly 40% of people who have died with COVID-19 had diabetes. Among deaths of those under 65, half had the chronic condition. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed more than 10,000 deaths in 15 states and New York City from February to May. Jonathan Wortham, a CDC epidemiologist who led the study, called the findings “extremely striking,” with serious implications for those with diabetes and their loved ones. A separate Reuters survey of states found a similarly high rate of diabetes among people dying from COVID-19 in 12 states and the District of Columbia. Ten states, including California, Arizona and Michigan, said they weren’t yet reporting diabetes and other underlying conditions, and the rest did not respond – rendering an incomplete picture for policymakers and clinicians struggling to protect those most at-risk. America’s mortality rates from diabetes have been climbing since 2009 and exceed most other industrialized nations. Blacks and Latinos suffer from diabetes at higher rates than whites and have disproportionately suffered from COVID-19. “Diabetes was already a slow-moving pandemic. Now COVID-19 has crashed through like a fast-moving wave,” … Keeping diabetes under control – among the best defenses against COVID-19 – has become difficult as the pandemic disrupts medical care, exercise and healthy eating routines. The high price of insulin has also forced some people to keep working – risking virus exposure – to afford the essential medicine. And as the country grapples with an economic crisis, millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their employer-sponsored health insurance.
Lab Rats – WHEN A NURSE DRAWS BLOOD FROM YOUR ARM, when a resident asks you for a sputum sample, when a hazmat-suited doctor takes back the nasal swab you’d been handed at a Covid testing site, what happens to that little alienated bit of you after it has traveled from body to vial? Perhaps it will be processed in a lab on hospital premises; perhaps it will be sent for analysis at a nearby university or a state-run public health lab. Or perhaps, as with so many medical tests in the United States, it will be packed in dry ice and shipped to one of the country’s ever-growing private clinical labs. In the United States, it is precisely these private players – – and particularly the twin behemoths of Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, which together constitute what is essentially a duopoly – – that have been put at the helm of the country’s push to process coronavirus tests as the number of cases continues to explode. Trump administration officials met with industry representatives in early March to discuss coronavirus testing; shortly thereafter, a number of these executives stood behind the president during an address at the White House Rose Garden, lauding the role that big business was playing in the effort to defeat the pandemic. Pence painted a Norman Rockwell-worthy image of Target, CVS, and Walmart as “companies that are synonymous with communities large and small, where people come together”; Fauci told the audience that it was imperative to “embrace the private sector”; and White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx thanked LabCorp and Quest by name. The phrase “public-private partnership” was brandished like a nazar bead by Pence at regular intervals, as though those words alone contained enough apotropaic power to keep the virus at bay. Today, private labs processing both diagnostic and public health-related tests form a major part of America’s private health care landscape, but one that is often overlooked. It is easy to focus on points of contact in the health care system – – the interactions that occur when we are given an exam, when we receive the results, and when we are presented with the bill. What happens in between – – screening and re-screening by unseen laboratory technicians – – is liable to dip below the horizon of our attention.
New COVID-19 mutation helps outbreaks spread quicker: expert –A new coronavirus mutation has become the most dominant strain of the virus – and is causing outbreaks to spread more quickly across the world, an expert said. Professor Nick Loman, of the University of Birmingham, who is part of the COVID-19 Genomics Consortium, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program that the mutation, known as D614G, is forming clusters more quickly in the UK than the original virus from Wuhan. “It exists in the spike protein, which is a very important way that the coronavirus can enter human cells, and we have been noticing in the UK and worldwide that this mutation has been increasing in frequency,” Loman said. “This mutation was predicted first by computer modeling to have some impact on the structure of that protein and the ability of the virus to bind and enter cells and then quite recently was shown in laboratory experiments to increase the infectivity of cells.” Scientists came to the conclusion after analyzing more than 40,000 genomes in the UK, according to Loman. The new mutation, however, is not believed to cause a greater risk of death or lengthier hospital stays, the Telegraph reported. Loman called the mutation “the most dominant mutation – it’s about 75 percent of cases.” “This increase in this mutation is a worldwide phenomenon,” he added. “The original virus out of Wuhan had the D-type, but the G-type has become much more dominant across the world, including the UK.” However, the strain is not expected to impact the process of finding a vaccine for COVID-19, he added. He also attempted to alleviate any concerns that the mutation might signal a deadly new phase for the coronavirus. “It’s a small impact, we think, and we’re not completely confident about that, but we found by testing what happened in the UK that the viruses that contained the G-type of mutation seemed to form clusters of cases faster, which ended up being bigger than viruses with the D-mutation,” the professor said. “We didn’t see any significant association with survival and the length of hospital stays with this mutation – we don’t think this mutation is important in changing virulence. The effect seems to be on transmissibility.”
81 million Americans lacking space or bathrooms to follow COVID quarantine recommendations – An article published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports that 25 million dwellings that house 81 million Americans lack adequate space or plumbing to allow compliance with recommendations that a person who may have COVID-19 maintain physical separation from others in their household. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advise those who are infected with or have been exposed to COVID-19 stay at home, confining themselves to a separate bedroom and bathroom if possible. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the City University of New York at Hunter College used data from the American Housing Survey to determine the feasibility of providing separate bedrooms and bathrooms in U.S. dwellings. They found that more than 1 in 5 homes — housing about one quarter of all Americans — lack sufficient space and plumbing facilities to comply with the WHO and CDC recommendations. The proportion of homes unsuitable for isolation or quarantine is particularly high among minority and low-income households, which have experienced high rates of COVID-19 illness and death. About 46% of Latinx people, 43% of Native Americans, and 32% of Black Americans live in dwellings where separation is not feasible, compared to less than 20% of non-Hispanic whites. Crowding is worst for apartment dwellers, particularly in the Northeast.
Eighty-five infants infected with COVID-19 in Corpus Christi, Texas – Eight-five infants under the age of one have tested positive for the coronavirus in Nueces County, Texas. The county, which includes Corpus Christi, has seen the number of new cases skyrocket in July after seeing a slight flattening trend. The virus has infected dozens of babies, including the death on July 6 of a baby of less than six months old. The director of public health for Nueces County, Annette Rodriguez, told CNN on Saturday, “We currently have 85 babies under the age of one year in Nueces County that all have tested positive for COVID-19” and “these babies have not even had their first birthday yet.” She urged, “Please help us stop the spread of this disease.” Nueces County, on the Gulf of Mexico, has seen a rise in cases and deaths in July in the wake of the reopening, with 2,416 cases and 9 deaths at the beginning of the month, compared to 8,407 cases and 90 deaths as of Saturday, an increase in cases of over 300 percent and deaths by 1,000 percent. This is in a county with a total population of approximately 326,000, meaning that about 2.6 percent of the total population has been infected, twice the infection rate of the United States, which stands at 1.2 percent. In Corpus Christi, as of Saturday a total of 90 people had died from COVID-19, although this is most likely an undercount due to shortages in testing. According to city numbers, the 7-day averaged daily case was 26 a month ago. As of Saturday, it stood at 236, for a 14-fold increase in daily cases. The total number of people who have died in Texas stood at 3,865 as of Saturday, far surpassing the 2,977 deaths from 9/11 terrorist attacks, with a new grim record of 174 deaths on Friday alone. Out of the 254 counties in the state, only 5 have reported no COVID-19 cases.
13 Michigan nuns die of Covid-19 at a convent outside Detroit – CNN – Coronavirus spread so quickly through a convent in Michigan that it claimed the lives of 12 nuns in one month, beginning on Good Friday. They were all members of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, outside of Detroit, ranging in ages from 69 to 99, the executive director for mission advancement, Suzanne English, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. A 13th sister initially survived the virus but passed away from its effects in June. The women were long-time members of the convent and leave behind a legacy of service, according to their obituaries supplied by English. The women all lived and worked on the 360-acre campus that was once home to 800 sisters, according to the Global Sisters Report, an independent, non-profit Catholic news publisher. Now, only around 50 reside there, according to English. English said the Livonia convent is one of 60 convents in the US and Canada, plus a mission in Haiti, where the 469 Felician Sisters of North America reside. The Global Sisters Report said the death of the 13 nuns in Livonia may be the worst loss of life to a community of religious women in the US since the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Ohio governor warns state ‘could become Florida’ -Gov. Mike DeWine (R) warned on Sunday that Ohio “could become Florida” as COVID-19 cases surged to new highs in the state. The governor told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his state is at a “crucial stage” as Ohio is “headed in the wrong direction” toward Florida’s status as a U.S. epicenter of the pandemic. “We are at the point where we could become Florida, you know,” DeWine said. “Where you look at our numbers today versus where Florida was a month ago, we have very similar numbers. So we’re very, very concerned.” “While we did a great job early on in Ohio, we’re now headed in the wrong direction, and frankly, I’m very, very concerned about that,” he added. “So we’re going to move ahead with more orders from us this week.” “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd pressed DeWine on why he hasn’t issued a mask mandate. “I don’t think anybody in Ohio who’s watched what I’ve done over the last four months doubts that, you know, I’ll do what we need to do to protect Ohioans,” the governor responded. DeWine added that officials “certainly would not rule out” a statewide mandate. The governor said that the spread is “not just about masks,” adding that gatherings in bars and churches and casual get-togethers are contributing to the spread. He emphasized that this means “it’s not all about orders.” “Orders are important, but it’s also about getting people to understand, ‘Hey, this is, this is very, very serious,'” DeWine said.
Connecticut State Lab Finds 90 False Positives Out Of 144 Coronavirus Tests Administered In Mid-June – 90 people in the state of Connecticut were found to actually have been negative for coronavirus after receiving positive tests, MSN reported on Tuesday. The state’s Department of Public Health said that its state laboratory found a “flaw” in one of its testing systems and that 90 of 144 people who were tested for the virus between June 15 and June 17 received false positive tests. 161 specimens were collected and a total of 91 of those showed false positives. Many of those who received the false tests were nursing home residents. The state said that it reported the flaw to the test manufacturer and the FDA. It has taken “immediate steps” to make sure patients have been notified – hopefully more than just forwarding them a copy of this article. Even more alarming, the State Department of Health said the flawed numbers came “from a widely-used laboratory testing platform that the state laboratory started using on June 15.” Acting Commissioner Deidre S. Gifford said: “We have notified the healthcare facilities for everyone who received a false positive test result from our state laboratory. Accurate and timely testing for the novel coronavirus is one of the pillars supporting effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Adjustments have been made to ensure the accuracy of future tests, she said. Additionally, she said all positive tests will be further reviewed by “multiple laboratory scientists” and retested using another method..
Random Testing in Indiana Shows COVID-19 is 6 Times Deadlier Than Flu, and 2.8% of the State Has Been Infected — Short of testing every person in the U.S., the best way to get accurate data on who and how many people have been infected with the coronavirus is to test randomly.I am a professor of health policy and management at Indiana University, and random testing is exactly what we did in my state. From April 25 to May 1, our team randomly selected and tested thousands of Indiana residents, no matter if they’d been sick or not. From this testing we were able to get some of the first truly representative data on coronavirus infection rates at a state level. We found that 2.8% of the state’s population had been infected with SARS – CoV – 2. We also found that minority communities – especially Hispanic communities – have been hit much harder by the virus. With this representative data, we were also able to calculate out just how deadly the virus really is.The goal of our study was to learn how many Indiana residents, in total, were currently or had been previously been infected by the coronavirus. To do this, the people our team tested needed to be an accurate representation of Indiana’s population as a whole and we needed to use two tests on every person.With the help of the Indiana State Department of Health, numerous state agencies and community leaders, we set up 70 testing stations in cities and towns across Indiana. We then randomly selected people from a list created using state tax records and invited them to get tested, free of charge. Some groups showed up more readily than others and we adjusted the numbers to represent the demographics of the state accordingly.Once a person showed up to our mobile testing sites, they were given both a PCR swab test that looks for current infections and an antibody blood test that looks for evidence of past infection. By testing randomly and looking for both current and past infections, we could extrapolate our results to the entire state of Indiana and get information about real infection rates of this virus.Because our random sample was designed to be representative of the population of the state, we can assume with almost certainty that the entire state numbers are the same. That would mean that approximately 188,000 Indiana residents had been infected by late April. At that point, the official confirmed cases – not including deaths – were about 17,000.
Coronavirus Infections Could Be 13x Higher Than Reported, New Study Says –A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the number of people infected with the coronavirus could range anywhere from two to 13 times higher than the number of cases that have been reported, as The New York Times reported.The new data, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, shows that asymptomatic carriers are spreading the disease at much higher rates in certain regions than previously thought. Since January, the CDC has asked states to report all confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus. However, many people have positive antibodies, signaling that they had the infection, even though they never had any symptoms. Those people unwittingly spread the virus, as ABC News reported.The information about antibodies was gleaned from blood samples drawn from 10 different regions of the country, including New York, Utah, Washington state and South Florida, according to The Washington Post. The samples were collected in different periods in two rounds. The first was in early spring as the virus was taking root in the U.S., and the other several weeks later, ending in early June.The analysis, based on antibody tests, is the largest of its kind so far, building upon local studies in a subset of cities.”These data continue to show that the number of people who have been infected with the virus that causes Covid-19 far exceeds the number of reported cases,” said Dr. Fiona Havers, the CDC researcher who led the study, as The New York Times reported. “Many of these people likely had no symptoms or mild illness and may have had no idea that they were infected.”The data shows that New York City has the highest proportion of antibodies with 24 percent, still a long way from herd immunity. Epidemiologists believe 60 to 70 percent of the population needs to contract a virus and build up antibodies to achieve herd immunity, as The Hill reported.While New York City had the highest rate of infection and antibodies, other parts of the country are far behind. The May and June data showed that only 2.8 percent of the people in Missouri have antibodies, while only 3.6 percent of the people in Philadelphia do, as The Hill reported. In Missouri, the prevalence of infections is 13 times the reported rate, which suggests the state missed most people with the virus, as The New York Times noted.The results indicate that in large areas of the country, the coronavirus still has only affected a small fraction of the population. In Utah, for example, just over one percent of people had been exposed to the virus by early June. The rate was 2.2 percent for Minneapolis-St. Paul as of the first week of June, and only 1 percent for the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of April, according to The New York Times.
Coronavirus updates: Florida has 53 hospitals with no ICU beds – Florida health officials say their hospitals are reaching capacity in their ICUs as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb, with the statewide total now over 360,000. Roughly 18% of the state’s adult ICU beds are available and 53 medical facilities in the state have maxed out their ICU bed load, according to Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration.There were 292 people were hospitalized in the last 24 hours, the Florida Health Department reported Monday morning, bringing the state’s total COVID-19 hospitalizations to 21,263. There are currently 9,397 active coronavirus hospitalizations, according to the health department.The state recorded 10,347 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, bringing Florida’s total to 360,394, the Health Department said. The seven-day average of new cases has been over 10,000 for the last week, according to Health Department data. There were 92 additional deaths recorded during that timeframe, bringing the state’s total casualty count to 5,183, according to the Health Department.
COVID-19 Update: July 20th Edition – As of Friday, July 17, data from the Covid Tracking Project showed that the 7-day average (smoothed) number of new U.S. daily cases rose to 65,557, a 20% increase relative to 54,561 the previous Friday. The smoothed percent of cases testing positive rose to 8.7% from 8.3% one week earlier. The smoothed number of deaths in the U.S. rose 11%, from 854 a week earlier to 951 last Friday. Here in Texas, the growth in the number of smoothed daily cases rose 16% between July 10 and July 17, and the smoothed number of daily deaths increased from 63 to 103. The smoothed percent of people testing positive rose from 12.9% on July 10th to 14.8% last Friday. The number of daily coronavirus tests being conducted in the United States is only 35 percent of the level considered necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus. Harvard researchers say that at minimum there should be enough daily capacity to test anyone who has flu-like symptoms and an additional 10 people for any symptomatic person who tests positive for the virus. A report by a distinguished panel of experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation, which included former FDA commissioners, recommends an additional $75 billion in federal funds to cover the additional costs of testing and tracing as well as to incentivize test development and production. The report contains detailed strategies for boosting testing to get the economy back on track. An editorial in the New York Times promotes the adoption of faster, cheaper, though less accurate coronavirus testing based on saliva and paper-based test strips. The strategy is explained in more detail on a TWIV podcast and involves widespread daily testing for workers and school children using these $1 tests that provide results within minutes. A Wall Street Journal article on the risks of flying cites an analysis by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Arnold Barnett based on current Covid-19 prevalence in the U.S. When all coach seats are full on a US jet aircraft, the risk of contracting Covid-19 from a nearby passenger is about 1 in 4,300 as of early July 2020. Under the “middle seat empty” policy, that risk falls to about 1 in 7,700.
Coronavirus dashboard for July 20: decisive evidence that deaths have increased since the beginning of July – I have been waiting to see if the death rate remained elevated once the 4th of July week was completely out of the 7 day average (because there was an additional “slow” day caused by the holiday, followed by 4 “compressed” weekdays rather than 5. Those last 4 days continued to affect the 7 day average for, well, another 7 days. That period is over as of this past weekend, and here is the result: There were 2.32 deaths per million Saturday and 2.31 deaths per million yesterday, the highest (excluding the NJ data dump several weeks ago) since June 11. Regionally, in terms of cases, the South continues to be the worst, followed by the West, with the Midwest having a significant increase as well, and the Northeast a very slight increase: In terms of deaths, the Midwest and Northeast continue at their low levels, but only the Northeast has recently improved: Turning to the States, in terms of cases, Florida has made an all-time high per capita, even exceeding NY’s old record, with Arizona, Louisiana, and Alabama close behind: In terms of deaths, however, even Arizona, at 10 per million on average for the last 7 days is nowhere near the levels of NY, NJ, and several other States early in the pandemic: This is most likely demographics at work. Remember that 1/3 to 1/2 of all deaths in the first several months were at nursing homes and other assisted living centers, full of elderly people in poor health, together 24/7 with recirculated air. The pandemic went through them like dry tinder. More recently it has been younger people, with lower death rates, at bars, restaurants, gyms, and private parties who have been spreading the disease. But the bottom line is that the evidence is now overwhelming that the increased infections that began at Memorial Day weekend have finally flowed through into deaths since the beginning of July.
US records over 1,000 daily coronavirus deaths for first time in July – The U.S. on Tuesday reported more than 1,000 new daily deaths from COVID-19 for the first time in July as the virus continues to surge across the country. While not close to the high of 2,752 set on April 15 during the peak of the pandemic in New York state and the Northeast, the 1,029 deaths reported on Tuesday underscores the challenge the pandemic still presents for states. Nevada, Oregon and Tennessee all reported a new record for single-day deaths, according to The New York Times database. The spike of the virus around the country has caused the seven-day average of daily new deaths to rise from 475 in early July to 786 on Monday. Other than two times in late June when New York state and New Jersey reported a large number of deaths from unknown dates, Tuesday marked the first time that the U.S. had surpassed 1,000 deaths in a day since June 9, according to data from the Times. Also on Tuesday, nearly 60,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported, below the seven-day average of 66,432. The record for new daily cases was set last Thursday, when over 75,000 new cases were documented. President Trump warned Tuesday amid surges in cases in parts of the country that the outbreak in the U.S. would “get worse before it gets better.” “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better,” Trump told reporters while reading from prepared remarks at the White House in his first coronavirus-focused briefing in nearly three months. “Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is.” The president urged Americans to wear face masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands while also urging young people to avoid bars to help stem the spread of the disease.
California reports record high number of coronavirus cases, weekly deaths –California reported a record number of COVID-19 infections in a single day Monday, with 11,554 new cases, according to the Los Angeles Times’s roundup of all 58 counties in the state. The report entered on Monday surpasses the single-day record broken just last week, when the state saw 11,142 COVID-19 cases, according to The Los Angeles Times. California has also reported increased death tolls ranging between 91 and 99 fatalities each day since July 10, which ranks as the worst seven-day average since the pandemic started earlier this year. The weeklong period that ended Monday marked the highest weekly total to date, with 674 deaths in the state. The new record indicates a 5 percent increase in fatalities since the previous seven-day period, which saw 640 deaths. For the past three weeks, government-mandated shutdowns of businesses and services, including bars and restaurants, have been underway and could contribute to lowering hospitalization rates across the state. Hospitalizations grew by 7 percent Sunday, but were lower than the previous weekend of July 12, when admissions increased by 12 percent. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced Monday the positivity rate from coronavirus tests had dropped from 7.7 percent to 7.2 percent compared to the previous seven-day rate. However, it is likely too early to know whether the trend will continue to fall, according to Mark Ghaly, secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency. “As soon as we feel confident in that trend and we see other numbers start to stabilize, we’ll credit some of the moves we made over the last few weeks,” Ghaly said. “It’s been about three, four weeks since we … first started to make moves … so we’re right in that time period where we may see some of the … benefits of those [policy changes].”
Another California Death Row Inmate Succumbs To COVID-19- California’s state prison system has just suffered the second death of a death row inmate via coronavirus. The rash of deaths come as the federal government is moving ahead with executions after a lengthy delay. A local TV station reported that the inmate, Troy Ashmus, was the 7th death row prisoner and 12th prisoner overall to die from the virus at California’s infamous San Quentin prison.A death row inmate arrested in Sacramento County in the 1980s has died of complications believed to have stemmed from COVID-19, officials said Monday.Troy Ashmus, 58, was the seventh death row prisoner and the 12th overall at San Quentin to die from confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections.Ashmus was sent to death row in 1986. He was convicted of raping 7-year-old Marcella Davis, who had biked to a Sacramento park in May 1984. The girl also was sodomized before plastic bags, cellophane and the girl’s own shorts were shoved down her throat, prosecutors said.The coroner has yet to determine an exact cause of death.There are currently 718 people on California’s death row. There have been nearly 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases among inmates in the state prison system, including more than 2,000 active cases and 39 confirmed deaths, according to state figures.Dozens of inmates are hospitalized, some of them in intensive care.More than 800 employees also have active cases of COVID-19, according to corrections officials.We imagine the families of these inmates will have a case when this is all over.
California reports record daily increase in coronavirus cases as it becomes worst-hit state in the U.S., Newsom says – California reported more than 12,800 coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the highest reported daily tally the state has recorded so far, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. California has now surpassed New York in total confirmed Covid-19 cases – more than 409,500 cases as of Wednesday – making it the state with the most cases in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University data. However, New York has reported more than four times the number of deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. “We’re a state, again, size of 21 states combined, so it’s not surprising now in some respects as we’ve begun to reopen key sectors of our economy,” Newsom said at a news briefing Wednesday. “People continue to mix and people continue to come in close contact with others that may have contracted this disease that our numbers would start to go up in total now.” Newsom said the state has average 9,420 additional cases based on a seven-day average, a trend line that is “certainly” continuing to increase. California also reported 115 new deaths on Tuesday but that figure has fluctuated daily, he said. While the state has increased its testing, the positivity rate, or the number of positive cases to total tests performed, now stands at around 7.4% over the last 14 days, a number that “continues to go up modestly.” The state has been adding more health-care personnel, contact tracers and personal protective equipment for months to help battle a potential outbreak, he said. Newsom has already made sweeping rollbacks to California’s reopening plan, ordering all bars and all dine-in restaurants, movie theaters, museums and other indoor businesses across the state to close. In addition to the statewide order, Newsom also ordered the closure of indoor operations for fitness centers, worship services, personal care services, malls, offices, hair salons and barbershops for all counties that have been on California’s monitoring list for three or more consecutive days.
California coronavirus deaths top 8,000 after record-high day – California recorded the most coronavirus-related deaths in a single day amid a spike in infections that has pushed the state’s cumulative case count to the highest in the nation.Wednesday’s 157 fatalities – the state’s highest one-day toll yet, according to The Times’ coronavirus tracker – pushed California’s fatalities above 8,000.The sobering death toll continues what’s been an unprecedented week in California in terms of the COVID-19 outbreak.Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday afternoon that 12,807 new coronavirus infections had been reported statewide in the past 24 hours, a record high.More than 421,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported statewide over the course of the pandemic. That means roughly 1 in every 94 Californians has had a confirmed infection at some point.Statewide, 7,170 confirmed COVID-19 patients were hospitalized as of Tuesday – also a new high and an increase of 18% from two weeks ago – with 2,058 people in intensive care, according to the state Department of Public Health.However, both those numbers fell markedly in the latest available state data released Thursday, which showed that 6,825 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized and 1,978 were in intensive care as of Wednesday.Los Angeles County continues to bear the brunt of the statewide surge, with more than 165,000 total cases and 4,200 deaths confirmed as of Thursday morning.Later in the afternoon, county health officials announced 49 additional deaths and 2,014 new cases. So severe is the outbreak that health officials said COVID-19 is on track to be the second-leading cause of death in the county. From January to June, COVID-19 killed roughly 3,400 people, according to the county Department of Public Health. Over the same period last year, only coronary heart disease was attributed as the cause of more deaths, with nearly 5,800.
COVID-19, flu could create new hospital surge in Ventura County -As Ventura County’s COVID-19 hospitalizations dipped from record highs, doctors and hospital leaders worried about a coming phenomenon that could cause a new surge. The flu season. “I’ve been here in Ventura County for 19 years and this is the busiest summer we’ve had,” said Oxnard pulmonologist and critical care physician Dr. Raj Bhatia. He and other doctors envision COVID-19 and the flu sending people to hospitals and intensive care units in a confusing blur of similar symptoms in a season that could pick up speed as soon as October. “If the summer is like this, God help us in winter,” Bhatia said. Last week, Ventura County’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers climbed to record marks on several days, topping at 101 people with confirmed cases of the virus receiving hospital care on Wednesday and Thursday. Over the weekend, the numbers fell. On Monday, 89 people who tested positive for the virus received hospital care across the county with 24 of them in intensive care units – down from 31 on Friday. On Tuesday, 94 people with the virus received hospital care in the county with 24 in the intensive care unit. The numbers are still worrisome but the system still has space with plans to add more as needed, said Steve Carroll, administrator of Ventura County Emergency Medical Services Agency. One area hospital that did launch surge beds two weeks ago when admissions climbed – Ventura County Medical Center – has seen its numbers stabilize though they’re still high. The eight staffed beds in the intensive care unit at Ventura County Medical Center were full Monday with a caseload that included five ICU patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19. More staffing and beds could be added if necessary, said Dr. Todd Flosi, chief medical director for the Ventura hospital. Count Flosi among those who worry about the jarring potential of a one-two punch when the flu season emerges. “I think if we have a particularly bad flu season and the COVID cases increase that would challenge our capacity,” he said, noting the flu season alone can potentially cause patients to be held in the emergency room until beds are available. Doctors worry about the many flu symptoms that mimic COVID and wonder about how to best and most safely test patients. They worry increased testing needs could tax supplies and possible delays in learning results.
Texas sets single-day record July 22 with 197 COVID-19 deaths – Texas reported 197 new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, setting a record for the most deaths the state has reported in a single day. The last time Texas posted a single-day record for number of deaths was on July 17 with 174.The Department of State Health Services also reported 9,879 new cases Wednesday, the 12th time so far in July that the state has reported more than 9,000 new cases in a single day. DSHS reported a seven-day average positivity rate of 14.18 percent as of Tuesday, which includes five days of decrease from the state’s peak of 17.43 percent on July 16. Positivity rate shows the percentage of people who test positive for the virus out of all the people tested. As more people are tested, an increasing positivity rate would indicate a rapid spread of the virus. A decreasing positivity rate would indicate that as more people get tested, fewer are testing positive. In the city of Houston, the Health Department reported 773 new cases, and eight new deaths.Municipal employees in the public works department, human resources department, as well as civilian employees for the Houston Police Department, and Houston Fire Captain Leroy Lucio have all died in the last week due to COVID-19.Houston Health Authority Dr. David Persse noted that new daily reported cases are showing a downward trend compared to last week, and while there is a slight dip in hospitalizations, he warned Houston still has a long way to go before the virus is under control.Data from the Harris County Public Health and Houston Health Department’s joint dashboard show:
- 7/1 – 7/7: City of Houston averaged 729 cases per day
- 7/8 – 7/14: City of Houston averaged 912 cases per day
- 7/15 – 7/21: City of Houston averaged 721 cases per day
One possible factor in the declining cases could be Governor Greg Abbott’s mask order, which went into effect July 3. Two weeks later, on July 17, data from Houston Health Department and Harris County Public Health show a slight decline in the number of new cases.
Texas county stores bodies in trucks as state sets one-day record for COVID-19 deaths – (Reuters) – Texas on Wednesday set one-day records for increases in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the state, forcing one county to store bodies in refrigerated trucks and prompting a top health official there to call for new stay-at-home orders. Contact tracers with the Houston Health Department monitor the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Houston, Texas, U.S., July 22, 2020. REUTERS/Adrees Latif Texas, which reported 197 deaths and 10,893 hospitalizations, has been one of the states hardest hit by the resurgent coronavirus. Hidalgo County, at the southern tip of the state on the U.S. border with Mexico, has seen cases rise 60 percent in the last week, according to a Reuters tally, with deaths doubling to more than 360. “We’ve got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said. “Because our hospitals – they’re war zones, they are really struggling right now.” Cortez, a Democrat who serves as the top county official, issued a shelter-in-place order for residents. That mandate put him at odds with Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who maintains that local officials do not have the authority to make residents stay home.Crematoriums in the Hidalgo area have a wait list of two weeks, Cortez said, forcing the county to use five refrigerated trucks that can hold 50 bodies each. Hidalgo’s top medical official, Dr. Ivan Melendez, partly blamed Abbott’s move to override local officials for the spike in coronavirus infections, which he said has jammed the local medical system at every level. “Do I think that a stay-at-home order is medically indicated at this point? Absolutely,” Melendez said.
A Texas hospital is so overrun with coronavirus cases that officials say it will send the patients least likely to survive home to die – A hospital in Starr County, Texas, is so overrun with coronavirus cases that officials there said it would choose which patients to use its resources on and send those most likely to die back home to their families.The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Dr. Jose Vasquez – the health authority for Starr County – said the county was creating guidelines to help health workers decide how to use resources on patients with the best chance of survival.Vasquez added that a committee would decide which patients were most likely to die at Starr County Memorial Hospital – the only hospital in the county – and would send them home.”The situation is desperate,” he said Tuesday. “We cannot continue functioning in the Starr County Memorial Hospital nor in our county in the way that things are going. The numbers are staggering.” Vasquez said the county sends coronavirus patients daily to other parts of Texas and to other states, but that hospitals in both Texas and nearby states were now overwhelmed. “There is nowhere to put these patients. The whole state of Texas and neighboring states have no ICU beds to spare for us,” he said,Border Report reported. The decision is reminiscent of the decisions made by doctors in Italy in March, when that country was being ravaged by the virus. Theysaid they had to choose who to save because of limited resources. Texas has become a coronavirus hotspot in recent weeks, with more than 331,000 cases and 4,700 deaths recorded.
Kemp urges Georgia residents to ‘commit to wearing a mask’ for four weeks – Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) asked his state’s residents to “commit” to wearing a mask for four weeks, despite his ongoing lawsuit against Atlanta officials for mandating a face covering be worn. “Today, I am encouraging all Georgians – from every corner of our great state – to do four things for four weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19,” Kemp said in a statement. “If Georgians commit to wearing a mask, socially distancing, washing their hands regularly, and following the guidance in our Executive Order and from public health officials, we can make incredible progress in the fight against COVID-19. Together, we can protect our loved ones, revive our economy, and continue to take measured steps forward.” Kemp, who was narrowly elected governor in 2018, has cast himself as a staunch conservative and railed against government-imposed regulations. However, he’s positioned himself to the right of other conservative governors, including those of Alabama and Arkansas, who have issued mask mandates. Kemp took his opposition to a mask requirement a step further last week when he filed a lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) and city council members in an attempt to scrap the city’s mask ordinance and other health measures that go beyond executive orders he’s signed. The governor has defended the suit as an effort to “put Georgians first,” though he has recognized the use of masks can help blunt the spread of the coronavirus, which has infected more than 145,000 people in Georgia. “They worked for us before and they will work again,” Kemp said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.” Besides wearing masks, Kemp and Kathleen Toomey, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, are urging Georgians to practice social distancing and wash their hands for 20 seconds “several times throughout the day.”
Surge in Coronavirus Cases Leaves Labs Overwhelmed, Tests Delayed – Five months into the pandemic after over 140,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, the nation still faces a serious delay in testing as cases surge across the country. That delay, as labs are overwhelmed and hard-hit areas face shortages of tests, could cover up a persistent rises in case numbers and could muddy strategies to combat the coronavirus, as health officials continue to find themselves one step behind the virus’s rapid and often silent spread, experts said, as The New York Times reported.Labs across the country are now facing what seems like an almost “infinite” demand, one expert says.”We really do need to improve our turnaround times, primarily in areas and counties of outbreaks,” Adm. Brett Giroir, a White House coronavirus task force member, said, as CNN reported.Diagnostic labs are feeling the effects of the spike in cases, with a leading commercial lab saying testing results can now take up to two weeks for some patients, leaving doctors and patients feeling anxious about their results.”The average test delay is too long,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, as CNN reported “And that really undercuts the value of the testing, because you do the testing to find out who’s carrying the virus and then quickly get them isolated so they don’t spread it around.”As USA TODAY noted, labs are performing more COVID-19 tests than ever. Lab workers are strained and states are bidding against one another for the same, limited supplies. “It’s the Wild, Wild West,” said Blair Holladay, CEO of American Society for Clinical Pathology, to USA TODAY. “There’s been no national testing strategy … so states are duking it out for supply chains. That’s a problem.” Last week, labs reached an all-time high of more than 831,900 COVID tests, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Yet, that expansion in tests has created bottlenecks and slowed results for many Americans. Quest Diagnostics said in a news release that average turnaround time for non-priority patients was seven days or more, according to USA TODAY. However, patients in hospitals, people preparing for acute surgery, and health care workers with symptoms are able to get results within a day. Most patient samples must still be routed through laboratories for processing, and the growing demand is once again straining supplies, equipment, and trained technicians, which all causes shortages and delayed results, according to The New York Times.
Florida Sets Yet Another Coronavirus Record: 173 Deaths In A Day – Florida reported its largest number of deaths in a single day from the coronavirus: 173 on Thursday. The state says 10,249 people tested positive for the virus. Florida is behind only California and New York in total cases. Other states, including Texas and California, also posted record deaths this week as the nation’s total number of COVID-19 cases topped 4 million.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis met with hospital leaders and administrators Thursday at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. He said hospitals are stressed statewide, but that there is adequate capacity.”We’ve had between 20[%] and 25% of our beds available pretty consistently over the last month and a half, even as we’ve seen the census for COVID patients increase,” DeSantis said. Despite the record number of deaths Thursday, DeSantis stood by earlier statements that he sees signs that coronavirus cases are plateauing in Florida. “People are not coming to the ED [emergency department] in as big a numbers as they were two weeks ago,” he said. “The last few days have been less than half than what it was the first week of July. That is a positive trend.” The epicenter for the pandemic in Florida is in Miami-Dade County, where 2,720 new cases were reported Thursday with a positivity rate near 20%.But in the city of Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez said orders limiting gatherings and requiring face coverings are working and cases are beginning to decline. “The curve is flattening,” he said.Suarez said much of the spread now is happening among families who live in multigenerational households. He’s asking people, especially those who work outside the home, to consider wearing face masks and to stay socially distant at home, to avoid infecting others in the family.
The World Health Organization reported back-to-back record-high daily increases in new coronavirus cases – The World Health Organization is again posting a single-day record of new confirmed coronavirus cases. It announced 259,848 new cases on Saturday.The WHO on Friday posted more than 237,000 confirmed cases around the world. The back-to-back records come as many nations struggle with new waves of infections after loosening lockdown restrictions. Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University show more than 14 million cases worldwide since the start of the pandemic, with nearly 600,000 deaths.The US currently leads the world in number of new cases, comprising a total of more than 3.6 million cases. A database by The New York Times said the country shattered its single-day record for new cases on July 16 with more than 75,600.The Times also reported that one day later, India surpassed a million confirmed infections and 25,000 deaths, making it third for newest cases and overall. The country is recording about 30,000 new cases a day, according to The Times, which is triple the cases identified around three months ago. Brazil is still second in the world for total in fections in the pandemic, per Johns Hopkins data, counting more than 2 million cases.
Texas Suffers Record Jump In COVID-19 Deaths, Brazil Reports Record 67k New Cases: Live Updates – The biggest news is out of Texas, where the state just reported a new record daily death tally of 197. The state also reported 9,879 new cases, below 10k, but still in line with recent 7-day and 14-day averages. The statewide positivity rate for Wednesday’s numbers is 14.18%. Meanwhile, Brazil reported 67,860 new cases and 1,284 new deaths in just 24 hours, a new record for the country with the world’s fastest growing outbreak. That’s more than today’s total from the US (so far at least). In a series of back-to-back COVID-19 headlines, California reported its largest daily jump yet with 12,807 new cases, while Ohio Gov Mike DeWine issued an executive order requiring masks to be work in all public places indoors and outside when social distancing isn’t possible. The record jump comes just days after Newsom loosened some restrictions on Monday (after forcing hundreds of thousands of businesses to close down or cut back again). 35 of California’s 58 counties have been added to the state’s watchlist. All counties on the watchlist must keep schools closed. The 7-day positivity rate of tests in California is 7.6% roughly even with last week. California now has 413,576 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 7,870 deaths. The number of COVID-related deaths increased by 1.5% from Monday’s total of 7,755. The number of COVID-19 diagnostic tests hit 6,664,419, up 127,487 from Monday. The rate of positive tests over the last 14 days is 7.4%. California’s hospitalizations due to COVID-19 increased by 79.
U.S. Passes 4 Million Coronavirus Cases – The U.S. surpassed four million coronavirus cases on Thursday, a little more than two weeks after it hit three million confirmed cases.The number of hospitalizations is also on the rise. Around 59,600 people were hospitalized with the virus on Wednesday, according to COVID Tracking Project data reported by CNN. That’s only around 300 fewer than during the previous peak in mid-April.”We’ve rolled back essentially two months’ worth of progress with what we’re seeing in number of cases … in the United States,” Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health, told CNN on Thursday.It took more than three months for the U.S. to move from its first reported case to one million cases April 28,The New York Times reported. It took another 43 days for the country to hit two million cases June 10, 27 days to hit three million July 7 and just 16 days to reach four million Thursday. (Johns Hopkins figures put the time between three and four million cases at 15 days, according to CNN). Cases are now rising by an average of more than 2,600 per hour, according to Reuters, the highest rate in the world. Deaths are also increasing. The country reported more than 1,100 deaths for the third day in a row Thursday. However, that number falls below the 2,000 or so deaths a day reported in April. Still, the U.S. has now confirmed 144,305 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University data as of Friday morning. That’s nearly double the next-highest death toll in Brazil.It’s also much higher than initial expert projections.”Nationwide, a total of 82,141 COVID-19 deaths (range of 39,174 to 141,995) are currently projected through the epidemic’s first wave. US COVID-19 deaths are estimated to rise through April 15, the country’s projected peak of deaths per day,” a model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted in late March, as NPR reported.The U.S. has now passed the upper end of that projected death toll and the first wave is not yet over. Cases are currently rising in 39 states, as well as Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to The New York Times. Especially hard-hit states include California, Florida and Texas, which have all reported high case counts, according to NPR. Arizona and Louisiana have also reported high numbers of cases relative to their populations.
COVID-19 cases reach 15 million worldwide with 4 million in the US alone – The number of COVID-19 infections worldwide surpassed 15 million yesterday. In less than five days, another million cases have been added. More than 618,000 people have died in little more than seven months since the virus took its first victim. There are also six million active cases globally, which provides only a very indirect measure of the burden being carried by health care workers facing shortages of PPE, medical supplies and stamina. Ten percent of all cases occur among health care workers. COVID-19 tests in the parking lot of H-E-B Park soccer stadium in Edinburg, Hidalgo County, Texas [Credit: Billy Calzada] More than 25 countries have posted over 1,000 new daily cases. These include some of the poorest nations such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Ecuador. The poorest and most vulnerable people are at risk. Lack of political representation and economic access make indigenous people, numbering 500 million on the planet, among the most vulnerable populations. Specifically, the World Health Organization has raised concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on indigenous people of the Americas, such as in the Peruvian Amazon. In the Americas, 70,000 indigenous people have been infected and more than 2,000 have died. However, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, with the highest number of ultra-high net worth individuals, those with more than $50 million, continues to lead every other country in cases of COVID-19. Yesterday, the United States registered another million-case milestone, with the total number of infections passing four million. There were another 67,140 cases of COVID-19 and 1,122 new fatalities in one day, the highest number of deaths since June 9. The rise in fatality figures comes on the heels of rising infections over the past month, as states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona and California moved quickly to reopen. California, with 10,278 new cases Tuesday, registered 120 fatalities. With 410,176 total COVID-19 cases, it is poised to pass New York state by week’s end. Hispanic communities, with many workers deemed essential and frequently living in impoverished multigenerational households, have been hit the hardest. Texas has seen 357,127 cases of COVID-19, half of these just during July. Yesterday, the state reported 118 new fatalities, pushing the total to 4,299. Statewide, on Tuesday hospitalizations rose to the highest level since the pandemic, with 10,848 patients admitted to overcrowded hospitals. According to the Houston Chronicle, this marked 12 straight days with more than 10,000 hospitalized patients. The Texas-Mexico border area has been ravaged. Hispanics make up 90 percent of the population and suffer from significant chronic morbidities. Hidalgo County, with a population of 870,000, has reached a death rate of 33 per 100,000. Public health officials believe the reported number of deaths is lagging and expect that the worst has yet to come. Funeral homes and crematories are running out of space. Arizona logged 3,500 new cases and 134 deaths, with bed occupancy and ventilator use staying steady, which the health department attributes to increased use of face masks. Florida, with 9,440 new cases, logged 132 fatalities. It also saw 517 new hospitalizations on Tuesday, a one-day high for the state. The health department stated that positive test rates stand at 17.4 percent.
The Bahamas to ban most international flights as coronavirus cases surge The prime minister of the Bahamas announced a series of coronavirus-related restrictions Sunday, including a ban on most international flights, as the number of cases in the Caribbean nation surges. “Our current situation demands decisive action if we are to avoid being overrun and defeated by this virus,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in a national address. “We cannot allow our hospitals to be overrun.” Minnis said the number of cases had almost tripled since the Bahamas began reopening its borders July 1. The total number of cases had risen to 153, he said, with most of the new cases appearing on one of the country’s largest islands, Grand Bahama. Many of the new cases were traced to residents returning to the Bahamas, he said. Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union will be allowed to send commercial flights without passengers to the country of nearly 400,000 to pick up visitors and return them to their home countries, he said. The measure will go into effect Wednesday. Private yachts and flights will still be allowed to enter, although the Bahamas’ airline, Bahamasair, will be banned from flying to the United States, Minnis said.
Coronavirus may cause 3,500 deaths in England from four main cancers – About 3,500 people in England may die within the next five years of one of the four main cancers – breast, lung, oesophageal or bowel – as a result of delays in being diagnosed because of Covid-19, research shows.Many of these will be young or middle-aged people, say the researchers in the Lancet Oncology journal.”Our findings demonstrate the impact of the national Covid-19 response, which may cut short the lives of thousands of people with cancer in England over the next five years,” said Dr Ajay Aggarwal from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who led the research.Routine cancer screening was suspended during the lockdown, the authors said. So was the routine referral to hospital outpatient departments of people with symptoms that could be something else but also might possibly be cancer. Only those deemed to need emergency care by the GP or those who go to A&E are being picked up. Inevitably, those are people with more advanced cancers. If cancer is picked up at an earlier stage, successful treatment and survival are much more likely.”Whilst currently attention is being focused on diagnostic pathways where cancer is suspected, the issue is that a significant number of cancers are diagnosed in patients awaiting investigation for symptoms not considered related to be cancer. Therefore we need a whole system approach to avoid the predicted excess deaths,” said Aggarwal.On average, those who die would have lived for 20 more years if their cancers had been identified promptly, without the delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the paper shows.”These estimates paint a sobering picture and reflect the many young people who are affected by cancer in the prime of life during their most productive years,”
Ireland heading for second COVID-19 wave – Ireland’s National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has warned of a second wave of COVID-19 infection, reaching 150 new cases a day in three weeks’ time, and of hospitals being overwhelmed in the winter. The team’s modeling chair, Professor Philip Nolan, warned that the “R number” (infection reproduction rate) was already likely between 1.4 and 1.8. Nolan told Nphet’s regular press briefing Thursday, “We are in a position of high uncertainty at the moment.” The country’s acting chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, warned that such a scenario should have a “very very negative impact on the government’s plans to get our children back to school.” The Irish Times reported Friday that Health Service Executive (HSE) officials will tell the government that winter flu surges frequently overwhelm emergency units. Patients spending hours and days on trolleys awaiting treatment has been a scandalous feature of Irish hospitals for years. Dr Colm Henry, HSE’s chief clinical officer, said of a second wave during winter flu season, “I can’t see any healthcare service managing that scenario, I couldn’t put it more starkly than that.” Thus far, 25,698 people have been confirmed as having contracted COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland (RoI), of whom 1,749 have died. An additional 5,815 infections have been reported in Northern Ireland, of whom 556 died. Lockdown measures, now rapidly being unwound, have reduced weekly deaths to low single figures. The warnings expose the recklessness of the drive by the Irish government, egged on by business interests, to reopen the economy as soon as possible. “Phase 3” of the government’s “roadmap” out of lockdown, introduced June 29, re-opened most of the economy, with only requirements for facemasks and some limits on pubs, hotels and large gatherings remaining. Newly installed coalition Taoiseach, Fianna Fflil’s Michefll Martin, was forced last Wednesday into a token delay of “Phase 4” – due next Monday – until August 10, requiring a few weeks delay in hotels and pubs re-opening. July’s Central Bank of Ireland’s Quarterly Bulletin outlined the shattering impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and laid bare the profit interests behind the premature return to work.
UK to quarantine travelers from Spain – Sunday Times – (Reuters) – Britain’s government will soon announce that all travellers from Spain arriving after midnight (2300 GMT) on Saturday will need to spend two weeks in quarantine in case they are infected with coronavirus, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. “Second wave of Covid-19 there has prompted decision to kick Spain off the safe country list,” the newspaper’s political editor, Tim Shipman, said on Twitter. Britain’s health ministry had no immediate comment on the report.
Quarantine hotel sex scandal linked to coronavirus outbreak in Australian city of Melbourne – CNN Australian officials have launched a judicial inquiry amid allegations a fresh coronavirus outbreak in the state of Victoria was sparked by some contracted workers not following protocols at a hotel used to quarantine international arrivals — including reportedly having sex with people under lockdown.Premier Daniel Andrews announced Thursday that the state government would provide $3 million to support the inquiry. He has previously said a number of cases in late May and early June could be linked to “an infection control breach in the hotel quarantine program.”Authorities have commandeered a number of hotels across the country as part of its strict border controls to control the spread of the coronavirus. Anyone who arrives in Australia must undertake a 14-day mandatory quarantine at the facilities, which are managed by the government.Only Australian citizens and permanent residents are allowed into the country, with a few exceptions.National broadcaster ABC reported 31 cases have been linked to Melbourne’s Stamford Plaza hotel, while other infections have been linked to the Rydges on Swanston hotel, which is also in the state capital. CNN has reached out to both hotels for comment.”It is abundantly clear that what has gone on here is completely unacceptable and we need to know exactly what has happened,” Andrews said in the statement.According to CNN affiliate 9 News, the alleged breaches include claims some workers had sex with guests in isolation, and a lack of training for the guards. A contracted security guard told the broadcaster’s Today show that he received just five minutes of training before starting the job.
Australian coronavirus surge hits workplaces, factories – The surge in coronavirus infections in the Australian state of Victoria has affected multiple workplaces, including meatworks, warehouses, factories, and retail outlets, in addition to schools, aged care facilities and hospitals. Yesterday, Victorian state Labor premier Daniel Andrews reported that some 80 percent of all COVID-19 transmissions in the last two months have taken place within workplaces. Today and yesterday, the state registered four more coronavirus deaths and another 638 new cases, with the vast majority of these classified as “under investigation,” meaning that authorities have no idea how and where people became infected. More than 1,500 coronavirus infections are under investigation in Victoria, indicating community transmission rates that are spiralling out of control. The workplace transmission figures further expose the federal and state governments’ response to the pandemic. Like their counterparts in the US and internationally, Labor and Liberal political leaders have prioritised the demands of big business and finance capital over public health and safety. The so-called national cabinet of federal and state ministers rejected in April a strategy aimed at eradicating coronavirus through strict lockdown measures, instead opting to allow a supposedly “safe” level of viral infection in order to open up the economy as quickly as possible. Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that everyone with a job was an “essential worker.” Likewise in Victoria, as infections surged this month, the Labor government instituted lockdown measures that limited individuals’ movements and prohibited family and social gatherings, but did nothing to restrict the operations of non-essential business activities. Schools have been kept open, with thousands of teachers forced to continue working there even when their students are remote learning from their homes.
COVID-19 Outbreaks In US, Russia & India Show Promising Slowdown As China Imposes New Restrictions On Air Travel: Live Updates As we begin our COVID-19 news rundown for Tuesday, the Australian state of Victoria reported 374 new cases of coronavirus and three deaths on Tuesday as mask wearing will become mandatory in the state, a large swath of which (the city of Melbourne) is already under lockdown. Yesterday, BBG reported that many Russian elites have been injected with an experimental COVID-19 vaccine as early as April, a story that, if accurate, would appear to undermine the UK’s claims that Russia-backed hackers stole British vaccine research.On Tuesday, Russia reported 5,842 new cases of the novel coronavirus, pushing its total infection tally to 783,328, still the fourth largest tally in the world, although the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 countries – the US, Brazil and India – are pulling further and further ahead.Russia’s coronavirus response center said 153 people had died in the past 24 hours, pushing Russia’s death toll to 12,580. In the first sign that India’s outbreak may have finally peaked after the country reported a record 40k+ new cases in one day, the Indian Union territory of Delhi has registered fewer than 1,000 new cases in a day for the first time in 6 weeks. The chief minister of the region reported Monday night that the region reported just 954 cases the prior day.Though markets seesawed briefly after the news was released, the Lancet’s publication of the results from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate’s Phase 1/2 trial predictably sent stocks ripping higher.In China, after moving to reopen international air travel more quickly than the US had anticipated, officials imposed new rules on Tuesday for foreign passengers arriving in the country: All will now be required to provide negative COVID-19 test results before they board any China-bound flights. The tests must be from 5 days before the flight, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement.Beijing has also announced plans to provide free COVID-19 tests to residents of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang which is experiencing an outbreak.The EU has reportedly managed to reach a deal to boost the bloc’s post-pandemic economies after Charles Michel, president of the European Council and chair of the summit, offered compromises over the euro 750 billion ($860 billion) recovery fund that will be the first fiscal vehicle jointly funded by the EU27 members. The “Frugal Four” have apparently shown a willingness to accept the following adjustments: Outright non-repayable grants will account for just euro 390 billion ($446 billion) compared with the euro 500 billion originally proposed. Disbursements will also be linked to governments observing the rule of law.Around the world, more than 14.7 million people have been diagnosed with the virus. Nearly 610,000 of these have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The US has recorded nearly 141,000 deaths, the most in the world.
COVID-19 cases surging again in Japan – COVID-19 cases have spiked in Japan in recent weeks, particularly in the densely-populated capital of Tokyo, demonstrating the danger the pandemic continues to pose. Last Saturday’s national one-day tally of 659 cases was the fourth highest since the pandemic began, with similarly high totals in April when the government declared a state of emergency. On July 15, Tokyo raised its city alert system to level four, the highest. The next two days each set new record highs for the city with 286 and 293 cases respectively. As of Monday, that number had fallen to 168. However, the average number of untraceable cases has doubled, potentially leading to an explosion in life-threatening illnesses. Furthermore, given the government’s reporting time, the number of cases announced daily is on a three-day delay, meaning the public does not have up-to-date information. Despite the fact that the pandemic has been intensifying around the world, the government has taken no steps to safeguard against a surge. Yoshihiro Yamaguchi, the head of the Trauma and Critical Care Center at Kyorin University Hospital, drew attention to the danger Tokyo faces during a meeting with local officials on July 15. “The pace of increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases has exceeded the pace of securing empty beds to take in patients,” he warned. “The current strategy needs to be changed. Otherwise the (health care system) will collapse.” There are inadequate facilities for quarantining patients with mild symptoms, forcing hundreds, just within Tokyo, to self-isolate at home. If their symptoms worsen they will have no immediate access to medical care. Yet, the shortfall is not new. In April, as the pandemic developed, hospitals were already at or beyond capacity, forcing sick individuals to travel around the city looking for a medical facility that would admit them.
Russian Elite Given Experimental Covid-19 Vaccine Since April – Scores of Russia’s business and political elite have been given early access to an experimental vaccine against Covid-19, according to people familiar with the effort, as the country races to be among the first to develop an inoculation. Top executives at companies including aluminum giant United Co. Rusal, as well as billionaire tycoons and government officials began getting shots developed by the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow as early as April, the people said. They declined to be identified as the information isn’t public. The Gamaleya vaccine, financed by the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund and backed by the Defense Ministry, last week completed a phase 1 trial involving military personnel. The institute hasn’t published results for the study, which involved about 40 people, but has begun the next stage of testing with a larger group. Gamaleya’s press office couldn’t be reached immediately for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who recovered from Covid-19 after being hospitalized with the virus in May, said he doesn’t know the names of anyone who’s received the institute’s vaccine. Asked on a conference call with reporters on Monday if President Vladimir Putin had taken it, Peskov said: “It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to use an uncertified vaccine on the head of state,” adding that he wasn’t aware of other officials trying it.
Why Rwanda Is Doing Better Than Ohio When It Comes To Controlling COVID-19 – In some places in the world right now, getting tested for COVID-19 remains difficult or nearly impossible. In Rwanda, you might just get tested randomly as you’re going down the street. “So whenever someone is driving a vehicle, bicycle, motorcycle or even walking, everyone is asked if you wish to get tested,” says Sabin Nsanzimana, director general of the Rwanda Biomedical Center, which is the arm of the ministry of health that’s in charge of tackling COVID-19. Health officials in personal protective equipment administer the test. Nsanzimana says the testing is voluntary, although some others say refusal is frowned upon. The sample collection – from a swab up the nose – and filling out the contact information paperwork takes about five minutes. “All these samples are sent that day to the lab,” Nsanzimana says. “We have a big lab here in Kigali. We have also six other labs in the other provinces.” Despite being classified by the World Bank as a low-income country, and despite its limited resources, Rwanda has vowed to identify every coronavirus case. Anyone who tests positive is immediately quarantined at a dedicated COVID-19 clinic. Any contacts of that case who are deemed at high risk are also quarantined, either at a clinic or at home, until they can be tested. Sign Up For The New Normal Newsletter Daily news on the coronavirus crisis and help getting through whatever comes next. We’re in this together. Nsanzimana says health workers call or visit every potential contact of someone who tests positive. “We really believe that doing so is important to make sure we detect and trace where the virus could be,” he says. Comprehensive contact tracing is a task that has overwhelmed countries with far more resources than Rwanda. Rwanda’s per capita income is roughly $2,000 per year. Yet all testing and treatment for the virus is provided for free. .
New coronavirus cases globally rocket past a quarter million – A record 279,769 new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday, bringing the total number of known cases globally to nearly 15.4 million. There were also 7,113 confirmed deaths, a fatality count not seen since April, bringing the number of confirmed deaths caused by the coronavirus to 629,343. Brazil, India, South Africa and the United States accounted for the vast majority of the new cases, with Brazil and the United States accounting for almost half by themselves. Similarly, the deaths in Brazil, India, Mexico and the US made up more than half of yesterday’s confirmed coronavirus fatalities. Twenty other countries recorded more than 1,000 new cases of the virus yesterday, and eleven posted more than 50 new deaths. India posted a record day of both new cases, at 45,599, and new deaths, at 1,120, and the rate of increase of both indicates that the pandemic is continuing to spiral out of control in the world’s second most populous country. Its total case count and death tally stand at 1.24 million and 29,890, respectively. Brazil reported the most deaths of any country yesterday, at 1,293, bringing its number of dead to nearly 83,000. The largest economy in Latin America also saw another 65,000 infections, a new daily record, sending its current case count above 2.2 million. South Africa also suffered a record number of new deaths, 572, double the previous record, bringing the total to 5,940, and a near record of new cases, 13,150, bringing confirmed infections to just under 395,000. As the country was recording these grim figures, the South African newspaper the Sowetan noted that the number of excess deaths in the country from natural causes had rose to 17,090 from May 6 – July 14, four times the official COVID-19 death toll over the same period. This suggests that the pandemic has claimed, directly or indirectly, more than 23,000 human lives in the country. Nearly 7,000 new cases were recorded in Mexico, a figure which has been steadily climbing over the past month and a half from less than 3,200 per day at the beginning of June. During that same period, deaths have increased from an average of more than 350 per day to now more than 580 a day. The country currently has more than 362,000 known cases, ranking seventh in the world, and 41,190 reported deaths. At this rate, Mexico is on track to exceed the number of deaths in the United Kingdom (currently at 45,501) by the end of the month.
Record numbers of coronavirus cases in every global region: Reuters tally – (Reuters) – Almost 40 countries have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections over the past week, around double the number that did so the previous week, according to a Reuters tally showing a pick-up in the pandemic in every region of the world. The rate of cases has been increasing not only in countries like the United States, Brazil and India, which have dominated global headlines with large outbreaks, but in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel, among others. Many countries, especially those where officials eased earlier social distancing lockdowns, are experiencing a second peak more than a month after recording their first. “We will not be going back to the ‘old normal’. The pandemic has already changed the way we live our lives,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week. “We’re asking everyone to treat the decisions about where they go, what they do and who they meet with as life-and-death decisions – because they are.” The Reuters data, compiled from official reports, shows a steady rise in the number of countries reporting record daily increases in the virus that causes COVID-19 over the past month. At least seven countries recorded such increases three weeks ago, rising to at least 13 countries two weeks ago to at least 20 countries last week and to 37 countries this week. The true numbers of both cases and deaths are almost certainly underreported, particularly in countries with poorer health care systems, health experts and officials say. For this report, the Reuters data was restricted to countries that provide regular daily numbers. The data reveals a growing number of resurgent cases in countries across all regions. In Australia, officials enforced a six-week partial lockdown and made face masks mandatory for residents in the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, after a fresh outbreak. Australia and Japan, which also posted a daily case record this week, both warned of a rise in infections among young people, many of whom celebrated the end of social restrictions at bars and parties. In Mexico, which also posted a daily record this week and has the fourth-highest death toll of any country, officials warned that a downward trend in case numbers that began in mid-June – about the time the city began relaxing social distancing measures – could reverse.
.
include(“/home/aleta/public_html/files/ad_openx.htm”); ?>