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 an increased number of items from other countries around the globe. US new cases continue to decline slowly overall. Elsewhere, new cases are rising again in Europe and India is the new global hotspot. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
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Summary:
This week’s new US cases were down by at least 10%, so last week’s apparent flatlining can probably be written off to Illinois’s data catching up. US deaths were down a bit, just as in week’s past, but they took a holiday on Monday – take out the holiday, and the daily death average was pretty close to the week before. New cases globally were up a bit, with a new record 320K on Friday, driven by India and Europe. India is now posting twice the number the US posts, accounting for almost a third of new cases worldwide.
Calculated Risk is tracking the daily testing rate and results. The 12 September graphic:
Here are the rest of the articles reviewed and summarized:
Post-COVID syndrome severely damages children’s hearts — Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), believed to be linked to COVID-19, damages the heart to such an extent that some children will need lifelong monitoring and interventions, said the senior author of a medical literature review published Sept. 4 in EClinicalMedicine, a journal of The Lancet. Case studies also show MIS-C can strike seemingly healthy children without warning three or four weeks after asymptomatic infections, said Alvaro Moreira, MD, MSc, of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Dr. Moreira, a neonatologist, is an assistant professor of pediatrics in the university’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. “According to the literature, children did not need to exhibit the classic upper respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 to develop MIS-C, which is frightening,” Dr. Moreira said. “Children might have no symptoms, no one knew they had the disease, and a few weeks later, they may develop this exaggerated inflammation in the body.” Another finding from the case studies: Almost half of patients who had MIS-C had an underlying medical condition, and of those, half of the individuals were obese or overweight. “Generally, in both adults and children, we are seeing that patients who are obese will have a worse outcome,” Dr. Moreira said. The team reviewed 662 MIS-C cases reported worldwide between Jan. 1 and July 25. Among the findings:
- 71% of the children were admitted to the intensive care unit(ICU).
- 60% presented with shock.
- Average length of stay in the hospital was 7.9 days.
- 100% had fever, 73.7% had abdominal pain or diarrhea, and 68.3% suffered vomiting.
- 90% had an echocardiogram (EKG) test and 54% of the results were abnormal.
- 22.2% of the children required mechanical ventilation.
- 4.4% required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
- 11 children died.
Singing can spread COVID-19 – Singing doesn’t need to be silenced, however, but at the moment the wisest thing is to sing with social distancing in place. The advice comes from aerosol researchers at Lund University in Sweden. They have studied the amount of particles we actually emit when we sing – and by extension – if we contribute to the increased spread of Covid-19 by singing. “There are many reports about the spreading of Covid-19 in connection with choirs singing. Therefore, different restrictions have been introduced all over the world to make singing safer. So far, however, there has been no scientific investigation of the amount of aerosol particles and larger droplets that we actually exhale when we sing”, says Jakob Löndahl, associate professor of Aerosol Technology at Lund University. Aerosols are small airborne particles. To get a better understanding of the amount of aerosols and virus particles we actually emit when we sing, 12 healthy singers and two people with confirmed Covid-19 took part in a research project. Seven of the participants were professional opera singers. The study shows that singing – particularly loud and consonant-rich singing – spreads a lot of aerosol particles and droplets into the surrounding air. “Some droplets are so large that they only move a few decimetres from the mouth before they fall, whereas others are smaller and may continue to hover for minutes. In particular, the enunciation of consonants releases very large droplets and the letters B and P stand out as the biggest aerosol spreaders”, says Malin Alsved, doctoral student of Aerosol Technology at Lund University.
New CDC research shows young children can spread COVID-19, even if asymptomatic – Children infected with COVID-19 can still transmit the virus and infect adults, even if they are asymptomatic, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the CDC, children older than 10 can efficiently transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. However, limited data is available on SARS-CoV-2 transmission from young children, particularly in child care settings. The researchers analyzed data from 184 people with links to three child care facilities in Salt Lake County, Utah, from April to July. According to the report, two of the facility outbreaks began with staff members who had household contacts with the virus but still went to work. Using contact tracing data, the CDC found that 54 percent of infections across three separate facilities occurred in children. Researchers found 12 children contracted the virus, with an average age of 7. Those children spread the virus to at least 12 additional people outside the centers, who were mostly members of their households. Six of these cases occurred in mothers, and three cases occurred in siblings of the infected children. At least two of the children who spread the virus were asymptomatic. The CDC said one mother who was presumably infected by her asymptomatic child was subsequently hospitalized. Among the seven cases in which children were symptomatic, a fever was the most common sign, followed by a headache and sore throat. The CDC said mitigation measures like wearing masks can likely help reduce transmission, especially for staff working with children under the age of 2, who may be too young for a mask. But young children can still transmit the virus, as seen in one of the facility outbreaks where an 8-month-old transmitted the virus to both parents.
COVID-19 patients in earlier stages exhaled millions of SARS-CoV-2 per hour (PDF) Abstract: Exhaled breath samples had the highest positive rate (26.9%, n=52), followed by surface swabs (5.4%, n=242), and air samples (3.8%, n=26). COVID-19 patients recruited in Beijing exhaled millions of SARS-CoV-2 RNA copies into the air per hour. Exhaled breath emission may play an important role in the COVID-19 transmission. […] For the first time, we here report that the SARS-CoV-2 is released directly into the air via breathing by COVID-19 patients. The detection limit for SARS-CoV-2 by the RT-PCR was reported to be approximately 100 RNA copies per µL [9]. Using the equation described in Supporting Information, the observed Ct values show that SARS-CoV-2 levels in exhaled breath could reach 105 -107 copies/m3 if an average breathing rate of 12 L/min is assumed. The SARS-CoV-2 breath emission rate is affected by many factors such as disease stage, patient activity, and possibly age. We found that the SARS-CoV-2 breath emission rate into the air was the highest, up to 105 viruses per min, during the earlier stages of COVID-19. This finding was in line with a previous report that the highest SARS-CoV-2 load in throat swabs was observed at the time of symptom onset [10]. Another significant discovery from this Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1283/5898624 by guest on 09 September 2020 Accepted Manuscript 7 work is that SARS-CoV-2 emission was not, however, continuous at the same rate, but was rather a sporadic event. For example, two EBC samples (EBC-1, EBC-2) collected from the same patient E, but on different dates, using the same method returned different test results (Table S2).
CDC report: Dining out increases risk of contracting coronavirus more than other activities Dining out is one of the riskiest possible activities during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday, citing the fact that masks are not used while people are eating and drinking. CDC officials interviewed about 314 people who experienced symptoms of the virus and got tests, about half of whom were positive. Both the positive and the negative subjects said they had engaged in activities such as attending church and in-person shopping. However, people who tested positive were about twice as likely than those who tested negative to say they had dined at a restaurant. People who tested positive but could not identify a specific occasion when they were exposed to the virus were also more likely to have recently visited a bar or coffee shop. “Eating and drinking on-site at locations that offer such options might be important risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the report states. “Efforts to reduce possible exposures where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, such as when eating and drinking, should be considered to protect customers, employees, and communities.” With every state in some form of reopening, numerous localities and states are currently resuming dine-in services. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Wednesday that reduced-capacity indoor dining can begin Sept. 30 in New York City.
Sturgis motorcycle rally was a ‘superspreader event’ – – In early August, more than 460,000 motorcycle enthusiasts converged on Sturgis, S.D., for a 10-day celebration where few wore facial coverings or practiced social distancing. A month later, researchers have found that thousands have been sickened across the nation, leading them to brand the Sturgis rally a “superspreader” event. “The Sturgis Rally was one of the largest in-person gatherings since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States,” said Joseph J. Sabia, one of the study’s authors, a professor of economics and the director of the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies at San Diego State University. He described the “public health costs” of the rally as “substantial and widespread,” which could have infected as many as 266,796 people. He and his co-authors estimate that dealing with the fallout from the rally will involve more than $12 billion in health care costs. “The spread of the virus due to the event was large,” the authors write, because it hosted people from all over the country. But the severity of the spread was closely tied to the approaches to the pandemic by Sturgis attendees’ home states. In some places, any spread related to people returning from the rally was blunted by strong mitigation measures, like a face-mask mandate or a prohibition against indoor dining. The findings come in a new paper, “The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID-19,” published by IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, a German think tank. Its four authors are all researchers affiliated with American universities. In aggregate, the data “provide strong evidence that the Sturgis Rally appears to have been a superspreader event,” the authors conclude. The estimate of 266,000 additional cases comes from those county-by-county infection rate increases; some epidemiologists have shown skepticism about that figure, though there is little argument about the rally having been a dangerous event.The new findings come just days after a Minnesota man became the first Sturgis attendee to die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.The researchers found that the rally, which hosted 462,182 people between Aug. 7 and 16, “generated substantial public health costs,” totaling $12.2 billion. (That calculation is based on figures on health care costs associated with the coronavirus from another IZA study.) The authors note that the cost was “enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 rally attendees $26,553.64 not to attend.”
COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Put on Hold Over Safety Concerns – One of the leading candidates for a COVID-19 vaccine has been stopped after a study participant had a serious adverse reaction that is suspected to have been caused by the vaccine, as STAT News reported. The vaccine from the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford was in the late stages of a phase 3 trial, meaning it was being tested for safety at several sites around the country and in Europe. After a study participant in the United Kingdom fell ill, AstraZeneca said in a statement that it would review safety and efficacy data. Then the company released a second statement, saying it initiated the pause even though the study participant is expected to make a full recovery, according to STAT News.Despite the pause, adverse reactions are very common in clinical trials as is pausing for a safety and efficacy review. It also does not mean the vaccine candidate is a failure. However, it does make it increasingly unlikely that the vaccine will be approved and ready for distribution by Election Day, as President Trump has often said a vaccine would be.In a statement, according to The New York Times, AstraZeneca described the pause as a “routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca was not clear about how long the pause in the vaccine trial will last. The late-stage vaccine trial so far has included 17,000 people in Europe, the U.S., Brazil and South Africa, according to The Guardian. Phase 3 trials include a large number of study participants for exactly this reason; only by testing a large number of people do rare side-effects emerge. “This is the whole point of doing these Phase 2, Phase 3 trials,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, as The New York Times reported. “We need to assess safety, and we won’t know the efficacy part until much later. I think halting the trial until the safety board can figure out whether or not this was directly related to the vaccine is a good idea.”
Oxford University Covid vaccine trial put on hold due to possible adverse reaction in participant – The development of a promising Covid-19 vaccine has been put on hold due to a possible adverse reaction in a trial participant. A spokesman for AstraZeneca, the company working with a team from Oxford University, told the Guardian the trial has been stopped to review the “potentially unexplained illness” in one of the participants. The spokesman stressed that the adverse reaction was only recorded in a single participant and said pausing trials was common during vaccine development. “As part of the ongoing randomised, controlled global trials of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine, our standard review process was triggered and we voluntarily paused vaccination to allow review of safety data by an independent committee,” the spokesman said. “This is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials. In large trials illnesses will happen by chance but must be independently reviewed to check this carefully. “We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimise any potential impact on the trial timeline. We are committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our trials.”The vaccine, which had been expected to be publicly available as early as January, is one of two projects on which the Australian government plans to spend $1.7bn as part of a deal to ensure free vaccines for all citizens.On Monday, the Morrison government committed to buying 33.8m doses of the vaccine if it was proved to be effective.The BBC reported this is the second time this particular vaccine has been paused since trials began in April.
Oxford Covid vaccine trial suspension: what happens next? – One of the volunteers in the UK has become ill and it is crucial that the researchers find out whether this could be related to the vaccine. This is not uncommon in vaccine trials – and in fact it is said to be the second time it has happened with this vaccine . Very large trials are essential to pick up any rare side-effects. Something that affects one in 10,000 people, for instance, will probably not be detected in the early trials of just a few thousand. It is said to be transverse myelitis, although AstraZeneca has not confirmed that. That is inflammation of the sheath containing the nerves of the spinal cord. It can be treated by steroids to reduce the inflammation but the condition can be permanent. Transverse myelitis has been associated with vaccination before, but only very rarely. A study in 2018 looking at more than 30 years of data from the US vaccine adverse event reporting system found 119 cases in 29 men and 90 women, which is a tiny number compared with the numbers vaccinated. However, they were clustered in the first weeks after vaccination, which made the researchers think it could be a rare vaccination-related event. Nearly half the cases followed a hepatitis B vaccination. Investigators will be examining the details of the illness and the person who contracted it to find out if there is a link. They will also look at the dose of vaccine they received, their state of general health and so on. They will hope this event can be explained and is not a risk to others. If so, the trial will soon resume. Researchers in other vaccine trials – there are nine now in phase 3, which is the last stage – will be looking to ensure they are not seeing a similar issue. Given the huge amount of attention being paid to Covid-19 vaccine trials, it is possible the pause will dent public confidence. In previous vaccine trials, we would not have noticed pauses of this sort, because the outcome was less immediately critical to global public health. There are anti-vax movements talking about the supposed dangers of vaccination and there are some who argue that it is better for healthy people to catch Covid-19 and recover from it. However, that is by no means necessarily the safer route. As we know, in rare cases, young and apparently healthy people can also become severely ill and there are long-term effects of the virus.
Anthony Fauci calls pausing of Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial ‘unfortunate’ – The White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s decision to pause global trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine was “unfortunate” – but not an uncommon safety precaution in a vaccine development process. The UK drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had voluntarily paused trials, including late-stage ones, after an unexplained illness in a participant. The company said it was working to expedite a review of safety data by an independent committee to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline. “This particular candidate from the AstraZeneca company had a serious adverse event, which means you put the rest of the enrollment of individual volunteers on hold until you can work out precisely what went on,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the top public health expert on the coronavirus, said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday morning. “It’s really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,” Fauci added. “Hopefully, they’ll work it out and be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial but you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.” The vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing with the University of Oxford, has been described by the World Health Organization as probably the world’s leading candidate and the most advanced in terms of development. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University school of public health said via Twitter that the significance of the interruption was unclear. “We have no idea whether this is a big deal or not. Science is hard. This is why we have to let the trials play out. I remain optimistic we will have a vaccine found to be safe and effective in upcoming months,” he said, but cautioned: “Optimism isn’t evidence. Let’s let science drive this process.” AstraZeneca’s announcement was seen as dimming prospects for an early rollout, which has become a political flashpoint in the presidential election.
One Doctor’s Own Practice Charged Him $10,984 For A COVID Antibody Test – One doctor in Austin literally got a taste of his own medicine after going to his own practice to get a Covid antibody test. Assuming he would get one for free because he worked for the company, his insurance instead wound up getting a bill from Physicians Premier ER for $10,984. His insurance paid it all. But the doctor in question, Dr. Zachary Sussman, became so dismayed, he quit his job, according to ProPublica. Now, the parent company of Sussman’s insurer is investigating the case. Sussman was working part time at four Physicians Premier ER centers, making $4,000 per month to oversee antibody testing. The job was a temporary gig between permanent jobs in Austin and New Mexico. He decided he wanted to take his own test in May, before visiting his family, because he had developed a headache. He went to his own company for a test and, knowing “the materials for each antibody test only amounted to about $8, and it gets read on the spot ” – and that he could even administer the test, figured costs would be minimal. He said he had a quick talk with the ER doctor and there was no physical exam. After 30 minutes, he tested negative. He received his EOB in the mail about a month later showing the charges came to $2,100. “It may as well say Gucci on the outside,” he said about the ER. Several weeks later, a second EOB arrived for the Physicians Premier facility charges – these amounted to $8,884.16. He said he felt “spooked” after seeing the bill and realizing his employer had charged his health plan a total of $10,984.16 for the 30 minute visit. He tendered his resignation weeks later, stating: “I have decided I can no longer ethically provide Medical directorship services to the company. If not outright fraudulent, these charges are at least exorbitant and seek to take advantage of payers in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic.”
Key coronavirus forecast predicts over 410,000 total U.S. deaths by Jan. 1: ‘The worst is yet to come’ –The U.S. will top more than 410,000 Covid-19 deaths by the end of the year as the country heads into the fall and winter, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.Covid-19 has already killed at least 186,800 people in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The model by IHME, whose models have previously been cited by the White House and state officials, forecasts that the death toll will more than double by Jan. 1 and could reach as high as 620,000 if states aggressively ease coronavirus restrictions and people disregard public health guidance.”The worst is yet to come. I don’t think perhaps that’s a surprise, although I think there’s a natural tendency as we’re a little bit in the Northern hemisphere summer, to think maybe the epidemic is going away,” Dr. Christopher Murray, director of IHME, told reporters on a conference call Friday.In June, IHME predicted that the death toll in the U.S. would reach 200,000 by October, which appears to be on track. Some epidemiologists and mathematicians, however, have criticized IHME for making predictions too far into the future. IHME previously projected 317,697 deaths by Dec. 1. The model now predicts that the daily death toll could rise to nearly 3,000 per day in December, up from over 800 per day now, according to Hopkins data. IHME released three new projections based on different assumptions: a worst-case scenario, a best-case scenario and a most likely scenario. The most likely scenario estimates that Covid-19 will kill 410,450 people in the U.S. by Jan. 1. The worst-case scenario, which assumes that restrictions and mask directives will ease, projects up to 620,028 people in the U.S. will die by then and the best-case scenario, which assumes universal masking, predicts that 288,380 people in the U.S. will die from Covid-19 in 2020.
New York infection rate stays below 1 percent for 30 straight days –The coronavirus infection rate in New York state has remained below 1 percent for 30 consecutive days, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Sunday, a significant milestone for a state that was once the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S. The announcement came as New York continues to move ahead with a gradual reopening of its economy. Cuomo, however, struck a cautious note while revealing new data on the virus, saying that New Yorkers needed to continue following health guidelines and social-distancing practices in order to keep the infection rate low. “We know based on experience that an incremental, data-driven reopening is the best way to protect the health and safety of all New Yorkers,” Cuomo said. “As this virus continues to be a national crisis, it’s clear that caution is a virtue, not a vice.” “Our actions today determine the rate of infection tomorrow, so as the Labor Day weekend continues, I urge everyone to be smart so we don’t see a spike in the weeks ahead,” he added. In addition to the low infection rate, hospitalizations in New York from the virus have dropped to 410, the lowest since March 16, Cuomo’s office said. New York has reported more than 439,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. The state was once reporting thousands of cases per day at the peak of its outbreak in the spring. However, health officials are now reporting an average slightly above 700 new cases per day, according to a New York Times database. The state reported 729 cases and nine deaths caused by the virus on Sunday. As parts of New York move forward with a reopening of businesses and schools, concerns have grown about whether the state is adequately prepared. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) temporarily delayed the reopening of schools after unions representing teachers demanded more time to get ready for in-person classes amid the pandemic.
Covid-19 death rate among African Americans and Latinos rising sharply – The death rate in the US from Covid-19 among African Americans and Latinos is rising sharply, exacerbating the already staggering racial divide in the impact of the pandemic which has particularly devastated communities of color. New figures compiled by the Color of Coronavirus project shared with the Guardian show that both total numbers of deaths and per-capita death rates have increased dramatically in August for black and brown Americans. Though fatalities have also increased for white Americans, the impact on this group has been notably less severe. The latest figures record that in the two weeks from 4 to 18 August the death rate of African Americans shot up from 80 to 88 per 100,000 population – an increase of eight per 100,000. By contrast the white population suffered half that increase, from 36 to 40 per 100,000, an increase of 4 per 100,000. For Latino Americans the increase was even more stark, rising from 46 to 54 per 100,000 – an increase of nine per 100,000. The new batch of statistics is a cause for concern on a number of levels. The death rate for all racial and ethnic groups had been falling through the summer but after the virus began surging through the south and midwest in July it produced a time-lagged spike in deaths in August that has driven the human suffering back up to previous grim heights. “We are seeing more deaths among African Americans and Latinos than at any time this summer. So as we go into the fall, with schools and colleges reopening and other new avenues for exposure, it portends a very frightening future,” said Andi Egbert, senior researcher with APM Research Lab, the non-partisan research arm of American Public Media that compiles the data. On 18 August, the latest date on which the researchers have crunched the numbers, almost 36,000 African Americans had died from Covid-19. The new uptick means that 1 in 1,125 black Americans have died from the disease, compared with 1 in 2,450 white Americans – half the rate. That striking disparity underlines a major failing at the heart of the US response to Covid. It has been known now for several months that the virus is exacting an especially punishing toll among communities of color, yet federal and state governments have not taken steps effectively to ameliorate the disaster.
The Mask-Defying Church at Center of Disastrous Maine Wedding Linked to 3 Deaths, 144 Virus Cases – Maine’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak is linked to a wedding officiated by the pastor of a distancing-defying church who says masks are part of a “socialistic platform.” Now more than 144 COVID-19 patients have been linked to the event, and three people are dead.Todd Bell is pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, Maine. Famous for flying between ministries in multiple states on his private plane (God “burdened” his heart to do airplane ministry, he says), Bell flew in to officiate a rural Maine wedding on August 7.That wedding is the nexus of 144 COVID-19 cases, including three that resulted in deaths, Maine officials said Friday. One of the deceased, an 83-year-old woman, did not even attend the wedding, but contracted the virus from a guest. None of this appears to be stopping Bell from doing business as usual in his church, calling on worshippers to trust “God, not government” as the pandemic progresses.The August 7 wedding in Millinocket, Maine was a super-spreader event. Sixty-five guests attended the event at the Big Moose Inn, a violation of the state’s limit on large gatherings. Officiated by Bell, the celebration went on to sicken guests, some of whom in turn passed it on to people in particularly vulnerable communities.COVID-19 outbreaks at a local rehabilitation center, a senior living facility, a county jail, and a school have all been traced back to the wedding. The number of cases linked to the event has doubled in the past week.One of the victims, 83-year-old Theresa Dentremont, did not attend the wedding, but caught COVID-19 from someone who had. A mother of six, Dentremont was described in an obituary as the “anchor of her family” and someone who was “unwaveringly positive and…always found the good in every person and every situation.” Six Calvary Baptist families also attended the wedding, Bell confirmed in a sermon last Sunday, reported by the Penobscot Bay Pilot. But despite a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Calvary Baptist-goers should voluntarily quarantine, the church was still in full unmasked operation last week.
Teen in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania linked to 40 new COVID-19 cases – Officials from Allegheny County Health Department reported September 2 that 40 COVID-19 cases over a two-week period had been traced back to one teenager. This revelation by health officials is a deadly warning about the ability of COVID-19 to spread throughout the country that includes the city of Pittsburgh as it prepares to open for in-person learning on September 9. As part of a monthly department briefing, Dr. Debra Bogen, the health department director, said, “This teenager developed symptoms and within two weeks … it had spread to family members, to the coworkers of family members, to other people in that teen’s community.” According to the data, the teen – who was not named – began showing symptoms on August 14. In subsequent days, individuals the teen had interacted with began to show symptoms of the virus. These people went on to spread the virus to another layer of people before the spread was able to be identified and contained. As a result, 40 people contracted COVID-19, including two elderly individuals. In the monthly department briefing, Bogen elaborated on the now well-known fact that young people are just as capable of spreading the virus as adults: “You start out with young, healthy people who get the infection and, unfortunately, they spread it to more vulnerable populations.” Furthermore, health officials reiterated that young people are themselves not immune to the effects of the virus. In fact, there have been 14 children in the county who have needed hospitalization because of COVID-19, two of whom had to be placed in intensive care units. While it is true that youth are statistically less likely than adults to have fatal complications from the virus, many young people who contract it require hospitalizations and some die. In addition, hundreds of very young children have become extremely sick with an inflammatory disease after contracting the virus.
The Opioid Crisis, Already Serious, Has Intensified During Coronavirus Pandemic – WSJ – When Covid-19 struck, the U.S. was already in the grip of an expanding drug-overdose crisis. It has only gotten worse since then. Counties in states spanning the country, from Washington to Arizona and Florida, are reporting rising drug fatalities this year, according to data collected by The Wall Street Journal. This follows a likely record number of deadly overdoses in the U.S. last year, with more than 72,000 people killed, according to federal projections. The pandemic has destabilized people trying to maintain sobriety or who are struggling with addiction during a time of increased social isolation and stress, according to treatment providers and public-health authorities. In a survey of U.S. adults released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 13% of respondents in June said they had started or increased substance use to deal with stress or emotions related to Covid-19. The drug deaths are adding to the pandemic’s toll, which includes more than 188,000 infection-related fatalities, but also other deaths linked to factors such as disruptions in health care and economic dislocation. “It’s a pretty stark reality here,” said David Sternberg, clinical-services manager at the nonprofit group HIPS in Washington, D.C., which helps keep drug users safe and find treatment. “We’ve lost a lot of clients, a lot of patients.” Moreover, social-distancing limitations are complicating treatment for people who struggle with addiction and for the organizations that provide services to them. Drug-treatment providers say the federal government has helped amid the pandemic by loosening restrictions to make it easier to access addiction medication remotely, and are using telemedicine to reach people in need where possible. But people in recovery also often rely on in-person support services like group meetings, advocates say.The Journal, through data and public-records requests, asked the 50 largest counties by population for information on overdoses this year. Among the 30 that provided numbers, 21 of them showed overdose deaths trending up from last year. Among the other jurisdictions, several had only prepandemic data, and some said overdose tallies were flat or trending lower. Federal overdose data has yet to catch up to the pandemic months. Counties in Nevada, California, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan are among those showing increases. Authorities in other places, including traditional hot spots for opioid deaths like parts of Appalachia and New England, are also reporting more drug deaths. The spread of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, and increased use of methamphetamines were contributing to the worsening overdose problem before the pandemic. Many counties and states say the pandemic is amplifying the threat from these drugs.
How Miners with Black Lung Disease Are Navigating the Pandemic -Living with black lung disease is hard on patients and their families. Not being able to breath or do simple tasks saps the energy of former miners, and the treatment is time consuming and expensive. The social distancing with COVID-19, and its potential to compromise the respiratory system, makes living with black lung that much harder. Jerry Coleman, a third-generation coal miner, worked for 37 years, mostly underground, near Cabin Creek, West Virginia. But at 68 years old, he has complicated black lung disease, meaning, his lungs are permanently and irreversibly scarred by coal dust.“Black lung, it doesn’t get better, it gets worse,” Coleman said.Black lung is in a way, a death sentence – the lungs gradually deteriorate until the person can no longer breathe.And in the middle of a pandemic, it is only more complicated, Coleman said. He is also the president for the Kanawha County Black Lung Association.“You gotta wear a mask, and with your breathin’ problems and stuff, it’s hard to walk around and breath through the mask. It’s like sucking in hot air,” he said. “But I don’t have no choice, with the condition of my lungs and stuff, I can’t take a chance.”COVID-19 is classified as a respiratory virus. It can affect and even be deadly to the healthiest of people, but the most vulnerable are those with high-risk conditions, such as lung disease and old age – which represent much of West Virginia’s former coal miner population.“Each different lung disease kind of takes away some of your lung function,” said Carl Werntz, an occupational medical specialist in southern West Virginia.Werntz administers black lung exams, a crucial step to apply for federal black lung benefits.“So that person if they get COVID it bothers their lungs,” he said. “They’re going to run out of usable lung much faster than somebody who starts out with healthy lungs.”
September 9 COVID-19 Test Results – The US is now mostly reporting over 700,000 tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).
There were 584,412 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 30,983 positive tests.See the graph on US Daily Deaths here. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 5.3% (red line). For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com. And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing. The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported.The dashed line is the June low.Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed (the percent positive was very high – see first graph). By June, the percent positive had dropped below 5% (lower than today). If people stay vigilant, the number of cases might drop to the June low by the end of September (that would still be a large number of new cases, but progress).
Dr. Fauci Warns “We Need To Hunker Down To Get Through This Fall And Winter Because It’s Not Going To Be Easy” – In his latest round of interviews and appearances since reports emerged earlier this week that forces within DHHS were trying to muzzle the good doctor, Dr. Fauci said Thursday that despite the ongoing decline in daily COVID-19 cases, Americans shouldn’t let up on the battle against the pandemic. During a round table discussion at Harvard Medical School on Thursday, with the US closing in on 200,000 deaths and 6 million cases, Dr. Fauci warned that “we need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because it’s not going to be easy,” Fauci said. Regarding the emerging newest “hot spot” in the Midwest, and the looming threat of a second wave in the US like what’s happening right now in France and Spain, Dr. Fauci warned that “it’s really quite frankly depressing to see that because you know what’s ahead.” Fauci, one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers since the 1980s, warned about the dangers of underestimating the virus. He compared the pandemic to the early days of HIV, in terms of how it escalated, and, in COVID-19’s case, how it might continue to escalate. “We’ve been through this before,” he said. “Don’t ever, ever underestimate the potential of the pandemic. And don’t try and look at the rosy side of things.”
Michigan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases up to 111,524; Death toll now at 6,591 – – The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 111,524 as of Saturday, including 6,591 deaths, state officials report.Saturday’s update represents 692 new cases and 13 additional deaths. On Friday, the state totals were 110,832 cases and 6,578 deaths.The state also reports “active cases,” which were listed at 22,600 Friday. Michigan’s 7-day moving average for daily cases was 758 Saturday. The state’s fatality rate is 6.0 percent.New COVID-19 cases and deaths remain flat in Michigan. Testing has remained steady, with an average of more than 30,000 per day, with the positive rate between 3 and 4 percent. The state reported its highest one-day testing total with more than 41,000 diagnostic tests on Aug. 21.Hospitalizations have increased slightly over the last month but remain lower than in April. Ventilator use is at its lowest point since tracking.According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 2.4 million have recovered in the U.S., with more than 6.4 million cases reported across the country. More than 193,000 have died in the U.S.Worldwide, more than 28.5 million people have been confirmed infected and over 916,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. The true numbers are certainly much higher, because of limited testing, different ways nations count the dead and deliberate under-reporting by some governments.
Are US Covid-19 Fatalities Declining? Probably – Menzie Chinn – I read some triumphalist claims that Covid-19 fatalities are declining. I want to remind readers about the hazards of interpreting (1) administrative data, and (2) data revisions.First, there are official tabulations of fatalities due to Covid-19. We should worry about suppression of data in, for instance, Florida, but let’s take the CDC data (which compiles the data provided by authorities) at face value. It’s not clear that all fatalities attributable to Covid-19 are caught by the tracking system. Then we might use “excess fatalities” as a check on the administrative tabulation. Figure 1 below shows how the CDC data on Covid-19 deaths matches the deviation from the fatalities we expect (“excess fatalities”). Figure 1: Weekly fatalities due to Covid-19 as reported to CDC for weeks ending on indicated dates (black), excess fatalities calculated as actual minus expected (teal), fatalities as tabulated by The Covid Tracking Project/Atlantic (dark red). Light green shading denotes CDC data that are likely to be revised. Source: CDC 9/5/2020 vintage, Covid Tracking Project/Atlantic accessed 9/10/2020 and author’s calculations.Note that excess fatalities far exceed the officially designated Covid-19 fatalities for most of the sample.Further note that both of the CDC series – Covid-19 Fatalities and Excess Fatalities – drop off dramatically in recent weeks. If you didn’t read the notes attached to the CDC spreadsheet, you’d conclude that we’ve won! But inspection of the spreadsheet reveals notes that indicate that the most recent data is incomplete. In fact, as I show in this post, about the four most recent weeks worth of data are going to be substantially revised. I shade this period in green in the above graph. A hint that this is a substantial problem is provided by comparing the trajectory of the unofficial tally compiled by the Our World in Data project of the Atlantic group, which indicates a much smaller decline. That means it is possible that “excess fatalities” – our proxy measure for Covid-19 fatalities – is still increasing (although officially designated Covid-19 fatalities are probably declining, as the Our World in Data series not subject to really large revisions).
Global coronavirus death projections point to policy of herd immunity being pursued with impunity – On September 4, the number of new cases of COVID-19 surpassed 300,000 globally for the first time. After a brief peak in mid-August, the seven-day running average is climbing again, with over 267,500 infections each day. There have been over 27 million cases since the start of the pandemic in December 2019, a period of nine months. The first 10 million cases were reached on June 27 and the first 20 million on August 9. Cases are expected to exceed 30 million in the second half of this month, after which the number of new cases is set to increase its pace, according to the global projections made by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based in Seattle, Washington. According to Worldometer Dashboard, on September 6, 2020:
- * Globally: total cases 27,234,299; total deaths 886,192
- * Europe: total cases 3,797,637; total deaths 209,970
- * North America (including Mexico and Central America): total cases 7,658,021; total deaths 280,295
- * South America: total cases 6,688,579; total deaths 211,692
- * Asia: total cases 7,755,652; total deaths 152,104, with India at the epicenter
- * Africa: total cases 1,304,400; total deaths 31,332
- * Oceania: total cases 29,289; total deaths 784
Based on IHME’s current global projections, by December 1, 2020, the cumulative number of deaths will exceed 1.92 million, an additional million victims over the next three months. By various regions, the figures are as follows:
- * East Asia and Pacific: 131,736 deaths, with a peak of 4,820 deaths per day
- * South Asia: 404,016 deaths, with daily deaths at 9,716
- * Europe and Central Asia: 406,204 deaths, with 5,441 deaths per day peaking in the last week of December at 9,670 daily deaths
- * Latin Americas and Caribbean islands: 478,124 deaths, with a peak of 1,600 daily deaths
- * North America (the US and Canada): 339,647 deaths, with a peak of 3,137 daily deaths
- * North Africa and the Middle East: 113,839 deaths, with an initial peak of 1,671 followed by a second surge mid-December
- * Sub-Saharan Africa: 50,033 deaths, with a peak of 809 deaths per day
Lockdown 2.0 – “There’s Going To Be Hell To Pay” – by Raul Ilargi Meijer – Of course, because I’m a dreamer, I start off an essay like this with the idea that I should do an all-encompassing idea of COVID19, all around the world no less, for the rest of 2020, and beyond. Only to find that nobody, including me, even if I have a few advantages over most, could possibly do such a thing. So of necessity there’ll be this essay and many more to come. As the US elections set the world on fire.I did make a list of what every government, every society and community should be ordering by now (and that would be already very late) Here they are: A billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks. (I am not a doctor, but we do have doctors on this platform.)Rapid tests: these things have been available for months, but have been obstructed by guidelines that say every test must be PCR, which take a long time to produce results, which test positive on dead virus etc. etc. Whereas rapid tests (there are several options) detect a virus load when it’s most likely to infect a third person (the no. 1 thing you want to find!, and moreover show a result in minutes and cost a few pennies each (don’t fall for the $5 a test thing!). You can do a paper test for everyone every single day.We have this, we got this, but we’re not doing it. The answer from the politicians who have failed to grasp this reality will be: another lockdown! But there won’t be another lockdown. Or, there will be in some locations, but what good is that if neighbors don’t lock down? More on that in a bit. Hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) and zinc -combined if you will with an antibiotic- for those who are infected or close to it, combined with a substantial increase in everyone’s vitamin D levels in your population -right now, you already lost half a year!- will bring down death and suffering enormously. Don’t listen to your doctor, listen to us.A bit of -potential- harsh reality came to us today through a report from Washington University’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. They predict total deaths to triple globally, and double in the US, in less than four months from today. Total COVID19 Deaths Projected To Double In US, Triple in World By Jan. 1 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the end of the year, more than double the current death toll, and deaths could soar to 3,000 per day in December, the University of Washington’s health institute forecast on Friday. Deaths could be reduced by 30% if more Americans wore face masks as epidemiologists have advised, but mask-wearing is declining, the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said. The U.S. death rate projected by the IHME model, which has been cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, would more than triple the current death rate of some 850 per day. No, I won’t take back one word of what I’ve been saying about the best ways to tackle COVD19 over the past 8 months, for instance in April 15’s The Only Man Who Has A Clue about Nassim Taleb. He was still right, and that’s not going to change. But that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. Actually, a lot has.
UK Reports Most New COVID-19 Cases Since May; India Sees New Record Surge: Live Updates– The UK just reported the highest number of new cases in a single day since May (the latest sign of a coronavirus comeback in Europe) while India cemented a new global daily record after reporting more than 90k new cases. Britain reported 2,988 new cases on Sunday, its largest daily tally since May 23. The country also saw 2 new deaths, bringing Britain’s death toll to 41,551, and its confirmed case total to 347,152. A day earlier, the UK reported just 1,813 cases. Daily hospitalizations, meanwhile, have hardly budged from their lows. Elsewhere in Europe, France placed seven more departments covering major cities including Lille, Strasbourg and Dijon on high alert as the country’s latest outbreaks accelerate. Of France’s 101 mainaland and overseas “departments”, 28 are now considered “red zones.” This comes amid a surge in new cases seen over the past week, but especially over the past 2 days. On Sunday, India topped its own world record when it reported 90,632 daily new cases, the largest daily tally reported anywhere in the world. The new cases brought India’s total confirmed caseload to 4.11 million. Meanwhile, the number of deaths in the world’s second-most-populous country rose by 1,065 to 70,626. India is set to pass Brazil on Monday as the second-most affected country by total infections. After that, it will be behind only the US in terms of total cases. While a recent testing campaign has been blamed for the country’s record-beating numbers, testing isn’t the only issue. India is in second place worldwide when it comes to overall tests administered, with 47,831,145, behind the US, with 86,763,797. But its rate is 35,322 per million compared with the global average of 69,512, the US with 261,844 and Brazil with 67,696. Despite fervent protests that led to hundreds of arrests the other day, Australia’s coronavirus hotspot state of Victoria on Sunday extended its “hard” lockdown once again, adding another two weeks, which extends it until the end of September as infection rates have declined more slowly than hoped. State Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday extended the hard lockdown, in place since August 2, to September 28 with a slight relaxation, and explained how restrictions would gradually decline over the coming two months. The extension comes after Australia slumped into its first recession in decades. Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, has been the epicentre of a second wave of the novel coronavirus, now accounting for roughly 75% of the country’s 26,282 cases and 90% of its 753 deaths. The state on Sunday reported 63 new COVID-19 infections and five deaths, down from a peak of 725 new cases reported on Aug. 5. Finally, as Philippines and Indonesia cement their status as the worst outbreaks in Southeast Asia, Al Jazeera reports that a cemetery in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta is reportedly running out of space as the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus continues to rise. Unfortunately, in swampy Jakarta, using portable refrigeration trucks might not be feasible, like it was in New York. Indonesia has reported roughly 190,000 cases, and roughly 8,000 dead.
India Overtakes Brazil As Home To World’s Second-Worst COVID-19 Outbreak- Live Updates Following its latest global record for most new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in a single day on Sunday, India has overnight finally surpassed Brazil as the country with the second-largest outbreak in the world. As expected, the record 90,802 new cases India reported on Sunday were enough to push its total past Brazil’s. India also reported 1,016 deaths, with Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai, remaining India’s worst-affected state. It had nearly 25% of India’s total infections on Sunday as it reported 23,350 new cases. As promised, Delhi’s metro rail system reopened on Monday morning, despite the city having a five-day rolling average of cases over 2,500. The rail, which is seen as vital to Delhi’s economy, had been shuttered for more than 5 months, and its reopening is part of the broader loosening of COVID-19-related restrictions as PM Narendra Modi shifts his focus to saving India’s battered economy, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, contracting nearly 24% in the three months to June, its worst performance since records began in 1996. The metro in Lucknow, capital of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, also reopened on Monday for the first time since India’s lockdown was initially imposed back in March. India now as 4.2 million cases, compared with Brazil’s 4.12 million. India’s death toll is just over 71,000, leaving it behind Brazil’s, which is just under 125k. As new cases in Victoria decline while officials extend a lockdown, Australian officials announced that a vaccine would be delivered by January 2021. After the UK reported nearly 3,000 new cases yesterday, its biggest daily tally since May., Environment Secretary George Eustice warned Monday that the country would seek to avoid another lockdown “at all costs” during an interview with Sky News, where he emphasized testing, tracing and localized lockdowns as the key tools in the kit. As Australia extends a lockdown in Melbourne even as cases finally start to decline, the country announced Monday that it expects to receive batches of a potential COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021. Over in Russia, which remains in 4th place worldwide for most cases, officials told the TASS newswire that testing on the next batch of subjects would begin this week as Russia seeks international approval of its vaccine. On Friday, the Lancet, a British medical journal, ruled that the Russian vaccine appeared to be “safe and effective.” Globally speaking, COVID-19 cases topped 27 million on Monday in the US, with global deaths hitting 883,339, per JHU.
India now second only to US in number of COVID-19 cases, yet continues to expand “reopening” – After recording over 90,000 new infections on Monday, India surpassed Brazil as the country with the second highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Despite the calamitous situation, which includes approximately 1,000 daily deaths, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the various state governments are pushing ahead with the reopening of the economy. This includes the state governments led or supported by the opposition Congress Party and various regional and caste-ist parties, and their Stalinist collaborators in the CPM (Communist Party of India, Marxist) and the CPI (Communist Party of India).According to figures released by India’s Ministry of Health, the country reported a new single-day world record for new infections with 90,802 Monday, pushing India’s official total above 4.2 million. For about a month, India has reported the highest number of daily cases in the world. The death toll has climbed to 71,642. The pace at which the virus is spreading has dramatically accelerated over the past month. Whereas around 55,000 new daily cases were being recorded in the first week of August, India is now averaging well in excess of 80,000 new cases per day. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in India has doubled from 2 million to more than 4 million within just one month. It took just 13 days for infections to increase by one million, from 3 million on August 22 to 4 million on September 4.Horrific as these figures are, they are a substantial underestimation of the true scale of the crisis. Virtually all experts agree that due to a miserably low testing rate, only a fraction of COVID-19 infections are being identified. Some have even suggested that India has already surpassed the United States to become the worst impacted country in the world. The callous and criminal policies of the Modi government at the center and the various state governments have produced enormous social suffering, in addition to the health catastrophe.Modi’s ill-conceived and ill-prepared coronavirus national lockdown, which was implemented on March 25 with less than four hours’ notice, was a total failure. The Indian ruling elite refused to use the time bought by the lockdown to implement a comprehensive system of mass testing and contact tracing, or to pour resources into the country’s chronically under-resourced public health care system.Moreover, the BJP government provided the tens of millions of impoverished workers who lost their jobs overnight due to the lockdown no more than famine-style relief programs, resulting in widespread destitution, homelessness and hunger. The lockdown and the government’s refusal to provide social support have produced an unprecedented economic collapse. In the quarter ending in June, India’s GDP declined by 23.9 percent, the largest recorded drop among major economies.
Skyrocketing Indian virus cases could eclipse U.S. outbreak – The novel coronavirus seemed like a distant problem in Boisar, a small factory town about two hours from Mumbai, until Daniel Tribhuvan died. The 35-year-old tutor started feeling feverish in April, while bringing his father home from a chemotherapy appointment in the Indian financial capital. When a test confirmed Tribhuvan was infected, the local health system’s reaction was shambolic. After he checked into a public hospital, the first thing they did was try to palm him off to a private facility in Mumbai. The ambulance turned around halfway when they discovered he couldn’t pay. Back at the public hospital, a doctor didn’t see him for three days, and when an elderly man occupying a bed nearby died, his body wasn’t collected for 12 hours. After a week, Tribhuvan’s blood-oxygen levels were dangerously low. He died on May 17, becoming Boisar’s first confirmed fatality from covid-19. “I think he would have survived if the system was good,” Samuel Tribhuvan, Daniel’s older brother, said in a recent interview at Boisar’s local administrative office, inside a rundown building that also houses a liquor store and a portrait studio. “This is the worst place where we could get the coronavirus.” Six months after the start of the pandemic – as the developed world tries to restore some semblance of normalcy – the virus is arriving with a vengeance in India’s vast hinterland, where 70% of its more than 1.3 billion citizens live. The country is now adding more than 80,000 confirmed infections per day, with about 71,000 deaths so far, numbers experts say are likely being under-counted. On Monday it galloped past Brazil to become the world’s second-biggest outbreak, a sobering preview of what could happen once the coronavirus spreads in earnest across other poor, densely populated places from Nigeria to Myanmar. With such a vast reservoir of potential hosts and minimal ability to contain infections, it seems inevitable that India will at some point overtake the U.S. to have the most cases globally. The result is likely to be a human and economic catastrophe, risking untold numbers of deaths and the reversal of years of rising incomes and living standards – developments that helped lift millions of people from grinding poverty into something like the middle class. The broader effects won’t be confined to the subcontinent. With a gross domestic product last year of almost $3 trillion, India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and a crucial node in global supply chains. Despite the troubled state of its own medical system, it is by far the largest producer of both vaccines and the generic drugs that healthcare systems around the world rely upon. And with Asia’s economic giant, China, turning increasingly inwards, companies from Walmart to Facebook had been investing heavily in India, betting on its rising consumer market. India’s trouble containing the virus, therefore, could weigh on any global recovery from the coronavirus – either epidemiological or economic.
Ukraine sees new record: 2,836 people fall ill, 50 die from COVID-19 over past day – NSDC – Ukraine has another record: as of Saturday morning, 2,836 cases of COVID-19 were detected over the day, while 1,036 people recovered, 50 died, according to data posted on the website of the National Security and Defense Council’s (NSDC) coronavirus epidemic monitoring system. A day earlier, on September 4, there was the previous anti-record with 2,495 new infections per day, on September 3 some 2,430 cases were reported, on September 2 there were 2,495 new infected persons, and on September 1 some 2,088 cases. The number of infected since the beginning of the pandemic was 133,787 people on Saturday morning, 2,811 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic from COVID-19, some 61,649 people have recovered. Now in Ukraine there are 69,327 people sick with COVID-19, which is 1,750 more than the day before. The largest number of detected cases of COVID-19 over the past day was recorded in Kharkiv (380), Ternopil (226), Odesa (222), Lviv (195) regions, as well as in Kyiv (315). In addition, over the past day, 3,110 suspicions of COVID-19 disease were recorded in Ukraine as a whole. ..
Ukrainian church leader who blamed COVID-19 on gay marriage tests positive for virus – A prominent religious leader in Ukraine who earlier this year blamed the coronavirus pandemic on same-sex marriage has tested positive for the virus, his church announced. Patriarch Filaret, 91, who leads the large Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, contracted COVID-19 and was subsequently hospitalized, the church confirmed Friday in a statement shared on its website and on Facebook. In a follow-up statement shared Tuesday, the church said its leader’s health is “stable” as “treatment continues.”
UK government blames young people as COVID-19 surges – Late Tuesday night, as has become standard for coronavirus statements, the UK government announced that social gatherings, indoors or outdoors, would be limited to six people from next Monday, September 14. Down from 30 previously, the measure is designed to disguise the fact that the government’s reopening policy proceeds unchanged even as infections rise exponentially, and to provide it with an opportunity to shift responsibility for its crimes onto young people. The six-person rule does not apply to workplaces or schools, and groups of six can continue to visit pubs, bars, and restaurants. As if to underscore the tokenistic character of the measure, organised sporting fixtures are also exempt. Wherever there are profits to be made, or children who need minding so their parents can return to work, public health concerns disappear. The six-person limit will be accompanied by a new asinine government health slogan, “Hands-Face-Space,” supposedly encouraging hand-washing, the wearing of face masks and social distancing. This comes on the heels of the infamous “Stay Alert-Control the Virus-Save Lives” message. The real political intentions behind these new interventions were summed up by Conservative government Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who noted in an interview on Monday that cases were rising fastest among young people, before saying, “The question is, how much are you willing to risk the lives of yourself and others by breaking the social distancing rules?” and, “Don’t kill your gran by catching coronavirus and then passing it on.” The outrageous misrepresentation perpetrated by this callous statement is that the renewed spread of the virus is down to failings of individual responsibility. Limiting gatherings to six has been justified with reference to incidents of illegal raves and house parties – given pages and pages of coverage in the press. In a circle that cannot be squared, the government simultaneously expresses “concern” over the “sharp rise” in cases amongst young people, while pushing forward its drive to reopen schools that have already become a breeding ground for the virus.
Spain Breaks COVID-19 Record for Western Europe With 500,000+ Cases – Spain set a dubious record Monday when it became the first country in Western Europe to pass half a million coronavirus cases. The Spanish Ministry of Health reported 525,549 cases Monday, up more than 26,000 from Friday’s confirmed caseload of 498,989, according to Reuters. The news came the same day as six regions in Spain were set to begin in-person schooling. “They aren’t taking adequate measures,” 25-year-old Madrid resident Lux Marin told Reuters. “Look, people are walking around without face masks, the government is opening schools and that is not fair to children or to adults.” Spain was one of the hardest hit European countries during the first wave of the pandemic, The New York Times pointed out, and it imposed strict lockdown measures in response. People were only allowed outside to walk their dogs or buy groceries. But, starting in July, the country reopened restaurants, bars, shops and beaches and welcomed international visitors. It restarted activities like nightlife and group gatherings faster than the rest of Europe, something that has contributed to the latest surge in cases. Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration told Reuters that the country emerged from lockdown before adequate test and trace measures were in place. He also blamed the country’s high population density, different rules in different Spanish regions and the difficult circumstances faced by low-wage workers. “For these vulnerable workers, whether in agriculture, domestic service or in restaurants, you can tell them to stay at home for two weeks but it’s not clear they can afford that,” he told Reuters.
France Suffers Record Jump In COVID-19 Cases As Europe’s Second Wave Builds- Live Updates -France just reported 9,843 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, a new record jump, as the country leads Western Europe in the “second wave” of infections. The number is higher than the 8,577 new cases reported yesterday and higher than the 8,975 record reported on Friday. It brings the total to 392,181 cases.The new figures come as the French gov’t prepares to discuss on Friday whether to impose new local lockdowns as the country struggles with the largest numbers it has seen since the outbreak began. The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Europe over the last 24 hours has surpassed the US for the first timeThe 27 countries in the European Union plus the U.K., Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein recorded 27,233 new cases on Wednesday, compared with 26,015 for the US, according to the latest tallies from JHU. It comes as Spain, France and – to a lesser degree, Italy and the UK – lead a resurgence as more businesses and schools reopen.Yet another case of COVID-19 reinfection has been confirmed Thursday after a man who traveled from the US to the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus, after two negative tests in less than a month, the local government said.The man was confirmed as infected on Sept. 9, and had been previously tested twice since his Aug. 11 arrival. The individual has been described as asymtpomatic. On Thursday, China reported seven new cases for the past 24 hours, up from just two a day earlier. All of the new cases were described as imported, including the case mentioned above, since they all allegedly involved travelers from overseas. China has gone 25 consecutive days with no local transmissions. Though South Korea raised important questions about China’s numbers earlier this week.A few weeks ago, Hong Kong confirmed the first case of reinfection anywhere in the wold. Since then, others have been confirmed in Asia and Europe.In other news, Australia’s state of Victoria reported 51 new cases and seven deaths from the virus, compared with 76 cases and 11 deaths a day earlier, in the latest sign that the outbreak is finally waning.Once again, India reported a record single-day spike in cases and fatalities, with 95,735 infections and 1,172 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing its COVID-19 total to more than 4.46 million and extending its lead over Brazil.
Quebec City Says It Will Isolate “Uncooperative” Citizens In Secret Corona Facility Authorities in Quebec City, Canada have announced they will isolate “uncooperative” citizens in a coronavirus facility, the location of which remains a secret. During a press conference, Dr. Jacques Girard, who heads the Quebec City public health authority, drew attention to a case where patrons at a bar were ordered to wait until their COVID-19 tests came back, but disregarded the command and left the premises before the results came back positive. This led to them being deemed “uncooperative” and forcibly interned in a quarantine facility. “[W]e may isolate someone for 14 days,” Girard said during the press conference. “And it is what we did this morning…forced a person to cooperate with the investigation…and police cooperation was exceptional.” The health official then outlined how the state is also tracking down people for violating their home quarantine and forcibly removing them to the secret facility. “Because we have had people isolated at home. And then, we saw the person was not at home. So, we went to their home, and then told them, we are isolating you where we want you to be,” said Girard. “Six other Quebec City bars “known to have been frequented by Kirouac regulars” are now being examined by public health officials,” reports the RAIR Foundation. “It should be noted that it is not being claimed that anyone is actually sick from the coronavirus. But the state has the power to force a citizen into isolation anyway.” As we previously highlighted, the government of New Zealand announced similar measures, saying that they will put all new coronavirus infectees and their close family members in “quarantine facilities.”
China Injects Hundreds of Thousands With Experimental Covid-19 Vaccines – WSJ – A Chinese pharmaceutical company has injected hundreds of thousands of people with experimental Covid-19 vaccines, as its Western counterparts warn against administering mass vaccinations before rigorous scientific studies are complete. China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use condition approved by Beijing in July, the company said this week. Separately, Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said it has inoculated around 3,000 of its employees and their family members, including the firm’s chief executive, with its experimental coronavirus vaccine. The three vaccine candidates are still undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials, which involve testing a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness on thousands of people. Six other leading Covid-19 vaccine candidates are also in this final phase, according to the World Health Organization. Regulators in individual countries usually determine whether to let the broader public use a vaccine only after its testing is complete. The U.S., U.K. and Germany, where some of the leading candidates originate, haven’t yet approved any Covid-19 vaccine for use outside of clinical trials. Public-health experts say front-line medical workers should be given priority in any emergency use of unapproved vaccines. The Chinese government gave approval for members of the military to receive an experimental vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics Inc. in June, then authorized emergency use of other vaccine candidates for medical workers and border inspectors in July. Nine Western pharmaceutical companies promised in a joint statement this week not to file for regulatory approval or authorization of their experimental Covid-19 vaccines until formal clinical testing was complete.
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