Louisiana hit another record-high day for COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations on Tuesday.
Cases and hospitalizations are on a near-vertical rize in the state as the fourth surge of the coronavirus pandemic accelerates.
Gov. John Bel Edwards called the numbers increasingly scary. Louisiana has the fastest-growing number of cases per capita of any state in the U.S. The nation is now recording the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in the world, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The state health department saw over 6,700 cases of COVID-19 reported in one day, the second-highest single-day case count since January, when the pandemic was at its peak.
Another 169 people were hospitalized in a single day the largest daily increase in hospitalizations since March of 2020, when the coronavirus first struck and made a global hotspot of Louisiana.
A total of 1390 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, 113 of them on ventilators.
Hospitals are at risk of running out of space with the onslaught of COVID patients.
All LCMC hospitals and Our Lady of the Lake hospital in Baton Rouge announced on Monday theyre pausing new, non-urgent surgical procedures requiring an inpatient bed. Other hospitals have drastically limited visitations.
The Louisiana Department of Corrections has again suspended all visitation and volunteer programs at state-run prisons until at least mid-August.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued new guidelines for everyone, including vaccinated people and children, to wear a mask indoors. Last week, Edwards announced a similar advisory.
He again pleaded for people to get vaccinated.
This surge is on us, and that means it is up to each of us to do our part to bring it to an end, Edwards said.
Over 1400 sites across the state offer COVID-19 vaccines, which are free.
Thousands of protesters gather near the Eiffel Tower to protest the COVID-19 pass which grants vaccinated individuals greater ease of access to venues. Rafael Yaghobzadeh/AP hide caption
Thousands of protesters gather near the Eiffel Tower to protest the COVID-19 pass which grants vaccinated individuals greater ease of access to venues.
PARIS France's parliament approved a law early Monday requiring special virus passes for all restaurants and domestic travel and mandating vaccinations for all health workers.
Both measures have prompted protests and political tensions. President Emmanuel Macron and his government say they are needed to protect vulnerable populations and hospitals as infections rebound and to avoid new lockdowns.
The law requires all workers in the health care sector to start getting vaccinated by Sept. 15, or risk suspension. It also requires a "health pass" to enter all restaurants, trains, planes and some other public venues. It initially applies to all adults, but will apply to everyone 12 and older starting Sept. 30.
To get the pass, people must have proof they are fully vaccinated, recently tested negative or recently recovered from the virus. Paper or digital documents will be accepted. The law says a government decree will outline how to handle vaccination documents from other countries.
The bill was unveiled just six days ago. Lawmakers worked through the night and the weekend to reach a compromise version approved by the Senate on Sunday night and by the National Assembly after midnight. The rules can be applied through Nov. 15, depending on the virus situation.
Macron appealed for national unity and mass vaccination to fight the resurgent virus, and lashed out at those fueling anti-vaccine sentiment and protests.
About 160,000 people protested around France on Saturday against a special COVID-19 pass for restaurants and mandatory vaccinations for health workers. Many marchers shouted "liberty!" and said the government shouldn't tell them what to do.
Visiting a hospital in French Polynesia afterward, Macron urged national unity and asked, "What is your freedom worth if you say to me 'I don't want to be vaccinated,' but tomorrow you infect your father, your mother or myself?"
While he said protesters are "free to express themselves in a calm and respectful manner," he said demonstrations won't make the coronavirus go away.
He criticized "people who are in the business of irrational, sometimes cynical, manipulative mobilization" against vaccination. Among those organizing the protests have been far-right politicians and extremist members of France's yellow vest movement tapping into anger at Macron's government.
More than 111,000 people with the virus have died in France, which is registering about 20,000 new infections daily compared to just a few thousand earlier this month. Concerns for hospitals are resurfacing.
To mask or not to mask: That is the question for vaccinated people as the delta variant surges. The answer may depend on the situation, experts say. Here, these roller coaster riders mask up at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images hide caption
To mask or not to mask: That is the question for vaccinated people as the delta variant surges. The answer may depend on the situation, experts say. Here, these roller coaster riders mask up at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif.
Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending face coverings for vaccinated people in certain situations. Please tell me exactly when to mask up.
If you hung your mask up in May after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said face coverings were no longer necessary for vaccinated people, you're probably not eager to start masking up once more. And with Tuesday's announcement that some vaccinated people should mask up again in certain situations because of the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, your head may be spinning.
The new guidance is targeted at vaccinated people who live in areas with "high and substantial transmission," and it focuses on indoor settings.
Given that the recent rise in hospitalizations is probably because of people no longer wearing masks at the appropriate time, says Charlotte Baker, assistant professor of epidemiology at Virginia Tech, many health experts welcomed the reversal.
But there are many unanswered questions as people look for guidance in specific situations: Do I really need to mask up at the grocery store? How about on a college campus that requires students to be vaccinated? What about roller coasters?
"It's so subjective and situational," says May Chu, a clinical professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, who led the research on masks and respirators for the World Health Organization. "It's easier to think it through if you know what the risks are that you need to evaluate."
To help you assess and mitigate your risk in specific situations, we asked specialists in ventilation, masking, public health and infectious disease for their input. They recommend thinking about the following questions when deciding whether to doff or don. Warning: The first few questions have easy answers, but they get trickier.
Are you vaccinated? This is one of the only clear-cut answers: If you haven't gotten jabbed yet, your risk in any public situation is high enough to wear a mask always.
Will everyone else there be vaccinated? On the flip side, when you're sure everyone else is vaccinated, experts agree the risk is so low there's no need to mask.
Do you have a cold, the flu or COVID-19-like symptoms? If you do, quarantine at home (and get tested if you have symptoms of COVID-19). And if you have just a garden-variety cold or flu and have to go out, wear a mask for the health of everyone around you.
Are you going to be outside? Virus particles dilute rapidly outdoors. Virginia Tech aerosol expert Linsey Marr has compared it to a droplet of dye in the ocean: "If you happen to be right next to it, then maybe you'll get a whiff of it. But it's going to become diluted rapidly into the huge atmosphere."
Our experts believe that most vaccinated people are safe without masks in most outdoor situations without prolonged close contact.
These next questions don't come with neat, stand-alone answers. Consider each response as one piece of the puzzle as you make your mask decision.
Are transmission rates low to moderate in your county? In areas with high rates of vaccination, test positivity rates have fallen to the lowest levels since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic (under 5% is considered low). With low levels of virus circulating, going out without a mask is much safer. However, keep your eye on that rate as cases start rising again because of that delta variant, says Stanford University infectious disease fellow Abraar Karan. "The change over time will tell you in which direction the epidemic is heading," he says.
Whom do you live with?If you live with unvaccinated people (including children) or with people 65 and older or anyone else especially susceptible to the coronavirus, wearing a mask could reduce your risk of developing a rare breakthrough infection and passing it on to them.
"If you live in a high-risk area and with vulnerable elderly folks who haven't been vaccinated or even if they have, I would recommend masking up indoors in close spaces until we have more data about the necessity for boosters [for older adults and other vulnerable populations]," Karan says.
Will it be so crowded that you cannot maintain 6 feet of distance between people?If you're shoulder to shoulder with people, it's prudent to wear a mask depending on how long you're there and especially if you're in a higher-prevalence area, Chu says.
Will people be singing? Cheering? Screaming? Exercising? Even when you're inside, there are different considerations. Consider a sports bar with people shouting and cheering, a bar with a crowded dance floor and people singing versus a silent prayer meeting, Chu says.
Are there open windows if you're inside?That's an indication of good ventilation most people won't know whether the air change rate is more than four times per hour or whether the venue has MERV 11+ filters or portable HEPA air filtration units, Marr points out.
High ceilings are also a bonus: That's an indication that there's good potential for dilution, Marr says.
None of the experts has tossed their masks. Baker, the Virginia Tech epidemiology professor, continues to mask up whenever she is indoors with anyone who may not be vaccinated. "I feel really naked not wearing one," she says.
"Erring on the side of caution doesn't hurt anybody," says Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist who has worked with the COVID Tracking Project. "And wearing masks does not deny the effectiveness of these vaccines."
And as for roller coasters? It's a tricky one, Baker acknowledges, since you're outside but close to others. If you knew everyone on the ride was vaccinated, it'd be OK to skip the mask. In lieu of that?
"I would wear a mask," she says.
Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She has written about COVID-19 for many publications, including Medscape, Kaiser Health News, Science News for Students and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) The United States is in an unnecessary predicament of soaring COVID-19 cases fueled by unvaccinated Americans and the virulent delta variant, the nations top infectious diseases expert said Sunday.
Were going in the wrong direction, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, describing himself as very frustrated.
He said recommending that the vaccinated wear masks is under active consideration by the governments leading public health officials. Also, booster shots may be suggested for people with suppressed immune systems who have been vaccinated, Fauci said.
Fauci, who also serves as President Joe Bidens chief medical adviser, told CNNs State of the Union that he has taken part in conversations about altering the mask guidelines.
He noted that some local jurisdictions where infection rates are surging, such as Los Angeles County, are already calling on individuals to wear masks in indoor public spaces regardless of vaccination status. Fauci said those local rules are compatible with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that the vaccinated do not need to wear masks in public.
More than 163 million people, or 49% of the total U.S. population, are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. Of those eligible for the vaccine, aged 12 and over, the figure rises to 57%.
This is an issue predominantly among the unvaccinated, which is the reason why were out there, practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated, Fauci said.
Fauci said government experts are reviewing early data as they consider whether to recommend that vaccinated individuals to get booster shots. He suggested that some of the most vulnerable, such as organ transplant and cancer patients, are likely to be recommended for booster shots.
He also praised Republicans, including Govs. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, and the second-ranking House leader, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for encouraging their constituents to get vaccinated. Their states have among the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
What I would really like to see is more and more of the leaders in those areas that are not vaccinating to get out and speak out and encourage people to get vaccinated, Fauci said.
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This story has been corrected to say that 49% of the total U.S. population, not just those eligible, are fully vaccinated.
The Chinese government has bristled at international focus on China as the possible origin location of Covid-19 and instead insisted that it has multiple origins and broke out in multiple places.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, outlined a plan recently for a second nvestigation in China of the origins of SARS-COV-2. That proposed probe, a follow-up to a January 2021 WHO investigation initially blocked and subsequently hampered by Chinese authorities, included a proposal for audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019, a veiled reference to the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, speaks during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, (not in picture) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 17, 2018 in Beijing, China. | Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images
Zeng Yixin, Chinas vice minister of the National Health Commission, rejected the plan, saying it disregards common sense and defies science.
Chinas response was unjustified, said Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of President Joe Bidens pre-inauguration coronavirus advisory board.
I think what [WHO] asked was perfectly reasonable, said Osterholm, who argued that Chinas rejection of the probe will fuel conspiratorial speculation about how the virus emerged in China. It makes people suspect this is a manmade virus with an intentional release.
Chris Beyrer, Desmond M. Tutu professor of public health and human rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, called Chinas rejection of the probe very problematic.
Beyrer attributed Chinas action to the ruling Chinese Communist Partys determination to stifle any potentially negative revelations about the origins of Covid-19.
I think the Chinese now have an official [pandemic] narrative and they are pushing it very hard and there is no opportunity for them to revisit that narrative of having asserted success of its pandemic control efforts, Beyrer said.
Covid-19 has had a dramatic impact on lives and livelihood around the world. The virus has killed more than 4 million people and sickened 193 million others worldwide. The United States has recorded more than 610,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the same period. The pandemic has also inflicted a catastrophic global economic toll. It's impact has included a sharp reduction in global gross domestic product and drastically curtailed global trade in 2020.
The human implications of the pandemics economic impact have also been stark. A U.S. Congressional Research Service report released on July 9 noted that as a result of the pandemic, worldwide 95 million people may have entered into extreme poverty in 2020 with 80 million more undernourished compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Chinas rejection of the probe to learn the virus origin has drawn criticism on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia and Nonproliferation, told POLITICO in a statement that Chinas move was unacceptable. Bera demanded a comprehensive, transparent and independent analysis into the origins of COVID-19.
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) speaks during a joint hearing before House Judiciary Committee Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee and House Foreign Affairs Committee Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
But acrimony toward China for its derailment of the proposed follow-up WHO investigation is not universal. Hotez places the responsibility for the rejection on the WHO for focusing on the Wuhan lab in the emergence of the virus.
We are demanding things that the Chinese government will never agree to, [such as] banging on the door of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to show the notebooks which they will never agree to," Hotez said. There is a misunderstanding [by the WHO] that you will get to the bottom of this by talking to Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists and poring over notebooks. Are you going to do a search of 15,000 pages of Wuhan Institute of Virology notebooks and look for where someone wrote oops!?
U.N. officials also fault the tone of the WHOs communication with China about the follow-up investigation. Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chair of United Nations Sustainable Development Group, acknowledged Tedros has to do a very difficult tightrope walk in engaging with China at a very volatile time in its relations with major powers, including the United States and the European Union.
But he said Chinas interpretation of the probe as arbitrary foreign diktat didnt help. Being a head of a U.N. agency, when I talk to China, when I talk to the U.S., I don't talk by kicking in the door and telling either capital this is what you should do, Steiner told POLITICO.
A Geneva-based diplomat who participates in WHO weekly briefings with member countries offered a less charitable assessment of Tedros tough talk on China. He called Tedros July 16 announcement of the probe the surprise of the year and suggested it partially reflected his career ambitions. Maybe Tedros has just done his calculations and realizes that China will not be able to block his reelection [for demanding a robust investigation into virus origins], said the diplomat, who requested anonymity to be able to speak freely.
Despite the challenges posed by the current impasse between the WHO and China, Beyrer says that the long-term risk of emergent deadly coronaviruses requires that the standoff be bridged. We are in a struggle that the virus is winning, he said. But what we always want to do is prevent [future] pandemics and to do that you need to know how this thing emerged and became so fully adapted to human-to-human spread.
Osterholm said the Biden administrations potential role in helping broker a resolution to the impasse is limited and called for a U.S. government focus on support for the WHO to prevent future pandemics. I think that at this point the administration is looking at all the information we have [about SARS-COV-2 origins]but that still doesnt get us back to what we need to learn from the Chinese, he said.
But Hotez excoriated what he sees as Bidens role in boosting the Chinese governments hostility to a follow-up investigation through administration measures such as its May 26 order for intelligence agencies to redouble their analysis of the origins of Covid-19 and to produce a report on their conclusions within 90 days. Hotez called that request ridiculous.
We have already thrown all the intelligence at this and not got to the bottom of it, he said.
Just days before the federal moratorium on evictions is set to expire, lawmakers scrutinized the actions of corporate landlords that have filed tens of thousands of actions seeking the removal of tenants during the pandemic.
Representative James E. Clyburn, the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, said the hearing was the opening salvo of an investigation into what he called unjustified eviction practices by some large landlords. Mr. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said he was disturbed by reports that some large property owners had moved to evict renters for failing to pay rent, even as the government works to distribute tens of billions of dollars in emergency rental assistance funds.
Last week Mr. Clyburn sent letters to four corporate landlords that he said were particularly aggressive in going after lower-income tenants and Black and Latino renters. Evictions by corporate landlords have been widespread in minority communities, he said.
Representatives for those landlords did not speak at the hearing, but several housing advocates did.
Jim Baker, the executive director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit that has been tracking eviction filings in a handful of large counties, said that corporate landlords, rather than so-called mom-and-pop landlords, had accounted for the majority of eviction filings. Corporate landlords had filed at least 75,000 evictions across the half-dozen large counties the group has tracked since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium in September, Mr. Baker said.
The moratorium is credited with cutting the number of eviction actions filed by landlords roughly in half, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
But the effects have been mixed: State and local courts have been divided on the details of the moratorium, with some ruling that landlords could file eviction actions for nonpayment of rent and were prohibited only from removing such tenants. Other courts have permitted evictions if they are for violations of a housing complexs rules and regulations.
With the moratorium expiring this week, housing advocates estimate that roughly 11 million adult renters are vulnerable to being evicted because they are behind on their rent. Nearly a half-million people are behind in New York City alone, according to an analysis of census data by the National Equity Atlas, a research group associated with the University of Southern California.
Housing advocates fear there will be a rush of eviction filings once the moratorium ends. Some are concerned about how slow the federal government has been to dole out roughly $45 billion in federal rental assistance. A little over $1.5 billion has been paid out nationwide, the Treasury Department said last week.
Emily A. Benfer, a professor at Wake Forest University who specializes in health and housing law, said in an interview that the relief had been slow to trickle out partly because many local governments had had to build rental assistance programs from scratch. The process for applying can be cumbersome because of language and technology barriers, she added.
Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told the subcommittee that Congress should consider extending the moratorium to allow more time for the emergency rental money to be disbursed. She said some states had allocated less than 5 percent of the money they had gotten from the federal government.
Republicans on the subcommittee criticized the C.D.C. moratorium, calling it an unconstitutional power grab that imposed financial hardships on landlords. Joel Griffith, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy group, said the moratorium eroded private property rights and interfered with the ability of local courts to enforce local housing laws.
The committee has asked the corporate landlords to respond to Mr. Clyburns letter by Aug. 3.
A woman wears a protective mask as she exercises on the street amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 31. REUTERS/Thanh Hue
HANOI, July 27 (Reuters) - Vietnam reported 7,913 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, the fifth straight day the country has recorded more than 7,000 cases as it battles its largest and most difficult outbreak yet, the health ministry said.
Vietnam has reported a total of 114,260 cases so far, with at least 524 deaths. The country largely succeeded in suppressing virus in 2020, but has lately been hit with a fast-spreading outbreak, with around a third of its total cases recorded in just the last five days.
Editing by Peter Graff
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Professional wrestler Jeff Hardy, one of Moore Countys most famous native sons, was reportedly forced to drop out of a sold-out event in Missouri after testing positive for COVID-19.
Hardy, a former WWE champion, was set to appear for a meet-and-greet Monday at recordBar, a nightclub in Kansas City. On Sunday, the venue announced that Hardys appearance had been postponed to a later date.
Jeff Hardy just tested positive for covid this morning, and will have to quarantine for the next two weeks, recordBar wrote on its Facebook page, adding that the wrestler will not be participating in any live events for the next two weeks."
Facebook post announcing Jeff Hardys COVID-19 diagnosis.
The meet-and-greet was expected to follow a rematch between Hardy, 43, and Karrion Kross on the television program WWE Raw. Kross instead faced off against the wrestler Keith Lee.
Born in Cameron, Hardy is known for wearing ornately patterned face paint in the ring. He and his brother Matt Hardy first found fame performing as the tag-team wrestling duo Hardy Boyz in the early 2000s.
Delta Spreads as Cases Spike
The highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19 is fueling a rapid increase in cases throughout Moore County and across the state.
On Monday, the positivity rate for coronavirus testing in Moore County stood at 12.5 percent, the highest rate reported by the local health department since late-January. Nearly 250 new infections have been identified in the county in July alone, with the month on track to surpass the combined number of cases recorded in June and May.
It is a cause for concern, said Matt Garner, public information officer for the health department. The major factor driving our case numbers appears to be the more contagious delta variant and in particular, its transmissibility among those who are unvaccinated.
First declared a variant of concern in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fast-spreading strain now accounts for 83 percent of all new cases in the United States.
The delta variant spreads much more easily than previous virus strains, meaning you dont need nearly as much exposure to become infected, Garner said. The good news is that current COVID-19 vaccines recognize the virus variants and provide excellent protection in the form of an immune response against them.
But with demand for shots waning nationally, cities and counties in other states have begun reinstating mask mandates and other restrictions. Unvaccinated health care workers will soon be required to undergo weekly testing in both New York City and California, an inconvenience that officials hope will persuade more people to roll up their sleeves.
It remains to be seen if similar steps will be taken to slow the spread of the variant in North Carolina, where about 46 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to provide an update on the states COVID-19 response during a news conference on Wednesday.
FirstHealth Will Not Mandate Vaccine
FirstHealth of the Carolinas, the countys largest private employer, announced last week that it will not yet join other North Carolina-based medical systems in requiring its employees to get vaccinated.
While we are not mandating COVID vaccines at this time, we strongly encourage all employees, medical staff and volunteers to get the COVID vaccine as soon as possible, Dr. Jenifir Bruno, chief medical officer for FirstHealth, said in a statement. The vaccines are safe and effective and continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. We know that these vaccines offer the best protection against COVID-19s known and substantial risks.
Gretchen Kelly, administrative director of public relations for FirstHealth, said about 60 percent of the companys employees had been vaccinated as of Friday. She said FirstHealth continues to vaccinate workers on an ongoing basis, with dozens of employees" scheduled to receivetheirfirst shots this week.
Atrium Health, Cone Health, Duke University Health System, Novant Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health and UNC Medical Center are among the medical systems that recently announced vaccination requirements for workers. The action was praised by the N.C. Healthcare Association, which said it strongly supports hospital and health system policies that require all hospital employees and clinical team members to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
St. Joseph of the Pines Requiring Shots
About 54 percent of the countys fatal infections are linked to outbreaks in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but vaccine hesitancy has persisted among local long-term care workers.
St. Joseph of the Pines recently became the second long-term care community in the area to make vaccinations mandatory for employees. The decision was announced on July 8 by Trinity Health, the company that owns St. Joseph of the Pines.
Over the last year, Trinity Health has counted our own colleagues and patients in the too-high coronavirus death toll. Mike Slubowski, CEO and president of Trinity Health, said in a statement. Now that we have a proven way to prevent COVID-19 deaths, we are not hesitating to do our part."
Only 56 percent of workers at St. Joseph of the Pines, which is the countys eighth-largest employer, were vaccinated before the new policy took effect, according to data shared earlier this month with the Moore County Board of Health. The data showed that less than 40 percent of staff members were vaccinated at most of the areas long-term care facilities as of July 1.
About 90 percent of employees were vaccinated at Elmcroft of Southern Pines, the first local long-term care community to require its employees to get vaccinated. In a statement explaining the mandate, Eclipse Senior Living, the company that owns Elmcroft, said being immunized against COVID-19 is a reasonable ask of our associates for those who can be vaccinated.
LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) - Britain reported its lowest daily total of new coronavirus cases since July 4 on Monday, adding to signs that a recent surge in infections driven by the spread of the Delta variant may have passed its peak.
The number of new cases fell for a sixth consecutive day, to 24,950 on Monday from 29,173 on Sunday. The total number of new cases over the past week, at just over a quarter of a million, is more than a fifth lower than the week before.
Britain has been closely watched by health experts and by financial markets since most legal restrictions were lifted in England on July 19, not long after new cases reached their highest level since mid-January.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government judged that the risk of a big wave of deaths or hospitalisations was low due to a high vaccination rate that would limit the risk of serious illness, even if it did not fully stop new infections.
However, businesses have reported widespread absences of staff who were required to self-isolate due to having been in contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19. read more
Britain has recorded 129,172 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test during the pandemic, the second-highest official total in Europe after Russia.
Monday's data showed 14 new deaths, down from 28 on Sunday and the lowest daily number since July 12. There have been 445 deaths in the past seven days, 50% more than the week before.
About 46.589 million people in the United Kingdom have received one vaccine dose, and 37.287 million - or just over 70% of the adult population - are fully vaccinated.
Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Andrew MacAskill, Alistair Smout and Pravin Char
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of July 27, 2021, there have been 3,104,392 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 166,297 total cases and 2,936 deaths.
There were no deaths reported to DHHR over the last 24 hours.
CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,534), Berkeley (13,019), Boone (2,200), Braxton (1,047), Brooke (2,266), Cabell (9,037), Calhoun (404), Clay (544), Doddridge (652), Fayette (3,616), Gilmer (893), Grant (1,320), Greenbrier (2,921), Hampshire (1,937), Hancock (2,868), Hardy (1,591), Harrison (6,315), Jackson (2,291), Jefferson (4,849), Kanawha (15,649), Lewis (1,344), Lincoln (1,615), Logan (3,328), Marion (4,737), Marshall (3,582), Mason (2,115), McDowell (1,658), Mercer (5,269), Mineral (3,008), Mingo (2,806), Monongalia (9,487), Monroe (1,236), Morgan (1,265), Nicholas (1,947), Ohio (4,367), Pendleton (726), Pleasants (963), Pocahontas (684), Preston (2,975), Putnam (5,438), Raleigh (7,152), Randolph (2,884), Ritchie (772), Roane (671), Summers (870), Taylor (1,314), Tucker (549), Tyler (757), Upshur (2,018), Wayne (3,219), Webster (589), Wetzel (1,410), Wirt (468), Wood (8,026), Wyoming (2,095).
Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Brooke, Clay, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Marshall, Mingo, Morgan, and Wyoming counties.
Barbour County
9:00 AM 11:00 AM, Barbour County Health Department, 109 Wabash Avenue, Philippi, WV
Berkeley County
10:00 AM 12:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV
Boone County
Brooke County
Clay County
1:00 PM 3:00 PM, Clay County Health Department, 452 Main Street, Clay, WV
Grant County
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Petersburg City Parking Lot, South Main Street (across from Walgreens), Petersburg, WV
Jefferson County
9:00 AM 12:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV
Lincoln County
Logan County
Marshall County
Mingo County
10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Kermit Fire Department, 49 Main Street, Kermit, WV
Morgan County
1:00 PM 5:00 PM, Valley Health War Memorial Hospital, 1 Health Way, Berkeley Springs, WV
Wyoming County
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Wyoming County Fire Department, 12 Park Street, Pineville, WV
