Category Archives: Public Safety

Pandemic Graphic of the Day

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Live updates: U.S. sets another single-day record for new coronavirus cases, surpassing 40,000 for first time

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Coronavirus latest: Global coronavirus infections top 1 million ...

The United States has set a record for new covid-19 cases for the third time in three days, passing the 40,000 mark for the first time, according to tracking by The Washington Post.

Twelve states set their own records for the average number of new cases reported over the past seven days: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Idaho and Utah.

Six states set new single-day highs, led by Florida with 8,942 cases, more than 60 percent higher than its previous high set on Wednesday. Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and Utah also set new single-day records.

Florida announced Friday morning that bars must close immediately, a move echoed by Texas, a state also dealing with a surge in cases and nearing its capacity to care for those suffering.

“The trajectory that we’re on right now has our hospitals being overwhelmed, probably about mid-July,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) said during an appearance on CNN.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order that revives restrictions on bars, restaurants and certain types of outdoor recreation, one day after suggesting he would not.

Here are some significant developments:

  • The Dow Jones industrial average slid 730.05 points, about 2.8 percent, as rising coronavirus infections roiled investors Friday.
  • Vice President Pence said during a White House coronavirus task force news briefing that it is “very encouraging news” that half of the increasing cases in Florida and Texas are among Americans under 35, because younger people tend to have less-serious outcomes.
  • The Trump administration official coordinating tests for the novel coronavirus did a partial pivot Friday, announcing that the government would briefly extend its management of five testing sites in Texas, a state with a recent spike of cases and hospitalizations.
  • Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease doctor, urged Americans to see their role in taking safety precautions as a “societal responsibility.” He begged them not to let their guards down even if the risk to their own health is considered minimal, because they can still transport it.
  • In another sign that hopes of a swift economic recovery may be losing steam, the number of homeowners delaying their mortgage payments shot up by 79,000.
  • Portugal is reinstating lockdown measures for about 700,000 people in 19 civil parishes around Lisbon next week after a worrying rise in cases in communities in the capital’s outskirts.

Six states set record number of new cases

As the United States logged a record number of infections Friday, six states announced their own new single-day high case totals: Georgia, Utah, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and Florida.

Georgia reported four straight days of more than 1,700 new infections and two days in a row of records. The 1,900 cases reported by state health officials Friday surpassed the previous record, 1,714 cases, announced Thursday.

The seven-day average of new infections also hit a new high — 1,569 — and has been rising steadily since late May. That figure is up about 77 percent from a week ago and nearly 115 percent since Memorial Day.

In Utah, the single-day case total hit 676 and set a record for the fourth day in a row. The rolling average has also been on a steady upward swing for 10 days.

Current hospitalizations of Utah’s confirmed covid-19 patients are rising quickly, from 149 a week ago to 174 on Friday. Hospitalizations were at 102 when the month began.

South Carolina’s 1,301 new cases and 1,094 rolling average also set records. The state started the month with an average of 281 daily cases.

Tennessee announced 1,410 new infections, surpassing its previous record number of single-day cases by more than 200.

Current hospitalizations are also rising in South Carolina and Tennessee.

In addition to the states that set records, Louisiana has joined the states with rapidly increasing case numbers. Health officials announced 1,354 new cases Friday, compared with 523 two weeks ago and none two weeks before that.

 

 

 

Florida reports massive single-day increase of 9,000 coronavirus cases

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Florida reports massive single-day increase of 9,000 coronavirus ...

Florida on Friday reported nearly 9,000 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours totaling 122,960 cases.

Why it matters: The state is one of many that are experiencing a fresh surge of infections.

Go deeper: The coronavirus surge is real, and it’s everywhere

 

 

 

3 moral virtues necessary for an ethical pandemic response and reopening

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Access, Access & Quality of Healthcare, Communication, Compassion, Core Values, Coronavirus, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Equality, Ethics, Justice, Misinformation, Misleading, Mixed Message, Morals, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Social Determinants of Health, Solidarity, Virtues • Leave a comment

https://theconversation.com/3-moral-virtues-necessary-for-an-ethical-pandemic-response-and-reopening-140688?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2026%202020%20-%201662516009&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2026%202020%20-%201662516009+Version+A+CID_98447eb9cb25b06b85aed07c7fd721bd&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=3%20moral%20virtues%20necessary%20for%20an%20ethical%20pandemic%20response%20and%20reopening

3 moral virtues necessary for an ethical pandemic response and ...

The health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are not equally felt. From the United States to Brazil and the United Kingdom, low-wage workers are suffering more than others and communities of color are most vulnerable to the virus.

Despite the disparities, countries are reopening without a plan to redress these unequal harms and protect the broader community going forward. Our ethics research examines the potential for using virtues as a guide for a more moral coronavirus response.

Virtues are applied morals – actions that promote individual and collective well-being. Examples include generosity, compassion, honesty, solidarity, fortitude, justice and patience. While often embedded in religion, virtues are ultimately a secular concept. Because of their broad, longstanding relevance to human societies, these values tend to be held across cultures.

We propose three core virtues to guide policymakers in easing out of coronavirus crisis mode in ways that achieve a better new normal: compassion, solidarity and justice.

1. Compassion

Compassion is a core virtue of all the world’s major religions and a bedrock moral principle in professions like health care and social work. The distinguishing characteristic of compassion is “shared suffering:” Compassionate people and policies recognize suffering and take actions to alleviate it.

As the French philosopher André Comte-Sponville said, compassion “means that one refuses to regard any suffering as a matter of indifference or any living being as a thing.”

Individual acts of compassion abound in the coronavirus crisis, like frontline health care professionals and neighbors who deliver food, among other examples.

Compassion and solidarity on display at New York’s Elmhurst Hospital, during the April peak of the city’s coronavirus outbreak. Noam Galai/Getty Images

Some pandemic-era policies also reflect compassion, such as regulations preventing evictions and expanding unemployment benefits and giving food aid to poor familes.

A compassion-guided reopening aimed at preventing or reducing human suffering would require governments to continually monitor and alleviate the pain of their people. That includes addressing new forms of suffering that arise as circumstances change.

2. Solidarity

In a global pandemic, the actions people do or don’t take affect the health of others worldwide. Such shared emergencies require solidarity, which recognizes both the inherent dignity of each individual person and the interdependence of all people. As United Nations officials have emphasized, “we are all in this together.”

Public health measures like stay-at-home orders, social distancing and wearing masks reflect solidarity. While compliance in the United States has not been universal, data indicate broad approval for these measures. A new study found that 80% of Americans nationwide support staying home and social distancing and 74% support using face coverings in public.

To achieve these acts of solidarity, the leaders most praised in their countries and abroad – from U.S. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Anthony Fauci to New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern – have relied primarily on moral persuasion, not threats of punishment.

By delivering clear information, giving simple and repeated behavioral guidance, and setting a good example, they’ve helped convince millions to take personal responsibility for protecting their community.

Face masks signal that wearers care about protecting others around them. Islam Dogru/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

3. Justice

Justice focuses on the fair distribution of resources and the social structures that enable what the Dutch philosopher Patrick Loobuyck has called a “condition of equality.”

Justice-oriented policies are necessary for a moral reopening because of the pandemic’s disproportionate health and economic impacts. The evidence clearly shows that communities of color, low-income populations, people in nursing homes and those on the margins of society, such as homeless people and undocumented immigrants, are hardest hit.

Justice-oriented policies would aim for equitable balancing of necessary pandemic resources. That means directing testing and health equipment toward vulnerable communities – as identified by COVID-19 tracking data and risk factors like housing density and poverty – and ensuring free, widespread vaccine distribution when it becomes available.

In the U.S., economic justice will also require aggressively investing in minority-run businesses and poorer areas to guard against further harm to owners, employees and neighborhoods.

Similarly, all American school children have lost critical classroom hours, but lower-income children have been disproportionately damaged by remote learning in part due to the digital divide and loss of free lunch programs. Justice would demand channeling additional resources to the students and schools that need them most.

A moral reopening

Using virtues to guide social policies is an old idea. It dates back at least to the Greek thinker Aristotle.

Social distance stickers to prepare Nepal’s empty Tribhuwan International Airport for reopening. Narayan Maharjan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

New Zealand is a good example of virtuous pandemic policymaking, even considering its advantages in having wealth, low density and no land borders. Its coronavirus response included not only aggressive public health measures but also a well articulated message of being united in the COVID-19 fight and recurring government payments so workers did not have to risk their health for their job.

Note that it isn’t enough to apply just one virtue in a crisis of this magnitude. Policies built on compassion, solidarity and justice should be deployed in combination.

A compassionate post-pandemic response that does not address underlying inequalities, for example, ignores certain communities’ specific needs. Meanwhile, tackling specific injustices without engaging everyone in efforts like mask-wearing endangers the public health.

Bolstered by scientific evidence, virtue ethics can help nations reopen not just economically but morally, too.

 

 

 

 

Coronavirus Cases may be 10x higher than official count says CDC

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Antibodies, Asymptomatic Transmission, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Economy Reopening, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mislead, Misleading, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Vulnerable Populations • Leave a comment

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NC coronavirus update June 25: North Carolina's mask mandate goes ...

The real number of U.S. coronavirus cases could be as high as 23 million — 10 times the 2.3 million currently confirmed cases — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters yesterday, Axios’ Marisa Fernandez reports.

Between the lines: The new estimate is based on antibody testing, which indicates whether someone has previously been infected by the virus regardless of whether they had symptoms.

  • “This virus causes so much asymptomatic infection. The traditional approach of looking for symptomatic illness and diagnosing it obviously underestimates the total amount of infections,” CDC director Robert Redfield said.

The agency also expanded its warnings of which demographic groups are at risk, which now include younger people who are obese and who have underlying health problems.

  • The shift reflects what states and hospitals have been seeing since the pandemic began, which is that young people can get seriously ill from COVID-19.

The new guidance also categorizes medical conditions that can affect the severity of illness:

  • Conditions that increase risk: Chronic kidney disease; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; obesity; weakened immune system from solid organ transplant; serious heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathies; sickle cell disease; Type 2 diabetes.
  • Conditions that may increase risk: Chronic lung diseases, including moderate to severe asthma and cystic fibrosis; high blood pressure; a weakened immune system; neurologic conditions, such as dementia or history of stroke; liver disease; pregnancy.

 

 

 

 

Coronavirus Dashboard

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Freedom, Front Lines, 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, Supreme Court • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-news-quick-highlights-57a186a3-7547-45bf-852a-83019849d8d5.html

Coronavirus dashboard: Catch up fast - Axios

 

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 9 a.m. ET: 9,635,935 — Total deaths: 489,922 — Total recoveries — 4,861,715 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 9 a.m ET: 2,422,312 — Total deaths: 124,415 — Total recoveries: 663,562 — Total tested: 29,207,820 — Map.
  3. Public health: America’s workers still aren’t protected from the coronavirus — Gilead says coronavirus drug should likely cost no more than $2,800.
  4. White House: Trump administration asks Supreme Court to overturn ACA during pandemic.
  5. Sports: Universities cut sports teams, as they struggle with coronavirus fallout.

 

 

 

 

The U.S. divide on coronavirus masks

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, False Hope, False Narrative, Freedom, Front Lines, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mislead, Misleading, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/political-divide-coronavirus-masks-1053d5bd-deb3-4cf4-9570-0ba492134f3e.html

Politics, not public health, drive Americans' attitudes toward ...

Mask-wearing has become the latest partisan division in an increasingly politically divided pandemic.

Why it matters: It’s becoming increasingly clear that wearing even a basic cloth mask is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But whether or not people are willing to wear one has less to do with the risk of the pandemic than their political affiliation.

By the numbers: Results from months of the Axios-Ipsos coronavirus polls show a clear and growing political divide between Democrats and Republicans on mask-wearing habits.

  • Nationally, the percentage of Democrats who reported wearing a mask all the time when leaving home rose from 49% between April 10 and May 4 to 65% between May 8 and June 22.
  • During the same time period, the percentage of Republicans who reported constant mask-wearing rose from 29% to just 35%.

Context: The political divide Americans are reporting on mask use echoes one seen within nearly all levels of the government.

  • President Trump has not been seen to wear a mask, and he told Axios last week that attendees at his Tulsa campaign event on June 20 should “do what they want” on masks, which were not required at the rally.
  • Governors in many red states like Nebraska have refused to mandate facial masks in public, even as cases have begun to rise in recent weeks. At the same time, leaders in blue states — especially those that grappled with large outbreaks of COVID-19 — have urged residents to wear masks, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom mandating their use last week as cases in the state passed 4,000 a day.
  • The situation is even more divided at the local level, with leaders of red towns in blue states pushing back against mask mandates, and vice versa.

Flashback: Some of the blame for the divide can be traced back to muddled public health messaging on mask use in the early stages of the pandemic, when Americans were urged not to go out and buy masks in bulk because of concerns that there wasn’t enough personal protective equipment for front-line health care workers.

  • Those fears were real, as government virus expert Anthony Fauci pointed out in congressional testimony on Tuesday. And public health officials worried that pushing masks would inadvertently encourage Americans to continue going out in public at a moment when lockdowns demanded they stay inside.
  • Like the divide among experts on whether mass protests would increase coronavirus cases, just the perception that health advice might be based on politics rather than science gives cover to those who would forego masks, especially since the outbreak itself initially seemed like a blue state problem.

Health experts now know that cloth masks are most effective not so much at protecting individuals from infection as protecting the community from infected individuals. But that makes masks as much about social signaling as they are about public health.

  • Conservatives who prize individual autonomy over social responsibility experience “a massive pushback of psychological resistance” when presented with mask mandates, says Steven Taylor, the author of “The Psychology of Pandemics.”
  • That reaction is reinforced “if leaders like Trump downplay the significance of COVID-19 or if they won’t wear masks,” says Taylor. As a result, wearing a mask in conservative communities means visibly going against public opinion, while the opposite is true in communities where mask use is common.
  • The Axios-Ipsos data reflects this reality, showing that while Republicans in blue states use masks less than Democrats, they wear them at higher rates than Republicans in red states, just as Democrats in red states use masks at lower rates than Democrats in blue states.

What to watch: The one factor that seems capable of breaking the political deadlock is the outbreak itself. As cases have skyrocketed in red states like Arizona recently, there’s been a significant increase in Google searches for masks.

 

 

 

 

America’s workers still aren’t protected from the coronavirus

Posted on by • Posted in Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Businesses, Essential Workers, Front Lines, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Preexisting Conditions, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Underinsured, Uninsured, Vulnerable Populations, Worker Protection, Workflow Environment • Leave a comment

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America's workers still aren't protected from the coronavirus - Axios

Essential workers have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic for months, but the U.S. is still doing relatively little to protect them.

Why it matters: With no end to the pandemic in sight, America’s frontline workers still must choose between risking their health and losing their source of income.

Driving the news: The Trump administration said this week that health insurers aren’t required to cover coronavirus diagnostic tests performed as part of workplace safety or public health surveillance efforts.

  • It didn’t say who is supposed to pay for these tests. If employers are stuck footing the bill, that makes the testing less likely to happen.

The big picture: There’s been no national effort or initiative to protect essential workers, and America is still failing to implement basic public health measures as new cases skyrocket.

  • Masks have become a political flashpoint and aren’t required in many of the states that are emerging coronavirus hotspots.
  • That means essential workers go to work each day without any guarantee that the people they’re interacting with will take one of the most basic and effective steps to prevent transmission of the virus.
  • No one is even talking about mass distribution of personal protective equipment beyond health care workers. And even some health care workers — particularly those who work in nursing homes — don’t have the protective gear that they need.

More broadly, the financial incentives for frontline workers, particularly those who are low-income, to keep working make it nearly impossible for them to avoid health risks.

  • At least 69 million American workers are potentially ineligible for the emergency paid sick leave benefits that Congress passed earlier this year, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.
  • An estimated 25-30 million people — particularly lower-wage workers in service industries — are unable to work from home but also face a high risk of severe infection, KFF’s Drew Altman wrote earlier this week.

What we’re watching: The line between essential workers and those who are required to return to the office by their employer has become blurry, and millions more Americans are facing dilemmas similar to those faced by grocers and bus drivers.

  • The sickest — and thus most vulnerable — Americans may feel the most pressure to return to work, as that’s often where they get their health insurance, the NYT points out.
  • Nearly a quarter of adult workers are vulnerable to severe coronavirus infections, per KFF.

The bottom line: Essential workers and their families will continue to feel the impact of America’s coronavirus failures most acutely.

Go deeper: “Disposable workers” doing essential jobs

 

 

 

 

500 Delta Airline Staff Test Positive for Coronavirus, 10 Dead

Posted on by • Posted in Air Travel, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.newsweek.com/500-delta-airline-staff-test-positive-coronavirus-10-dead-1513016

Coronavirus Travel: What Happens to Planes Grounded by Covid-19 ...

Hundreds of staff at Delta Air Lines have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Ten workers have died after contracting the virus, the company confirmed.

According to a transcript of the company’s latest shareholders meeting held on a phone conference June 18, Delta’s Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said: “We have had approximately 500 employees that have tested positive for COVID-19. The vast majority have recovered, thankfully. Unfortunately, we have lost 10 employees to the disease.”

Speaking to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Delta noted the latest tally of infected employees is “inclusive of all positive cases reported to us since March out of our 90,000 employees worldwide.

“Since initial reporting in March, Delta has seen a significant reduction in positive employee COVID-19 tests and is currently tracking at a rate five times lower than the national average.”

Bastian said: “We have recently announced that we are going to be testing all of our employees. In fact, we started this week in Minneapolis for both the blood serology, as to whether they have already been exposed to the disease and have antibodies, as well as the active test to see if they, indeed, are carrying the virus. And that test is being led by Mayo Clinic.”

“And we are also working very closely with Quest Diagnostics in that we will have all 90,000 of our employees available to be tested. And from getting a good baseline, we will be able to provide better protection for our people and then, eventually, certainly, our customers as we go forward,” Bastian confirmed on the call.

It is unknown whether the infected staff members are cabin crew or ground-level workers and which flights they may have been operating. The majority of Delta’s employees are reported to be flight attendants, pilots and airport agents, while less than 10,000 are administrative staff, most of whom are working from home, according to Bastian.

“Given that we are a frontline customer service business, the majority of our employees need to be at work to conduct business,” Bastian said.

On Monday, Delta announced it will resume flights between the U.S. and China. The carrier will operate a service between Seattle and China’s Shanghai Pudong International Airport via South Korea’s Incheon International Airport twice a week from June 25.

From July, the airline will operate weekly flights from Seattle and Detroit to Shanghai, also via Incheon International Airport. Delta is the first U.S. airline to resume services between the U.S. and China since the temporary suspension of flights in February following the outbreak.

Earlier this month, Delta announced it will be suspending flights to 11 U.S. airports from July 8 while “customer volume is significantly reduced,” the carrier confirmed in a statement.

These airports make up five percent of the airline’s domestic operations. “All of these airports will continue to receive service from at least one other carrier after Delta suspends its operations,” the statement added.

The 11 airport locations include Aspen in Colorado (ASE), Bangor in Maine (BGR), Erie, PA (ERI), Flint in Michigan (FNT), Fort Smith in Arkansas (FSM), Lincoln in Nebraska (LNK), New Bern/Morehead/Beaufort in North Carolina (EWN), Peoria in Illinois (PIA), Santa Barbara, California (SBA), Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (AVP) and Williston in North Dakota (XWA).

“Delta has announced an 85 percent reduction in our second-quarter schedule, which includes reductions of 80 percent in U.S. domestic capacity and 90 percent internationally,” including service to Canada’s Ottawa International Airport in the province of Ontario which was suspended indefinitely from June 21, the statement confirmed.

Last month, Delta also announced the temporary suspension of operations at airports in locations with “more than one Delta-served airport to allow more frontline employees to minimize COVID-19 exposure risk while customer traffic is low.”

“Delta will continue providing essential service to impacted communities via neighboring airports,” the statement said.

The 10 airports where operations were temporarily suspended include Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) in Illinois, Oakland International Airport (OAK), Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) and Long Beach Airport (LGB) in California, T. F. Green International Airport (PVD) in Rhode Island, Westchester County Airport (HPN) and Stewart International Airport (SWF) in New York, Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) in Ohio, Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT) in New Hampshire and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport (PHF) in Virginia.

Services at Canada’s Saskatoon International Airport were also temporarily suspended last month.

Delta extended its waiving of change fees and the flexibility to travel through September 30, 2022, to customers with canceled flights through September 2020.

“Eligible customers include those who have upcoming travel already booked between now and September 30 as of April 17, 2020,” and those with “canceled travel on flights between March 2020 and September 2020,” the airline said.

From May 4, Delta has required all passengers to wear a face mask or other appropriate face covering on its flights. Other safety measures introduced include sanitizing all aircraft with electrostatic spraying before departure and disinfecting all high-touch points throughout the aircraft interior.

Aircraft are also equipped with “state-of-the-art air circulation systems with HEPA [high efficiency particulate absorbing] filters that extract more than 99.99 percent of particles, including viruses,” the company said in a statement Monday.

Last week, American Airlines flight crew asked a passenger to disembark a plane after the man refused to wear a mask on board a flight.

In the same week, a survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) found that 45 percent of travelers said they would fly within two months after the novel coronavirus is no longer seen as a threat, down from 60 percent in April.

The novel coronavirus, first reported in Wuhan, China, has infected more than 9.2 million people across the globe, including over 2.3 million in the U.S. More than 477,800 have died following infection, while over 4.6 million have reportedly recovered from infection, as of Wednesday, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

 

 

 

Houston ICUs at 97 Percent Capacity as Texas Coronavirus Cases Break Records

Posted on by • Posted in Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Intensive Care (ICU), Mortality, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.newsweek.com/houston-icus-90-percent-capacity-texas-coronavirus-cases-break-records-1513077

Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today - The New York Times

Almost all intensive care unit beds at Houston hospitals were occupied on Wednesday as Texas reported a record number of statewide patient admissions related to the novel coronavirus.

During a City Council meeting Wednesday morning, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said 97 percent of the city’s ICU beds were filled. A report from the Texas Medical Center (TMC) said 27 percent of those beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients.

According to data published earlier this week by the TMC, a network of health care and research institutions based in Houston, 90 percent of the city’s ICU beds were filled as of Monday. Virus patients accounted for more than one-quarter of those occupancies.

The TMC’s latest report incorporated ICU admission numbers from seven affiliate hospitals in the Houston area: CHI St. Luke’s Health, Harris Health System, Houston Methodist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children’s Hospital and University of Texas Medical Branch. The hospitals can collectively admit 1,330 ICU patients at regular capacity, when 70 to 80 percent of total beds are typically occupied, according to the TMC.

The TMC’s Monday report noted that an additional 373 beds could become available under its “sustainable surge” plan, a procedure that would indefinitely increase ICU capacities as needed during the pandemic. Another 504 beds could be added to Houston ICUs under an emergency “unsustainable surge” plan, which the TMC would implement to address a “significant, temporary” influx of patients, according to its report.

Houston’s heightened ICU admissions were reported as cases and hospitalizations related to the coronavirus are spiking throughout Texas. Ongoing data released by the Texas Department of State Health Services show that of all the state’s regions, the Houston area is one of the hardest hit in terms of virus incidence and hospital admissions. The latest DSHS data estimated that 179 ICU beds were available at medical facilities located in the Greater Houston area as of Tuesday afternoon.

The number of patients hospitalized with the virus peaked in Texas on Tuesday, as the DSHS confirmed more than 4,000 current admissions. The state has set new records for hospitalizations related to COVID-19 every day since June 12, when 2,166 patients were reported.

On Monday, the Houston Health Department said hospitalizations due to the virus had increased 177 percent throughout the surrounding county since May 31. It also noted a 64 percent increase in ICU patients who had tested positive for the virus.

Texas also saw its highest daily increase in virus cases on Wednesday, with 5,489 new diagnoses confirmed. The latest single-day record surpassed its previous high of 4,430 new cases reported last Saturday. Cumulative diagnosis data reflected in graphics published by the DSHS show a sharp upturn in cases reported statewide since the start of June, when about 64,800 total cases were confirmed. As of Tuesday afternoon, the number had risen to more than 120,300. The DSHS estimated that roughly 47,400 of those cases remain active.

Businesses in Texas started to reopen at the beginning of May. Although Texas Governor Greg Abbott has not required residents to wear face masks in the state’s public spaces during the reopening process, he did encourage people to do so earlier this week in response to increasing case counts and hospitalizations.

“Wearing a mask will help us to keep Texas open. Not taking action to slow the spread will cause COVID to spread even worse, risking people’s lives and ultimately leading to the closure of more businesses,” he said during a news conference on Monday.