Category Archives: Infectious Virus

A few superspreaders transmit the majority of coronavirus cases

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Corona A few superspreaders transmit the majority of coronavirus ...

The coronavirus has traveled the globe, infecting one person at a time. Some sick people might not spread the virus much further, but some people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 are what epidemiologists call “superspreaders.”

Elizabeth McGraw, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, explains the evidence and why superspreaders can be crucial to a disease’s transmission.

What is a superspreader?

Early in the outbreak, researchers estimated that a person carrying SARS-CoV-2 would, on average, infect another two to three people. More recent studies have argued, however, that this number may actually be higher.

As early as January, though, there were reports out of Wuhan, China, of a single patient who infected 14 health care workers. That qualifies him as a super spreader: someone who is responsible for infecting an especially large number of other people.

Since then, epidemiologists have tracked a number of other instances of SARS-CoV-2 superspreading. In South Korea, around 40 people who attended a single church service were infected at the same time. At a choir practice of 61 people in Washington state, 32 attendees contracted confirmed COVID-19 and 20 more came down with probable cases. In Chicago, before social distancing was in place, one person that attended a dinner, a funeral and then a birthday party was responsible for 15 new infections.

During any disease outbreak, epidemiologists want to quickly figure out whether superspreaders are part of the picture. Their existence can accelerate the rate of new infections or substantially expand the geographic distribution of the disease.

 

What are the characteristics of a superspreader?

Whether someone is a superspreader or not will depend on some combination of the pathogen, the patient’s biology and their environment or behavior.

Some infected individuals might shed more virus into the environment than others if their immune system has trouble subduing the invader. Additionally, asymptomatic individuals – up to 50% of all those who get COVID-19 – will continue their normal activities, inadvertently infecting more people. Even people who ultimately do show symptoms are capable of transmitting the virus during a pre-symptomatic phase.

A person’s behaviors, travel patterns and degree of contact with others can also contribute to superspreading. An infected shopkeeper might come in contact with a large number of people and goods each day. An international business traveler may crisscross the globe in a short period of time. A sick health care worker might come in contact with large numbers of people who are especially susceptible, given the presence of other underlying illnesses.

Public protests – where it’s challenging to keep social distance and people might be raising their voices or coughing from tear gas – are conducive to superspreading.

 

How big a part of COVID-19 are superspreaders?

Several recent preprint studies, which haven’t yet been peer-reviewed, have shed light on the role of superspreading in COVID-19’s dispersion around the globe.

Researchers in Hong Kong examined a number of disease clusters by using contact tracing to track down everyone with whom individual COVID-19 patients had interacted. In the process, they identified multiple situations where a single person was responsible for as many as six or eight new infections.

The researchers estimated that only 20% of all those infected with SARS-CoV-2 were responsible for 80% of all local transmission. Importantly, they also showed that these transmission events were associated with people who had more social contacts – beyond just family members – highlighting the need to rapidly isolate people as soon as they test positive or show symptoms.

Another study by researchers in Israel took a different approach. They compared the genetic sequences of coronavirus samples from patients inside the country to those from other places. Based on how different the genomes were, they could identify each time SARS-CoV-2 entered Israel and then follow how it spread domestically.

These scientists estimated that 80% of community transmission events – one person spreading the coronavirus to another – could be tracked back to just 1-10% of sick individuals.

And when another research group modeled the variation in how many other SARS-CoV-2 infections a single infected person tends to cause, they also found there were occasionally individuals who were very infectious. These people accounted for over 80% of transmissions in a population.

 

When have superspreaders played a key role in an outbreak?

There are a number of historical examples of superspreaders. The most famous is Typhoid Mary, who in the early 20th century purportedly infected 51 people with typhoid through the food she prepared as a cook.

During the last two decades, superspreaders have started a number of measles outbreaks in the United States. Sick, unvaccinated individuals visited densely crowded places like schools, hospitals, airplanes and theme parks where they infected many others.

Superspreaders have also played a key role in the outbreaks of other coronaviruses, including SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2015. For both SARS and MERS, superspreading mainly occurred in hospitals, with scores of people being infected at a time.

 

Can superspreading occur in all infectious diseases?

Yes. Researchers have identified superspreaders in outbreaks of diseases caused by bacteria, such as tuberculosis, as well as those caused by viruses, including measles and Ebola. Just as appears to be the case with the coronavirus, some scientists estimate that in an outbreak of any given pathogen, 20% of the population is usually responsible for causing over 80% of all cases of the disease.

The good news is that the right control practices specific to how pathogens are transmitted – hand-washing, masks, quarantine, vaccination, reducing social contacts and so on – can slow the transmission rate and halt a pandemic.

 

 

 

Kaiser Permanente: 8 key capabilities for a sustained response to COVID-19

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Kaiser Permanente: 8 key capabilities for a sustained response to ...

As the industry braces for the next phase of COVID-19, experts at Kaiser Permanente are sharing several key capabilities that will be critical to prepare for another potential surge.

In an article for NEJM Catalyst, leaders at the healthcare giant highlight eight focus areas health systems must consider as the country reopens and offer a look at how Kaiser Permanente tackled those challenges.

A critical starting point, they write, is a robust testing program that feeds into essential contact tracing and monitoring of any spikes in cases. As of May 18, Kaiser Permanente has performed more than 233,706 diagnostic tests and is also tracking the spread telephonically through its call centers as well as secure emails between patients and doctors.

The Oakland, California-based system is also mulling greater use of patient symptom surveying and harnessing data within electronic health records to further enhance the testing effort, according to the article.

Stephen Parodi, M.D., executive vice president at The Permanente Federation and Kaiser Permanente’s national infectious disease leader, told Fierce Healthcare that the goal of the paper is to spotlight how crucial it is to consider all fronts in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

“I think one of the biggest takeaways here is that we need a complete and comprehensive approach to suppress the virus,” Parodi, one of the report’s lead authors, said.

Bechara Choucair, M.D., senior vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente, is also one of the paper’s lead authors.

The other capabilities included in the report are:

  • Enhanced contact tracing and isolation efforts
  • Robust community health efforts
  • Home health care options
  • Ability to maintain surge capacity
  • Targeted and safe strategies to reopen
  • Ongoing research on the virus
  • Effective communication with patients

Parodi said two of the biggest challenges Kaiser Permanente faced in working through this checklist of capabilities were a lack of supplies and the need to work alongside other organizations.

He said that didn’t only mean strengthening and reinforcing existing relationships with community groups but also reaching out to other health systems and providers to coordinate plans and work together.

It also required coordination between officials and policymakers at all levels of government, he said.

“Having the leaders at individual medical centers working with the county level folks is really key to making sure that we’re aware of each other’s work and response, then actually syncing them together,” Parodi said.

Parodi also said that Kaiser Permanente went “wholesale” into using telehealth during the initial surge of COVID-19 cases, and now the system and its physicians will be working together to determine where virtual care is most appropriate and effective, as the interest in and growth of those services isn’t going away anytime soon.

He added that moving into the reopening phase poses its own set of challenges, because it’s an “unprecedented” situation to navigate.

Kaiser Permanente is aiming to center shared decision-making and patient education in the response to reopening, he said, while also providing guidance to support providers. That way, decisions are ultimately made by the doctor and patient, but they’re informed and guided decisions, he said.

“There is no set playbook for how to do it right,” Parodi said.

 

 

 

 

States are wrestling on their own with how to expand testing, with little guidance from the Trump administration

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

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States are wrestling on their own with how to expand testing, with ...

In Maryland, drive-through coronavirus testing sites are now open to all residents, whether or not they show signs of illness.

In Oregon, by contrast, officials have said that generally only people with symptoms of covid-19, the illness associated with the coronavirus, should be tested — even in the case of front-line health-care workers.

In Rhode Island, officials have proactively tested all of the state’s 7,500 nursing home residents, including those with no symptoms, and are developing plans to test more people in high-risk workplaces, such as restaurants and grocery stores.

The wide range of approaches across the country comes as the federal government has offered little guidance on the best way to test a broad swath of the population, leaving state public health officials to wrestle on their own with difficult questions about how to measure the spread of the virus and make decisions about reopening their economies.

Faced with conflicting advice from experts in the field, states are using different tests that vary in reliability and have adopted a variety of policies about who else should get tested and when — particularly when it comes to asymptomatic people who are considered low-risk for the illness.

“The states are on their own,” said Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious diseases at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, noting that the kind of guidance the federal government routinely gives in screening for flu and other outbreaks “has been absent” in the covid-19 pandemic. “There has been no coordination.”

That means that while tests are available to anyone who wants them in states such as Kentucky and Georgia and some large cities such as Detroit and Los Angeles, state officials in Idaho and Louisiana continue to recommend that only sick people get tested.

The lack of a unified national strategy has left Americans uncertain about whether and how to be tested and is hampering reopening plans, experts warn.

Many officials now worry that protests in more than 100 U.S. cities in recent days after the death of George Floyd in police custody, which have drawn thousands of people packed closely together, could spark new infections.

So far, about 460,000 Americans are being tested a day — 0.15 percent of the population, and still shy of the 900,000 to 30 million that experts say need to be tested daily to capture the extent of the virus’s spread.

“The case numbers we’re seeing are probably massively undercounted,” said Divya Siddarth, a researcher who helped devise a testing strategy for Harvard University’s Safra Center that emphasizes finding and suppressing the disease in areas with fewer cases. “These [lower prevalence] regions are likely to reopen, and they’ve barely done any tests.”

The lack of clear information is forcing businesses large and small, schools, universities and professional sports organizations to make their own decisions about how much testing they need to be safe.

Some institutions have announced their own plans for universal testing. The National Hockey League, for example, has said it plans to test all players daily as part of a plan to resume play in June. The University of Arizona has developed its own antibody test that’s available to all students and local health-care workers.

Under a law passed earlier this year, the Trump administration is required to develop a national testing strategy. But an 81-page document submitted to Congress by the Department of Health and Human Services late last month was not released publicly and offered few detailed recommendations.

The Washington Post obtained a copy of the plan, which set a goal for states of testing at least 2 percent of their residents in May and June. But how to meet that benchmark and whether to go further was left up to state leaders who were required to submit plans this month to HHS for review.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended universal testing for residents of nursing homes, which have been especially hit hard by the coronavirus. But the HHS document said the CDC was still working on guidelines for other large populations of mostly asymptomatic people — including at universities, prisons and “critical infrastructure worksites” — as well as those for integrating testing into reopening work places.

Mia Palmieri Heck, a spokeswoman for HHS, said the federal government “has provided prescriptive criteria about testing asymptomatic individuals when they affect highly vulnerable populations such as individuals who live in nursing homes, working in or visiting health-care clinics or communal dining spaces.” She added that federal experts have also been advising states on developing plans to more broadly test people without symptoms to determine community spread.

The question of asymptomatic testing is particularly tricky given that the CDC late last month said that its researchers now believe as many as 35 percent of people infected with the coronavirus never show symptoms of disease.

Typifying the kind of conflicting information facing states, a World Health Organization official sparked global confusion on Monday when she said it is “very rare” for people with no symptoms to transmit the disease. After significant pushback from researchers, the official said Tuesday that scientists continue to believe that people without symptoms do in fact spread the virus — but more research is needed to understand by how much.

She noted that some modeling shows as much as 41 percent of transmission may be due to asymptomatic people.

“In some ways, this may be the Achilles’ heel of the entire testing challenge for this virus,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who has advocated for increasing the number of people getting tested.

Local and state health officials worry that the lack of coherent strategy could result in tests becoming widely available for the affluent, while remaining limited for those with fewer resources, including minority communities that have already been disproportionately affected by the virus.

At the University of Arizona, officials plan to reserve molecular swab tests, which determine if a person is currently infected, for symptomatic students and their contacts. Each test is about $50 to $75 dollars; there are 60,000 students, staff and faculty and each would have to be tested repeatedly.

“Maybe the NFL can afford that; we can’t, and I don’t know any university that can,” said Robert C. Robbins, the university’s president.

‘Box the virus in’

When coronavirus cases began to mount in March, a severe shortage of test kits and supplies meant tests were sharply rationed. Even after it was clear that the virus was spreading in the United States, the CDC at first recommend only testing people who had visited China or been in contact with someone who had.

Later, federal officials suggested that younger, healthy people did not necessarily need testing even if they were experiencing coronavirus symptoms, reasoning that the tests should be reserved for hospitalized patients for whom a positive result might make a difference in treatment plan.

As tests have become more available, officials have begun to recommend that anyone who is experiencing signs of illness, even a mild cough or sore throat, get one.

The goal is to identify and quarantine people with the disease, and then use contact tracers to track down people who have interacted with that person and quarantine them as well.

“Testing is just part of a comprehensive strategy,” former CDC director Tom Frieden said. “As you emerge from that sheltering situation, you box the virus in.”

But when it comes to testing people without symptoms, state recommendations vary.

About at least half of states aim to test people identified as contacts of known positive cases, according to a Post tally, as was recommended in new guidance from the CDC this week. But many others tell those people to self-isolate for 14 days.

“Every state is figuring this out on its own, little bit by little bit,” said Philip Chan, medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Nearly all states have set aside thousands of tests for people in congregate settings — residential settings where large numbers of people live in proximity, especially nursing homes and prisons.

But only a handful of states have so far satisfied the CDC goal to test everyone living in a nursing home, where the age and underlying medical conditions of residents make them especially vulnerable to covid-19 outbreaks.

Some states have also prioritized testing front-line health-care workers and other people working elbow-to-elbow in manufacturing facilities, particularly meatpacking plants, which have been hit hard by the virus.

Even states that have conducted widespread testing in such facilities face difficult questions about whether a single round of testing is sufficient, given that people could easily contract the virus at any time, including after testing negative.

“There’s not a lot of communication between the states and there’s not a lot of specifics, so everybody’s kind of going on their own,” Wroblewski said.

A tricky disease

A number of states and large cities, such as Detroit and Los Angeles, have opened drive-through testing sites like those offered in Maryland, a mode of mass testing used effectively overseas in South Korea and elsewhere.

Experts have warned that drive-through sites often fail to collect enough information from those tested to follow up effectively. They also prioritize people who choose to show up, tending to mean tests go to better educated and informed residents and not necessarily those most likely to have been exposed to the virus.

In Macon, Ga., the Moonhanger Group set up drive-through testing for employees returning to work at their four restaurants. But they did not wait for the results, or for all employees to get tested, before reopening on May 26.

“We were confident, based on the low number of positive results reported in Bibb county, that none of our employees would test positive and we hoped to share that news with the public,” owner Wes Griffith wrote on Facebook. “Unfortunately and surprisingly, we have employees who have tested positive. All of them were a-symptomatic.” Griffith did not respond to a request for comment.

Three of the four restaurants had to quickly close again, pending further testing.

In Georgia, public officials are advertising on radio and social media to encourage anyone to get tested at drive-through sites.

Those tested have included political leaders, who got tested largely to encourage others to do so too, only to find themselves “shocked” when their results came back positive, said Phillip Coule, chief medical officer of the Augusta University Health System, which is partnering with the state on testing.

“It’s a great demonstration of how tricky this disease is,” he said.

Other states have downplayed asymptomatic testing as unreliable or a poor use of resources.

Coule noted that the message, “If you want a test, you can get a test,” puts the onus for deciding who should get tested on individuals, rather than prioritizing the highest-risk or the most vulnerable. One of his patients, he noted, sought a test because he wanted to honeymoon in St. Lucia and needed a negative result to enter the country.

Oregon only opened testing to front-line workers and long-term care residents without symptoms in April and continues not to recommend asymptomatic testing, saying on the state website that it is “not useful” because the false negative rate is high. Viral tests have been estimated to have up to a 20 percent false negative rate.

At a recent news conference, Oregon Health Authority Chief Medical Officer Dana Hargunani said people without symptoms are “unlikely or certainly less likely to cause transmission of the virus.”

‘It’s like a war’

For states looking to figure out who to test and when, advice from national experts has been abundant — but not always consistent.

Proposals from academics and other experts vary widely in their recommendations of the numbers of tests that should be performed each day, and many do not offer guidance about who should be tested.

Some researchers have recommended focusing on parts of the country that have few cases in hopes of stamping out the disease.

“We should quickly get resources to places where the disease can be suppressed, then backfill tests in the places currently overwhelmed,” said Glen Weyl, an economist at Microsoft, who worked on the Harvard University proposal. “It’s like a war — you have to more troops than the enemy in order to win a battle.”

Other researchers have proposed blanketing the country with tests, with a focus on places experiencing clear outbreaks.

Paul Romer, an economist at New York University, said there should be mass testing in hot spots that is quickly expanded to near-universal, constant testing for everyone — 23 million tests a day, noting that the cost of tests have dropped.

“It would be feasible if we just invested and made it happen,” he said.

Other countries have used aggressive and organized testing to help stop the spread of the virus. South Korea — where the first case of the coronavirus was diagnosed on the same day as in the United States — quickly started mass testing at drive-through sites to spot and isolate cases.

The government has also instituted a sophisticated and aggressive effort to trace contacts of any known case, to squelch outbreaks. After several people who visited nightclubs in Seoul tested positive in early May, the government within two weeks tracked down 46,000 people who might have been exposed and tested them all.

In Wuhan, China, the site of the world’s first major coronavirus outbreak, government officials said they tested nearly 10 million of the city’s 11 million residents since mid-May, part of an effort to test universally and ensure the city doesn’t experience a new wave of infections.

Still, many experts agree that completely random asymptomatic testing is not an effective strategy.

A report issued late last month by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota called for ramping up testing nationwide, including in some congregate settings and as part of public health research. But the report found that widespread testing of people without symptoms was not advisable in most workplaces, in schools or in the broader community.

Researchers at the center found such testing could waste precious resources and could cause problems for communities, given that the tests are not fully reliable.

“There’s been far too much of this group think around, ‘test, test, test,’ without understanding what it’s accomplishing,” said Michael Osterholm, the director of the center. “You need the right test, at the right time, for the right reasons.”

The report’s central recommendation: that HHS form a blue-ribbon commission with national experts to formulate advice for states.

 

 

Masks now seen as vital tool in coronavirus fight

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Masks now seen as vital tool in coronavirus fight

Masks now seen as vital tool in coronavirus fight | TheHill

Evidence is mounting that widespread mask-wearing can significantly slow the spread of coronavirus and help reduce the need for future lockdowns. 

Public health authorities did not initially put an emphasis on masks, but that’s changed and there is now increasing consensus that they play an important role in hindering transmission of the virus at a time when wearing one has become politicized as some states and businesses have made them a requirement for certain activities.

Wearing a mask is also seen by experts as a relatively easy action that could help avoid much costlier responses like stay at home orders and closing businesses.

“It’s a lot less economically disruptive to wear a mask than to shut society, so I can’t understand some of the resistance to mask wearing,” Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on a call with reporters on Thursday.

Experts say mask-wearing is not the only response needed to slow the spread of the virus. Avoiding crowds and staying six feet apart from others is also important, as is an effective system of testing and contact tracing so people can quarantine and prevent further spread. 

A study from University of Cambridge researchers this week found that widespread mask-wearing can help prevent a resurgence of the virus with less reliance on lockdowns that have proven economically devastating.

The modeling in the study found that if 50 percent or more of the population routinely wore masks, each infected person would on average spread the virus to less than one additional person, causing the outbreak to decline, the university said.

“We have little to lose from the widespread adoption of facemasks, but the gains could be significant,” Renata Retkute, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement. 

Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA Commissioner for President Trump, pointed to the study on Twitter this week and wrote: “More widespread masking with higher quality masks could help mitigate a second wave.”

It cannot be ruled out that further lockdowns will be needed, but wearing a mask is one part of a strategy to help avoid them, according to Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“I think it could substantially help open workplaces, but I’d still want to maximize distancing,” he said.

The emphasis on masks has been slow to develop in some places. The World Health Organization did not issue a recommendation for the general public to wear masks until last week, previously only saying people who are sick and those caring for them should use masks.

In the early days of the outbreak in the United States, there was also concern about the general public using up masks that were in short supply for health workers. 

“Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted at the end of February. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

That has changed, though, and the general public is now recommended to wear a simple cloth covering that could even be homemade, while leaving more advanced N95 masks for health care workers. The CDC now recommends wearing a mask in public when it is hard to stay six feet away from others, such as in grocery stores and pharmacies. Experts add that wearing a mask is mostly to protect others, not oneself.

“I don’t think it was so obvious from the beginning,” Sharfstein said, pushing back on critics who say authorities were slow to issue mask recommendations. “But it’s become more obvious,” he added.

Public health experts are lamenting, though, that mask-wearing has become politicized as opponents call requirements they wear one an infringement on their personal freedoms. 

President Trump did not publicly wear a mask during a May visit to a Ford factory despite the company policy requiring one. He also called it “unusual” that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wore a mask during a Memorial Day ceremony, though he said he “wasn’t criticizing.”

In Arizona, which has seen a surge in coronavirus cases recently, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) was pressed at a news conference on Thursday by a reporter who asked, “When was the last time you wore a face mask, governor?”

“I’ve got my face masks with me today,” Ducey said, taking some out of his pocket. “And when I’m not physically distancing, I wear them and wash them often.”

Some states, like Massachusetts and New York, have mandated masks when people are in public and cannot stay six feet apart. Asked if he would mandate masks in Arizona, Ducey did not answer directly, but said, “I want people to wear masks when they can’t socially distance.”

Carlos del Rio, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University, compared the situation with mask-wearing to the early days of seatbelts.

“Imagine if today was the ‘60s and we were starting to use seatbelts and you would have some politicians say, ‘Oh, seatbelts don’t make a difference; I like my freedom; I don’t like to be tied down when I’m driving,’” he said. 

But, he added: “Over and over the evidence is showing masks work; masks make a difference.”

“I didn’t jump on masks immediately,” he said. “But after a while, I said, ‘Yeah this is what we all need to be doing,’ but I think it took some time.”

 

 

Dow plunges more than 1,800 points as rising COVID-19 cases roil Wall Street

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Dow plunges more than 1,800 points as rising COVID-19 cases roil Wall Street

Dow plunges 1,800 as investors turn jittery over new wave of ...

Stocks plummeted Thursday as the emergence of new coronavirus hotspots and a caution from the Federal Reserve chairman shook Wall Street after months of steady gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 1,861 points, plunging 6.9 percent for its worst day of losses since March. The S&P 500 index closed with a loss of 5.9 percent, and the Nasdaq composite sunk 5.3 percent on the day.

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed with their steepest single-day losses since crashing in March amid the beginning of lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. Thursday’s losses come after more than two months of steady recovery toward the record highs seen before the pandemic derailed the economy.

Despite the loss of more than 21 million jobs and the deaths of more than 110,000 Americans due to the coronavirus, investors had gradually upped their bets on a quick economic recovery through April and May as states began loosening business closures and travel restrictions.

The surprise addition of 2.5 million jobs in May, according to the Labor Department, also fueled hopes for a quicker than expected rebound from a recession of unprecedented scale and speed.

But Thursday’s abrupt reversal comes as states across the U.S. see spiking COVID-19 cases and diminishing hospital capacity to handle a new wave of infections.

Week-over-week case counts are rising in half of all U.S. states, and only 16 states plus the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive weeks.

North Carolina, California, Mississippi and Arkansas are all facing record levels of hospitalizations, and the virus appears to be quickly spreading in Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri.

Some market experts also attribute Thursday’s losses to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s Wednesday prediction of a “long road” to recovery.

During a Wednesday press conference, Powell said that while the U.S. may see significant job growth in coming months as people return to their jobs,” the country is “still going to face, probably, an extended period where it will be difficult for many people to find work.”

“What we’re trying to do is create an environment in which they have the best chance either to go back to their old job or to get a new job,” he continued.

President Trump, who frequently lashes out at the Fed when markets turn south, blasted the Fed for underestimating how quickly the U.S. economy could recover and how soon a COVID-19 vaccine would be available.

“The Federal Reserve is wrong so often. I see the numbers also, and do MUCH better than they do. We will have a very good Third Quarter, a great Fourth Quarter, and one of our best ever years in 2021. We will also soon have a Vaccine & Therapeutics/Cure. That’s my opinion. WATCH!” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow also criticized Powell, urging the Fed chief to ease up on the dour forecasts

“I do think Mr. Powell could lighten up a little when he has these press offerings. You know, a smile now and then, a little bit of optimism,” Kudlow said on Fox Business Network.

“I’ll talk with him and we’ll have some media training at some point.

 

 

 

U.S. Passes 2 Million Coronavirus Cases as States Lift Restrictions, Raising Fears of a Second Wave

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Communication, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Messaging, Mortality, Pandemic, Protest, Public Debate, Public Discourse, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Vaccination, Vaccine, Vulnerable Populations, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/11/dr_craig_spencer?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=a7a0b2232c-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-a7a0b2232c-192434661

U.S. Reaches More Than 2 Million Coronavirus Cases - YouTube

The number of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases has officially topped 2 million as states continue to ease stay-at-home orders and reopen their economies and more than a dozen see a surge in new infections. “I worry that what we’ve seen so far is an undercount and what we’re seeing now is really just the beginning of another wave of infections spreading across the country,” says Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.

AMY GOODMAN: I certainly look forward to the day you’re sitting here in the studio right next to me, but right now the numbers are grim. The number of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases has officially topped 2 million in the United States, the highest number in the world by far, but public health officials say the true number of infections is certain to be many times greater. Officially, the U.S. death toll is nearing 113,000, but that number is expected to be way higher, as well.

This comes as President Trump has announced plans to hold campaign rallies in several states that are battling new surges of infections, including Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Arizona — which saw cases rise from nearly 200 a day last month to more than 1,400 a day this week.

On Tuesday, the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called the coronavirus his worst nightmare.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Now we have something that indeed turned out to be my worst nightmare: something that’s highly transmissible, and in a period — if you just think about it — in a period of four months, it has devastated the world. … And it isn’t over yet.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Vice President Mike Pence tweeted — then deleted — a photo of himself on Wednesday greeting scores of Trump 2020 campaign staffers, all of whom were packed tightly together, indoors, wearing no masks, in contravention of CDC guidelines to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Well, for more, we’re going directly to Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. His recent piece in The Washington Post is headlined “The strange new quiet in New York emergency rooms.”

Dr. Spencer, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with this, though this day is a very painful one. Cases in the United States have just topped 2 million, though that number is expected to be far higher, with the number of deaths at well over 113,000, we believe, Harvard University predicting that that number could almost double by the end of September. Dr. Craig Spencer, your thoughts on the reopening of this country and what these numbers mean?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: That’s a really good question. So, when you think about those numbers, remember that very early on, in March, in April, when I was seeing this huge surge in New York City emergency departments, we weren’t testing. We were testing people that were only being admitted to the hospital, so we were knowingly sending home, all across the epicenter, people that were undoubtedly infected with coronavirus, that are not included in that case total. So you’re right: The likely number is much, much higher, maybe 5, 10 times higher than that.

In addition, we know that that’s true for the death count, as well. This has become this political flashpoint, talking about how many people have died. We know that it’s an incredible and incalculable toll, over 100,000. Within the next few days, we’ll have more people that have died from COVID than died during World War I here in the United States. So that’s absolutely incredible.

We know that, also, just because New York City was bad, other places across the country might not get as bad, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not bad. So, we had this huge surge, of a bunch of deaths in New York City, you know, over 200,000 cases, tens of thousands of deaths. What we’re seeing now is we’re seeing this virus continue to roll across this country, causing these localized outbreaks.

And this is, I think, going to be our reality, until we take this serious, until we actually take the actions necessary to stop this virus from spreading. Opening up, like we’ve seen in Arizona and many other places, is exactly counter to what we need to be doing to keep this virus under control. So, yeah, I worry that what we’ve seen so far is an undercount and what we’re seeing now is really just the beginning of another wave of infections spreading across the country.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Dr. Spencer, I want to ask — it’s not just in the U.S. that cases have hit this dreadful milestone. Worldwide, cases have now topped 7 million, although, like the U.S., the number is likely to be much higher because of inadequate testing all over the world. But I’d like to focus on the racial dimension of the impact of coronavirus, not just in the U.S., but also worldwide. Just as one example, in Brazil — and this is a really stunning statistic — that in Rio’s favelas, more people have died than in 15 states in Brazil combined. So, could you talk about this, both in the context of the U.S., and explain whether that is still the case, and what you expect in terms of this racial differential, how it will play out as this virus spreads?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Absolutely. What we’re seeing, not just in the United States, but all over the world, is coronavirus is amplifying these racial and ethnic inequities. It is impacting disproportionately vulnerable and already marginalized populations.

Starting here in the U.S., if you think about the fact, in New York City, the likelihood of dying from coronavirus was double if you’re Black or African American or Latino or Hispanic, double than what it was for white or Asian New Yorkers, so we already know that this disproportionate impact on already marginalized and vulnerable communities exists here in the United States, in the financial capital of the world. It’s the same throughout the U.S. A lot of the data that we’re seeing over the past few days, as we’re getting this disaggregated data by race and ethnic background, is that it is hitting these communities much harder than it is hitting white and other communities in the United States.

The statistics that you give for Brazil are being played out all over the world. We know that communities that already lack access to good healthcare or don’t have the same economic ability to stay home and participate in social distancing are being disproportionately impacted.

That is why we need to focus on and think about, in our public health messaging and in our public health efforts, to think about those communities that are already on the margins, that are already vulnerable, that are already suffering from chronic health conditions that may make them more likely to get infected with and die from this disease. We need to think about that as part of our response, not just in New York, not just in the U.S., but in Brazil, in Peru, in Ecuador, in South Africa, in many other countries, where we’re seeing the disproportionate number of cases coming from now.

We’re seeing — you know, I think it was just pointed out that three-quarters of all the new cases, the record-high cases, over 136,000 this past weekend on one day, three-quarters of those are coming from just 10 countries. And we know that that will continue, and it will burn through those countries and will continue through many more.

As of right now, we haven’t seen huge numbers in places like West Africa and East Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, where many people were concerned about initially. Part of that is because they have in place a lot of the tools from previous outbreaks, especially in West Africa around Ebola. But it may be that we need more testing. It may be that we’re still waiting to see the big increase in cases that may eventually hit there, as well.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Spencer, you mentioned that on Sunday — it was Sunday where there were 136,000 new infections, which was a first. It was the highest number since the virus began. But even as the virus is spreading, much like states opening in the U.S., countries are also starting to reopen around the world, including countries that have now among the highest outbreaks. Brazil is now second only to the U.S. in the number of infections, and Russia is third, and these countries are opening, along with India and so on. So, could you — I mean, there are various reasons that countries are opening. A lot of them are not able — large numbers of people are not able to survive as long as the country is closed, like, in fact, Brazil and India. So what are the steps that countries can take to reopen safely? What is necessary to arrest the spread of the virus and allow people at the same time to be out?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: It’s tough, because we know that this virus cannot infect you if this virus does not find you. If there’s going to be people in close proximity, whether it’s in India or Illinois, this virus will pass and will infect you. I have a lot of concern, much as you pointed out, places like India, 1.3 billion people, where they’re starting to open up after a longer period of being locked down, and case numbers are steadily increasing.

You’re right that a lot of people around the world don’t have access to multitrillion-dollar stimulus plans like we do in the United States, the ability to provide at least some sustenance during this time that people are being forced at home. Many people, if they don’t go outside, don’t eat. If they don’t work, you know, their families can’t pay rent or really just can’t live.

What do we do? We rely on the exact same tools that we should be relying on here, which is good public health principles. You need to be able to locate those people who are sick, isolate them, remove them from the community, and try to do contact tracing to see who they potentially have exposed. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to have people circulating with this virus that can continue to infect other people.

It’s much harder in places where people may not have access to a phone or may not have an address or may not have the same infrastructure that we have here in the United States. But it’s absolutely possible. We’ve done this with smallpox eradication decades ago. We need to be doing this good, simple, bread-and-butter, basic public health work all around the world. But that takes a lot of commitment, it takes a lot of money, and it takes a lot of time.

AMY GOODMAN: It looks like President Trump is reading the rules and just doing the opposite — I mean, everything from pulling out of the World Health Organization, which — and if you could talk about the significance of this? You’re a world health expert. You yourself survived Ebola after working in Africa around that disease. And also here at home, I mean, pulling out of Charlotte, the Republican convention, because the governor wouldn’t agree to no social distancing, and he didn’t want those that came to the convention to wear masks. If you can talk about the significance, what might seem trite to some people, but what exactly masks do? And also, in this country, the states we see that have relaxed so much — he might move, announce tomorrow, the convention to Florida. There’s surges there. There’s surges in Arizona, extremely desperate question of whether a lockdown will be reimposed there. What has to happen? What exactly, when we say testing, should be available? And do you have enough masks even where you work?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Great. Yes. So, let me answer each of those. I think, first, on the World Health Organization, and really the rhetoric that is coming from the White House, it needs to be one of global solidarity right now. We are not going to beat this alone. I think that that’s been proven. This idea of American exceptionalism now is only true in that we have the most cases of anywhere in the world. We are not going to beat this alone. No country is going to beat this alone. As Dr. Fauci said, this is his worst nightmare. It’s my worst nightmare, as well. This is a virus that was first discovered just months ago, and has now really taken over the world. We need organizations like the World Health Organization, even if it isn’t perfect. And I’ve had qualms with it in the past. I’ve written about it, I’ve spoken about it, about the response as part of the West Africa Ebola outbreak that I witnessed firsthand. But at the end of the day, they do really, really good work, and they do the work that other organizations, including the United States, are not doing around the world, and that protects us. So, we absolutely, despite their imperfections, need to further invest and support them.

In terms of masks, masks may be, in addition to social distancing, one of the few things that really, really helps us and has proven to decrease transmission. We know that if a significant proportion of society — you know, 60, 70, 80% of people — are wearing masks, that will significantly decrease the amount of transmission and can prevent this virus from spreading very rapidly. Everyone should be wearing masks. I think, in the United States right now, we should consider the whole country as a hot zone. And the risk of transmission being very high, regardless of whether you’re in New York or North Dakota, people should be wearing a mask when they’re going outside and when they’re interacting with others that they generally don’t interact with.

We know the science is good. I will say that from a public health perspective, there was some initial reluctance and, really, I guess, some confusion early on about whether people should be using masks. We didn’t have a lot of the science to know whether it would help. We do now. And thankfully, we’re changing our recommendations.

We also were concerned about the availability of masks early on. As you mentioned, there was questions around availability of personal protective equipment, whether we had enough in hospitals to provide care while keeping providers safe. It’s better now, but there are still a lot of people who are saying that they’re reusing masks, that we still need more personal protective equipment. So, for the moment, everyone should be wearing a mask.

AMY GOODMAN: And for the protests outside?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Absolutely. Yeah, of course. Just because I think we have personal passions around public health crises, that doesn’t prevent us from being infected. From a public health perspective, of course I have concerns that people who are close and are yelling and are being tear-gassed and are not wearing masks, if that’s all the case, it’s certainly an environment where the coronavirus could spread.

So, what I’ve been telling everyone that’s protesting is exercise your right to protest — I think that’s great — but be safe. We are in a pandemic. We’re in a public health emergency. Wear a mask. Socially distance as much as you possibly can. Wash your hands.

AMY GOODMAN: And are you telling the authorities to stop tear-gassing and pepper-spraying the protesters?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: I mean, well, one, it’s illegal. You should definitely stop tear-gassing. We know that what happens when people get tear-gassed is they cough, and it increases the secretions, which increases the risk. It increases the transmissibility of this virus.

In addition to that, you know, holding people and arresting them and putting them into small cells with others without masks is also, as we’ve seen from this huge number of cases in places like meatpacking plants or in jails, in prisons, the number of cases have been extremely high in those places. Putting people into holding cells for a prolonged period of time is not going to help; it’s definitely going to increase the transmissibility of this virus.

So, yes, everyone should be wearing a mask. I think everyone should have a mask on when you’re anywhere that your interacting with others can potentially spread this.

I think your other question was around testing. We know that right now testing has significantly increased in the U.S. Is it adequate? No, I don’t think so. I know I hear from a lot of people who say they still have to drive two to three hours to get a test. We still have questions around the reliability of some of serology tests, or the antibody tests. Those are the tests that will tell you whether or not you’ve been previously exposed and now have antibodies to the disease. Some of the more readily available tests just aren’t that great. And so, we can’t use them yet to make really widespread decisions on who might have antibodies, who might have protection and who can maybe more safely go back into society without the fear of being infected.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Spencer, we just have 30 seconds. Very quickly, there are 135 vaccines in development. What’s your prognosis? When will there be a vaccine or a drug treatment?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: We have one drug that shortens the time that people are sick. We don’t know about the impact on mortality. There are other treatments that are in process now. Hopefully some of them work.

In terms of vaccines, we will have a vaccine, very likely, that we know is effective, probably at some time later this year. The bigger process is going to be how do we scale it up to make hundreds of millions of doses; how do we do it in a way that we can get it to all of the people that deserve it, not just the people that can pay for it. I think these are going to be some of the bigger questions and bigger problems that we’re going to face, going forward. But I’m optimistic that we’ll have a vaccine or many vaccines, hopefully, in the next year.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Craig Spencer, we want to thank you so much for being with us, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. And thank you so much for your work as an essential worker. Dr. Spencer’s recent piece, we’ll link to at democracynow.org. It’s in The Washington Post, headlined “The strange new quiet in New York emergency rooms.”

When we come back, George Floyd’s brother testifies before Congress, a day after he laid his brother to rest. Stay with us.

 

 

 

 

Cartoon – Coronavirus Projections

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Expectations, False Hope, False Narrative, Governance, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, Pandemic, Projections, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

Vanish Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock

Scientists caught between pandemic and protests

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Free Speech, Freedom, Freedom of the Press, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Protest, Public Debate, Public Discourse, Public Good, Public Health, Public Safety, Scientists, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/black-lives-matter-protests-coronavirus-science-15acc619-633d-47c2-9c76-df91f826a73c.html

Scientists accused of double standards on coronavirus and Black ...

When protests broke out against the coronavirus lockdown, many public health experts were quick to warn about spreading the virus. When protests broke out after George Floyd’s death, some of the same experts embraced the protests. That’s led to charges of double standards among scientists.

Why it matters: Scientists who are seen as changing recommendations based on political and social priorities, however important, risk losing public trust. That could cause people to disregard their advice should the pandemic require stricter lockdown policies.

What’s happening: Many public health experts came out against public gatherings of almost any sort this spring — including protests over lockdown policies and large religious gatherings.

  • But some of the same experts are supporting the Black Lives Matter protests, arguing that addressing racial inequality is key to tackling the coronavirus epidemic.
  • The systemic racism that protesters are decrying contributes to massive health disparities that can be seen in this pandemic — black Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, but make up around a quarter of deaths from COVID-19. Floyd himself survived COVID-19 before he was killed by a now former police officer in Minneapolis.
  • “While everyone is concerned about the risk of COVID, there are risks with just being black in this country that almost outweigh that sometimes,” Abby Hussein, an infectious disease fellow at the University of Washington, told CNN last week.

Yes, but: Spending time in a large group, even outdoors and wearing masks — as many of the protesters are — does raise the risk of coronavirus transmission, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

  • In a Twitter thread over the weekend, coronavirus expert Trevor Bedford estimated that each day of protests would result in some 3,000 additional infections, which over time could lead to hundreds of additional deaths each day.
  • Public health experts who work in the government have struck a cautionary note. Mass, in-person protests are a “perfect setup” for transmission of the virus, Anthony Fauci told radio station WTOP last week. “It’s a delicate balance because the reasons for demonstrating are valid, but the demonstration puts one at additional risk.”

The difference in tone between how some public health experts are viewing the current protests and earlier ones focused on the lockdowns themselves was seized upon by a number of critics, as well as the Trump campaign.

  • “It will deepen the idea that the intellectual classes are picking winners and losers among political causes,” says Tom Nichols, author of the “The Death of Expertise.”
  • Politico reported that the Trump campaign plans to restart campaign rallies in the next two weeks, with advisers arguing that “recent massive protests in metropolitan areas will make it harder for liberals to criticize him” despite the ongoing pandemic.

The current debate underscores a larger question: What role should scientists play in policymaking?

  • “We should never try to harness the credibility of public health on behalf of our judgments as citizens,” writes Peter Sandman, a retired professor of environmental journalism. He tells Axios some scientists who supported one protest versus others “clearly damaged the credibility of public health as a scientific enterprise that struggles to be politically neutral.“
  • But some are pushing back against the very idea of scientific neutrality. “Science is part of how we got to our racist system in the first place,” Susan Matthews wrote in Slate.
  • Medical science has often betrayed the trust of black Americans, who receive less, and often worse, care than white Americans. That means — as Uché Blackstock, a physician and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, told NPR — that the pandemic presents “a crisis within a crisis.”

The big picture: The debate risks exacerbating a partisan divide among Americans in their reported trust in scientists.

  • 53% of Democrats polled in late April — about a month before Floyd’s death — reported a “great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public interests” versus 31% of Republicans.
  • If science-driven policymaking continues to be seen as biased, it will have repercussions for public trust in issues beyond the pandemic, including climate change, AI and genetic engineering.

What to watch: If there is a rise in new cases in the coming weeks, there will be pressure to trace them — to protests, rallies and the reopening of states. How experts weigh in could affect how their recommendations will be viewed in the future — and whether the public, whatever their political leanings, will follow them again.

 

 

 

 

US showing signs of retreat in battle against COVID-19

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Centralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

US showing signs of retreat in battle against COVID-19

COVID-19 Crisis: Political and Economic Aftershocks - Foreign ...

When throngs of tourists and revelers left their homes over Memorial Day weekend, public health experts braced for a surge in coronavirus infections that could force a second round of painful shutdowns.

Two weeks later, that surge has hit places like Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri. Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive weeks.

But instead of new lockdowns to stop a second spike in cases, states are moving ahead with plans to allow most businesses to reopen, lifting stay-at-home orders and returning to something that resembles normal life.

“There is no — zero — discussion of re-tightening any measures to combat this trend. Instead, states are treating this as a one-way trip. That sets us up for a very dangerous fall, but potentially even for a dangerous summer,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who oversaw the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration.

The moves suggest that many Americans — anxious to end two-plus months of lockdowns, smarting from the devastating economic toll they have already suffered and focused on the social justice protests that have roiled the nation — are ready to put the coronavirus behind them.

Even as case curves bend upward again, little action has been taken to counter the reversal.

“There are places that I suspect a lot of people are shrugging their shoulders and just rushing forward,” said David Rubin, who runs the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I just worry that they might lose control of their epidemic, and that’s what you have to worry about these days.”

The statistics are startling. The average number of confirmed cases over a two-week period has doubled or more in Arizona, Arkansas, Oregon and Utah. Fewer than a quarter of intensive care unit beds in Alabama, Georgia and Rhode Island are available.

In Texas, the number of people admitted to the hospital has grown 42 percent since Memorial Day. Arizona’s top health official has urged hospitals to activate their emergency plans.

North Carolina, California, Mississippi and Arkansas are all reporting record levels of hospitalizations.

Some experts worry Americans have begun to accept the drumbeat of death, numbed by the nearly 2 million cases already confirmed across the country and the 112,000 who have died.

A virus once dismissed as not a serious threat to the nation and later acknowledged as a public health emergency is now becoming just another daily worry to be absorbed.

“One fear is that the U.S. will accept tens of thousands of deaths, as from gun violence, unlike other countries,” said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the Obama administration.

“It’s not just lives. Unless we protect lives, we won’t get livelihoods back,” said Frieden, who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a global health nonprofit.

The race to reopen comes even as new research shows the lockdowns were working. The dramatic steps Americans took to stop the virus saved an estimated 5 million infections through April 6, according to research by the Global Policy Lab at the University of California-Berkeley.

President Trump has been perhaps the loudest proponent of reopening, at times putting pressure on states to lift coronavirus restrictions even if the data is flashing warning signs.

World Health Organization (WHO) officials have practically begged nations to be slow and considerate as they move to reopen their economies.

“We need to focus on the now. This is far from over,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on the coronavirus, told reporters at a virtual press conference Monday. “I know many of us would like this to be over and I know many situations are seeing positive signs. But it is far from over.”

On Wednesday, WHO’s director of emergency programs acknowledged the challenges of lockdown life.

“We fully understand that governments are very reticent to go back into lockdowns that can be damaging to social and economic life,” said Mike Ryan.

“There has to be a balance between lives and livelihoods and the public health control of COVID-19,” Ryan added.

There are few signs that Americans are heeding the warnings.

“We’re just at the beginning of the Memorial Day story, not at the end,” Rubin said. “We are seeing the sea levels rise.”

 

 

 

 

U.S. tops 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-united-states-cases-2-million/

i24NEWS DESK | U.S. coronavirus cases top 2 million | Thursday ...

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States topped 2 million late Wednesday night, according to Johns Hopkins University. The mark was passed with all 50 states in various stages of re-opening and with numerous states experiencing surges in cases and severe strain on their hospitals.

It’s been just five months since the coronavirus caused its first known U.S. fatality, in California, broke out in Washington state and quickly spread around the country.

The next closest nation to the U.S. in terms of number of cases is Brazil, with some 772,000.  

The virus has killed almost 113,000 people in the U.S., Johns Hopkins said, and there were more than 7.3 million cases worldwide and 416,000 deaths.

And according to the Reuters News Service, the head of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, Ashish Jha, told CNN Wednesday that, “Even if we don’t have increasing cases, even if we keep things flat, it’s reasonable to expect that we’re going to hit 200,000 deaths sometime during the month of September. And that’s just through September. The pandemic won’t be over in September.”

Seventeen states have reported an increase in average daily new COVID-19 cases compared with two weeks ago, including Florida, California and Texas.

The ongoing pandemic has wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. Tens of millions of people have filed for unemployment since states shut down to try to limit the virus’ spread. Several major companies, including J.C. Penney, J. Crew, Gold’s Gym and Hertz have filed for bankruptcy.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts the coronavirus could impact the nation until 2029 and cost the economy almost $16 trillion.

On Monday, White House Coronavirus Task Force officials said the police brutality protests around the country may spur a spike in virus cases. Many demonstrators haven’t been heeding public health guidelines for containing the virus, such as wearing masks and social distancing.