People infected with the delta variant of the novel coronavirus may be carrying more than a thousand times more virus particles and may test positive two days earlier than those infected with the original SARS-CoV-2, according to an early new study. The study has not been peer reviewed and looked at only a small number of cases in China, but if the results can be confirmed, they may explain, at least in part, why the delta variant is so much more infectious.
The delta variant has now spread to more than 100 countries and currently makes up 83% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., with particularly high case numbers in areas with low vaccination rates, Live Science previously reported. This variant is thought to be 60% more transmissible than the previous dominant strain, and twice as infectious as the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
Though it's clear that delta is very good at spreading quickly, researchers aren't sure why. To understand more, a group of researchers in China studied how the delta variant spread from the first known local transmission identified on May 21. The authors published their findings as a preprint study on Virological on July 7.
Related: Coronavirus variants: Here's how the SARS-CoV-2 mutants stack up
China's Guangdong and other local Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted surveillance and screening on those infected with the delta variant and their close contacts in China. Close contacts of infected people isolated and took daily COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Officials identified 167 local infections that traced back to the original index case.
They compared data from these people with data from the early days of the pandemic, when the original SARS-CoV-2 was spreading in China.
They found that the average time it took from a person's exposure to the virus to testing positive on PCR tests (or the amount of time the virus needed to replicate to high enough levels to be detectable) was 5.61 days for the original virus and 3.71 days for the delta variant.
The most "striking" aspect of this report was that it takes a much shorter time from being exposed to the delta variant to showing significant levels of virus, said John Connor, a researcher at Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories who was not involved in the study. That changes the "window" of when people are infectious, Connor told Live Science.
"As we know, individuals undergo a latent period after infection, during which viral titers [concentrations] are too low to be detected. As viral proliferation continues within [the] host, the viral load will eventually reach detectable level and become infectious," the authors wrote in the study. "Knowing when an infected person can spread viruses is essential for designing intervention strategies to break chains of transmission." In other words, contact tracing would have to work more quickly to stop people from transmitting delta.
The researchers also measured the viral loads when SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in the PCR tests. They found that the viral loads in the delta variant infections were 1,260 times higher than that of the original virus infections. This suggests that the delta variant can replicate in the body at a faster rate than the original virus.
"These data highlight that the delta variant could be more infectious during the early stage of the infection," the authors wrote. That, in turn, suggests that the person would shed more viral particles, making the transmission risk higher.
Still, the higher replication rate may not fully explain why delta is so successful, and "there's a lot of unanswered questions," Connor added. For example, it would be important for future studies to understand how much of the detected virus is actually infectious, he said.
Originally published on Live Science.
Yehyun Kim :: ctmirror.org
Corey Gile, a cook with The Whaler's Inn, makes a drink wearing a mask on Thursday, Aug. 13.
Connecticut has known for months the coronavirus hit its hospitality industry harder than those in most other states.
Now its learned things are worse than many thought.
According to revised projections from the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Connecticut will have regained by years end slightly less than 72% of the 26,225 direct hotel industry jobs it lost during the pandemic.
Those 7,400 unfilled jobs is significantly worse than the 5,900-position-gap the AHLA forecast for Connecticut back in May.
The pandemic has been devastating to the hospitality industry workforce, wiping out 10 years of hotel job growth, the association wrote, adding that the hotels and other lodgings are expected to end 2021 down 500,000 jobs compared with 2019 employment levels.
Direct hotel jobs, such as housekeeper and front desk attendants, do not include workers from restaurants, retail operations, tourist attractions and other small businesses supported by the lodging industry.
Only four states Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York along with the District of Columbia, are projected to have regained a smaller percentage of direct hotel jobs than Connecticut will have by years end.
We are still facing incredible challenges, said Ginny Kozlowski, executive director of the Connecticut Hotel and Lodging Association.
Perhaps the biggest, she said, is regaining the full contingent of business travelers who comprised 60% of the customer base at Connecticut hotels, motels and bed and breakfast operations before the pandemic.
Vacation and other leisure-related travel has recovered well this summer, though there still some work to do, Kozlowski said. But business-related travel has lagged considerably.
For example, are many companies going to permanently limit their conventions, retreats and planning meetings?
Will salespeople who normally visit their customers four or five times a year now do it just once and stay in touch the rest of the time via online conferencing?
Thats where were not sure, Kozlowski said.
Another unknown pressing the industry is the coronavirus itself.
Kozlowski praised Gov. Ned Lamonts administration for Connecticuts strong effort to promote vaccinations. As of Monday, 71% of residents age 12 and older were fully vaccinated.
And she noted the governor and legislature have been supportive in other ways.
Between the new, two-year state budget and federal coronavirus relief funding, Connecticut officials have dedicated more than $60 million in new resources that will assist tourism promotion and the hospitality sector.
David Lehman, Lamonts economic development commissioner, said a portion of those resources also will support a new grant program to assist hospitality and related businesses. That program likely will be unveiled early in 2022, he said.
And none of that assistance includes another $150 million the state deposited directly into the unemployment trust fund. The state has borrowed more than $700 million to keep the fund afloat, and the debt is expected to approach or top $1 billion by years end.Businesses normally are assessed to cover such debts, so that $150 million payment effectively is direct tax relief to all businesses.
Eric Gjede, a specialist in labor and labor and tax issues for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, said Wednesday any additional deposits the state could make into the unemployment trust would be a boon to all businesses.Gjede added that the business travel situation may not return to pre-pandemic levels this year, which means Connecticuts hospitality sector may remain vulnerable.
Its very clear things arent back to normal, by any stretch of the imagination, he said.
The co-chairs of the legislatures Appropriations Committee, Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague and Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, have asked Lehmans office for more data on the beleaguered hospitality sector.
Osten said she fears some of the jobs, because they are low-paying, will remain unfilled because Connecticuts battle with the coronavirus is not over.
Some people have gone on to other fields and are not interested in coming back to this direct contact job, Osten said.
The states COVID-19 infection test positivity rate crept upward in recent weeks, topping 2.5% on Tuesday.
The Delta variant of the virus , which was originally identified in India, is now likely dominant in the state, according to Nate Grubaugh, epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health.
Kozlowski said the industry has not ruled out an appeal later this year or early in 2022 to Lamont and the legislature for more assistance, adding that she believes many state officials have been closely monitoring what is happening in this sector of Connecticuts economy.
There is an acute awareness that were in serious trouble, she added.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 192.5 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.13 million. More than 3.76 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
Advisors to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are considering evidence suggesting that a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines could increase protection among people with compromised immune systems.
The Biden Administration has released $3 billion in COVID-19 funds to help local communities boost their economies in the wake of the pandemic.
The Philippines has announced plans to ban travel from Malaysia and Thailand and tighten restrictions in the Manila area to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
India has reported 35,342 new COVID-19 cases, taking its tally to more than 31.2 million confirmed cases.
China's eastern province of Jiangsu reported 12 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases yesterday taking its total to 23 since 20 July. It's the first local outbreak since the pandemic began last year.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced that Spain will begin to donate 7.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses this week. The vaccines will be distributed through COVAX, the vaccine-sharing facility.
Mexico has reported its highest daily jump in infections since January, with 16,244 new confirmed COVID-19 cases although the government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher.
Vietnam could soon approve a domestically produced COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, the government said in a statement yesterday.
As part of work identifying promising technology use cases to combat COVID, The Boston Consulting Group recently used contextual AI to analyze more than 150 million English language media articles from 30 countries published between December 2019 to May 2020.
The result is a compendium of hundreds of technology use cases. It more than triples the number of solutions, providing better visibility into the diverse uses of technology for the COVID-19 response.
To see a full list of 200+ exciting technology use cases during COVID please follow this link.
Australia's New South Wales state has reported its biggest daily rise in new COVID-19 cases so far this year, prompting a tightening of restrictions in capital Sydney.
State officials have labelled the situation a 'national emergency', with state Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying it was likely restrictions would be extended beyond the current 30 July end date.
"There is no doubt that the numbers are not going in the direction we were hoping they would at this stage," Berejiklian said as she announced 136 new cases in New South Wales.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia.
Image: Our World in Data
The Trans-Tasman bubble, which allowed quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia, has also been suspended for at least eight weeks.
A British study has found that a longer gap between doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine leads to higher overall antibody levels than a shorter gap. However, the study found a sharp drop in antibody levels after the first dose.
The study might help inform vaccination strategies against the Delta variant, which reduces the effectiveness of a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine even though two doses are still protective.
"For the longer dosing interval ... neutralising antibody levels against the Delta variant were poorly induced after a single dose, and not maintained during the interval before the second dose," said the authors of the study, which is being led by the University of Oxford.
"Following two vaccine doses, neutralising antibody levels were twice as high after the longer dosing interval compared with the shorter dosing interval."
"I think the 8-week [gap] is about the sweet spot," Susanna Dunachie, joint chief investigator on the study, told reporters.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
About this story: The Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle spent months investigating how Texas cared for veterans and their spouses during the coronavirus pandemic at the nine state-run veterans homes. Reporters reviewed hundreds of pages of inspection reports and internal emails, and interviewed more than a dozen experts, resident advocates and families.
Mary Kay Dieterich was encouraged last year when Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush promised to shake up the management of the El Paso nursing home where her father died of COVID-19.
She knew it wouldnt bring Eugene Forti, a World War II veteran, back to life. But as the top elected official in charge of all nine of the states nursing homes catering to veterans in Texas, Bush certainly had the power to hold the private management company accountable for what Dieterich saw as a botched response to the pandemic.
Yet, despite telling the for-profit operator of the Ambrosio Guillen Texas State Veterans Home that he was deeply concerned about the care it was providing in El Paso, Bushs promised shakeup, delivered to the local news outlet El Paso Matters, never came even as COVID deaths soared at the facility.
More than a quarter of its infected residents died, nearly double the average 13% death rate across El Paso Countys 21 nursing homes.
And its not the only one.
Nursing homes, which care for people who are already medically vulnerable, were ravaged by the pandemic. But Texas state-run veterans homes were often the deadliest places to be.
The nine state homes had more than double the death rate among COVID-19-infected residents compared with other nursing homes in the state, according to a Texas Tribune-Houston Chronicle analysis of state data from the pandemics start until June 2021.
The Houston Chronicle and The Texas Tribune spent months investigating how Texas cared for veterans and their spouses at the height of the coronavirus pandemic at the nine state-run veterans homes in Amarillo, Big Spring, Bonham, El Paso, Floresville, Houston, McAllen, Temple and Tyler. After reviewing hundreds of pages of inspection reports and internal emails, and interviewing more than a dozen experts, resident advocates and families, the Chronicle and the Tribune found:
Three of the states nine veterans homes including Ambrosio Guillen in El Paso had the highest death rate among all nursing homes in their county. Seven had a fatality rate of 25% or more, far higher than the statewide average of 11% across Texas nursing homes.
All told, nearly 570 veterans home residents tested positive for COVID-19 in Texas and nearly a quarter of them, 134, died.
Veterans home residents are typically male and older than people in other nursing homes, and many have chronic conditions that can make them more susceptible to severe infection, Bushs agency and experts said. The homes are often larger facilities, which studies have shown were at greater risk of outbreaks.
But Texas nine veterans homes are also among about 23% nationwide that are managed by private contractors rather than the state, which residents advocates and experts said could expose them to cost-cutting by for-profit companies.
After the Tribune-Chronicle findings were shared with Bushs office two weeks ago, he vowed to take action to improve care by not renewing the operators contracts and starting over from scratch.
Two for-profit companies manage Texas nine state homes under the auspices of the Veterans Land Board. The board, which oversees programs for veterans, is headed by Bush and housed within the General Land Office. A representative of Bushs agency is on-site in each home and has sweeping access to attend meetings, hear complaints, protect the interests of the board and advocate for residents rights, according to the homes contracts.
Three of the homes are run by Texas VSI and accounted for 40% of the fatalities among sick veterans home residents.
The other contractor, Touchstone Communities, oversees the states other six veterans homes including one in Floresville where state inspectors found residents were in immediate jeopardy and failures that constituted actual harm, according to regulatory records from May 2020.
After inspectors documented multiple violations, the Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home was hit with state and federal fines totaling nearly $300,000 the largest by far of the veterans homes in Texas, health authorities say. It had the most coronavirus cases and second-highest death toll of the five nursing homes in Wilson County, where Floresville is the county seat. (The home with the highest number of deaths had a dedicated COVID-19 ward that took in patients from other facilities and hospitals, its administrator said).
A second inspection in February of this year uncovered a new infection control violation at Frank Tejeda and resulted in another $30,000 in fines, federal records show.
Floresville Mayor Cecelia Gonzalez-Dippel blamed the Bush-led Veterans Land Board for failing to follow up on complaints and to ensure that residents received proper treatment.
It makes me angry, you know. Yes, angry at COVID. But also angry at how did this happen? Gonzalez-Dippel said in a January interview. I cant go and investigate [the veterans home] myself. Im leaning on the Land [Board] to do everything they can to take care of all of the residents.
On July 8, one day after the Tribune and the Chronicle shared its analysis with the agency, Bush now running for Texas attorney general decided to end his agencys relationship with the for-profit operators of the homes and asked his staff to conduct a nationwide search to find replacements with a proven track record at infection control procedures, General Land Office spokesperson Rachel Jones said.
The care our veterans receive is of utmost importance to the Veterans Land Board, and we take every charge levied by family members, residents, and public health authorities seriously, Jones said.
Texas VSI and Touchstone referred questions to Bushs agency.
The land board, citing incomplete federal data, said the homes operated by San Antonio-based Touchstone had a comparable death rate with other skilled nursing facilities nationwide. The Tribune-Chronicle analysis did not use the federal data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services because it does not include all COVID-19 cases and deaths before late May 2020 and therefore doesnt capture more than two dozen cases and 14 deaths at state veterans homes captured by state data.
Touchstone has managed every veterans home in the state at some point, Jones said.
Texas VSI is affiliated with South Carolina-based HMR Veterans Services, which manages at least nine veterans facilities across four states. In 2018, inspectors found an HMR-operated veterans home in South Carolina failed to thoroughly investigate claims of abuse and injuries and encouraged employees to be misleading in reports, according to The Greenville News.
The Land Board has previously tried to replace the operators without success, but as COVID-19 infection rates have dropped, the agency is now able to review practices and procedures and better prepare all homes for future pandemics, Jones said.
In the meantime, inspectors have continued to find problems. A second Touchstone-operated facility, the Richard A. Anderson Texas State Veterans Home in Houston, was hit with another immediate jeopardy finding a severe deficiency meaning at least one resident is at risk of harm or death when an 81-year-old veteran was found outside, unsupervised, crawling on the ground in his undergarments in May of this year, according to federal records obtained by the Tribune-Chronicle.
After the Tribune-Chronicle sent Bushs agency the federal records, Jones said the agency had already moved to terminate Touchstones contract to oversee the home, which opened at the end of 2019. Bush told agency staff to do so after the incident happened but before the immediate jeopardy finding was issued, she said.
The home received a $69,225 fine, according to federal health officials.
The disproportionate death toll in Texas veterans homes follows a national trend: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the facilities were among the hardest hit during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The heavily male and elderly population inside veterans homes may explain some of the discrepancy, since men are more likely to die from COVID-19 than women. But Texas nine homes account for about a quarter of the privately run state veterans facilities in the United States, and experts and residents' advocates say for-profit nursing homes tend to have lower staffing levels and perform worse than nonprofit or government-run facilities.
Studies for decades have documented that not-for-profit and public facilities have more staff, they spend more money on staff, they spend more money on supplies, on food, things like that, and they generally have better care, said Toby Edelman, senior policy attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a national nonprofit.
Texas nursing homes overall have some of the lowest nursing hours per resident nationwide, behind all but three U.S. states, and five of Texas nine veterans homes fall beneath even the state average, according to federal data. At the end of 2020, six of Texas veterans homes were reporting that residents received less time with a nurse each day than the average across nursing homes nationwide.
The numbers are cause for serious concern, said Richard Mollot, head of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group based in New York.
Its particularly disheartening to see government officials fail to ensure proper care for a population that gave so much to keep Americans safe, he said.
Veterans homes are set up to care for people who have sacrificed or dedicated at least a part of their lives to protecting our country, he said. Weve kind of stepped back, as a country, from protecting them just when they needed it most.
COVID-19 outbreaks in veterans homes nationwide have highlighted what critics describe as a porous regulatory structure, where oversight is fragmented among states and federal agencies as evidenced by the title of a July 2020 congressional hearing: Whos in charge?
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs gives states funding to help operate each home and inspects each facility annually. But the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office criticized those inspections as lax and said the VA did not post information about the quality of the homes on its website. VA officials have now done so and emphasize the homes are owned, operated and managed by the states.
More than half of the veterans homes, including all those in Texas, are subject to extra scrutiny from federal health authorities because they receive Medicaid or Medicare payments.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is the primary regulator for nursing homes in the U.S., but most of the health agencys inspections were paused during the pandemic. The surveys that did occur were focused on infection control or responding to serious complaints, leaving a gap in oversight, said Charlene Harrington, a professor emeritus of social behavioral sciences in the University of California, San Franciscos nursing school and an expert on nursing homes.
Following federal guidance, nursing homes halted visitation to forestall the spread of the virus. The state ombudsmans office, an independent advocate for nursing home residents rights, also stopped making in-person visits because of the pandemic.
I think that nursing homes knew they didnt have the oversight and they could pretty much do what they wanted, Harrington said. So they took advantage of it. And as a result, I think there were a lot of unnecessary infections and deaths.
A Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services spokesperson noted that federal authorities increased penalties for noncompliance with infection control, issued regulatory waivers to help nursing homes obtain staff quickly, and provided funding for facilities to buy tablets and other communication devices to help residents better communicate during the pandemic.
But Melissa Jackson, president of the National Association of State Veterans Homes and administrator of Vermonts state-run veterans home, said critics unfairly villainized the homes during a pandemic that the entire country was unprepared for. Administrators scrambled to find protective equipment that was initially in short supply and had to hire contract staff to help when their employees had to quarantine.
The first positive case at her states veterans home was the worst day of her career, she said. She at times felt helpless or went home and cried.
I still havent done that sigh of relief. You go into long-term care in any setting but specifically in the setting when youre caring for Americas heroes and you do everything you can to keep them safe, she said. Then you have this outside virus and all of the system failures that came down.
Half a dozen experts interviewed by the Tribune-Chronicle said the pandemic laid bare long-standing issues in long-term care including chronic understaffing and high employee turnover.
Nursing homes often have more than one resident in each room, which can make it difficult to separate residents to stem the viruss spread. Many of their employees are front-line workers who receive low wages, sometimes lack paid sick leave and work in multiple facilities providing hands-on care in close quarters.
You couple that with a virus that can be asymptomatically spread and thats airborne, and thats going to pose a risk pretty much no matter what nursing homes do, said R. Tamara Konetzka, a health economist at the University of Chicago, who co-authored several studies about nursing homes during the pandemic.
Studies have found that the prevalence of the virus in the surrounding community and the size of the nursing home largely determined how hard facilities were hit: Larger facilities in COVID-19 hot spots were more likely to have infections. Having more staff helped to blunt an outbreak once the virus entered a nursing home, according to one study.
Inspection records from the states health commission paint a chaotic picture of life inside several of the state veterans homes as the pandemic took hold.
In the spring of 2020, state inspectors found potentially life-threatening deficiencies at the Frank Tejeda home in Floresville, reporting that the facility then home to some 140 residents hadnt put in place recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for COVID-19, and failed to prevent transmission of the virus to more than a dozen residents and nine staff members.
Residents with no symptoms were not separated from those who tested positive. Employees cared for both infected and well residents, sometimes while not wearing proper personal protective equipment. Some of the residents care plans didnt say they were infected or should be isolated.
I cant believe they have both positive and negative [residents] on the same hall way, one licensed vocational nurse told the state inspectors, according to the report. We are trying to be careful not to cross contaminate, but its going to [happen]. Especially with staff coming in and out of the resident rooms.
The director of nursing told the inspectors that residents werent separated because employees were waiting for coronavirus test results to come back and figured those not yet sick were already contaminated. Another employee said it was difficult to separate residents because there was not enough staff working overnight to care for both the sick and healthy groups.
Touchstone is disputing the state report in administrative proceedings, and Bushs office said the contractor is asking federal authorities to remove deficiencies they documented in a published report including alleged failures in infection control and PPE use. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission said it could not discuss the related state case due to the active litigation.
Workers at the home also said they had to reuse masks and were told they did not need goggles or face shields.
One nurse would take her mask home, spray it with disinfectant and let it air dry. Another employee said she was given a loose-fitting N-95 and wore it while working in each unit, including the one housing infected residents, the inspection report said. Others wore just surgical masks while caring for patients with the coronavirus rather than the recommended N-95.
The findings anger but dont surprise Jeanette Christensen, whose 64-year-old husband has been housed at the Floresville home since 2019. She said getting information from Touchstone during the pandemic was like pulling teeth.
In one email she sent to Touchstone and the land office in January, she said a message the operator sent notifying families about new cases came across as a slap in the face because it included only a link that led to a webpage with no information about the Frank Tejeda home.
This is NOT transparency in any possible way, shape, or form. In fact, if I may be so bold as to speak truth, it has a tendency to feel more deceiving than clarifying, she wrote to the company.
Before the coronavirus, she said, Touchstone had a revolving door of workers at the home and failed to help her husband with daily tasks like regularly brushing his teeth and did not consistently change a patch that helps control symptoms of his dementia.
The corporation is always about the bottom line, she said.
Beyond the Frank Tejeda facility, at least six other Texas veterans homes were cited for health or regulatory failures since the pandemic began, including deficiencies unrelated to the pandemic like poor continence care and unpalatable foods (pureed sausage gravy grainy and salty, according to a March 2021 state inspection of the Lamun-Lusk-Sanchez Texas State Veterans Home). Four, including Frank Tejeda, received fines for the lapses; another faces a potential fine.
Jones, the General Land Office spokesperson, said the land board was not made aware of the problems at the Frank Tejeda home until after state inspectors issued their warning to the company, and was not told about any protective equipment shortages by Touchstone. She faulted Touchstone for the failure of not ensuring staff wore available protective equipment and said the agency helped obtain COVID-19 test kits for each home.
Jones noted the contractors are in charge of staffing, but she did not respond to questions about why the land boards on-site representative did not alert the agency to problems at Frank Tejeda and other homes.
Local officials and distraught loved ones say Bushs land board and the veterans home operators left them blind to the risks posed by COVID-19 and with little information about what was happening inside the homes as the pandemic took hold.
Floresvilles mayor, Gonzalez-Dippel, said the situation there has been very, very concerning since day one, since the first reported case and the first reported death. She said she was not impressed with the land board after it provided her with incorrect information that residents would receive coronavirus tests in a set time frame, which didnt happen in the pandemics early days.
Gonzalez-Dippel said Touchstone Communities never returned her calls.
She learned of new cases at the home through information the Veterans Land Board released to San Antonio media outlets. Family members of residents said they didnt know how their loved one was doing or whether they had tested positive for the virus, Gonzalez-Dippel said.
In the spring of 2020, Gonzalez-Dippel alerted state health officials to possible problems in the home after hearing there wasnt enough protective equipment and that it was being improperly stored. She said no one told her that the inspection in May 2020 found that residents were in immediate jeopardy and resulted in fines totaling $281,500.
It makes me furious, Gonzalez-Dippel said after being told last month of the violations and the fines. These people deserve so much more than what they got.
Jones said the agency stayed in regular contact with Gonzalez-Dippel throughout the pandemic.
At Ambrosio Guillen in El Paso, Mary Kay Dieterich said she and her brother Guy Forti could get almost no information about their ailing father despite promises from management that they would be kept in the loop.
Id have to really give them a poor, poor grade for communication. And especially during such a stressful time, Dieterich said. We were getting no information.
Forti was admitted to a nearby medical center last May with chest pains, a fever and a dry cough. He tested positive for the coronavirus and was moved to a COVID-19 wing on the seventh floor of the hospital, where his attending physician called Fortis son and daughter and promised to give daily updates.
Before that, theyd received two text messages similar to Amber Alerts saying the facility was locking down to prevent spreading the new coronavirus and that visitors were no longer allowed, even at the windows.
An employee at the veterans home also had declined to tell Fortis son how many cases the facility had.
Those numbers were protected by law and could not be revealed, Dieterich said her brother Guy was told by phone around the time his father tested positive.
Yet the for-profit contractor was providing regular updates to the General Land Office, many of them obtained this summer by the Tribune and the Chronicle. In one email, sent just weeks after the promised leadership shake-up that never came, a Texas VSI representative told Bushs office that 14 new residents and nine staff members had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
El Paso test results were horrifying but this was no Halloween trick, the employee wrote. 4 residents are hospitalized. Current numbers are 44 positive residents and 19 positive staff members.
In later calls with Texas VSI officials, Dieterich said she was told the contractor didnt have the staff or funding to have employees wait to receive negative test results before starting to work.
Jones called the email update by the VSI representative disrespectful and unprofessional in every sense and said the state could release medical information only to a residents responsible party in Fortis case, his son Guy. She also said the homes together sent thousands of mass messages during the pandemic.
Dwight Henry, a 77-year-old resident of the El Paso home, was hospitalized with COVID-19 for 14 days, four in the intensive care unit, around the time his friend Forti was also in the hospital, he said.
He learned of Fortis death while he was there. Two other residents who lived across the hall from him also died, he said.
We lost a lot of them, he said.
Dieterich said her father had improved in the hospital after receiving a convalescent plasma treatment. But he took a sudden turn for the worse three days after he was returned to the veterans home.
He stopped eating and drinking. He wasnt responding verbally. The next day, he was dead.
Dieterich said in a June 2020 email that her dad was a war hero, a husband of 68 years to a woman he adored, and a dad that worked his fingers to the bone supporting his family.
She believes her dads death was 100% preventable and said she was extremely disappointed that Bush did not follow through on his promise to shake up the leadership of the Texas VSI team that oversees the El Paso facility.
He was demanding these leadership changes and nothing happened. Nothing, Dieterich said. George P. Bush certainly needs to be held accountable.
Texas Tribune Deputy Data Visuals Editor Chris Essig contributed to this story.
A coronavirus infection can mow down the forests of hairlike cilia that coat our airways, destroying a crucial barrier to keeping the virus from lodging deep in the lungs.
Normally, those cilia move in synchronized waves to push mucus out of the airway and into the throat. To protect the lungs, objects that dont belong including viral invaders like the coronavirus get stuck in mucus, which is then swallowed (SN: 9/15/20).
But the coronavirus throws that system out of whack. When it infects respiratory tract cells, the virus appears to clear tracts of cilia, and without the hairlike structures, the cells stop moving mucus, researchers report July 16 in Nature Communications.
That lack of cilia could help the virus invade the lungs and cause severe COVID-19, says Lisa Chakrabarti, a viral immunologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (SN: 6/11/20). Understanding how the coronavirus invades different parts of the body can help researchers find ways to block it.
Chakrabarti and colleagues infected lab-grown human cells that mimic the lining of the respiratory tract with the coronavirus. Images showed short, stubby cilia on the surface of the infected cells rather than the long projections found on healthy cells. When the team added microscopic beads to the surface of infected cells to measure mucus movement, those beads largely stayed still a sign that the cells wouldnt move mucus through the respiratory tract and into the throat to be swallowed.
Other viruses and bacteria can also damage the bodys ability to use mucus to trap and remove foreign invaders, Chakrabarti says. Some pathogens, like the coronavirus, just damage cilia, leaving the cells they protrude from intact. Other pathogens like influenza can kill ciliated cells. Respiratory syncytial virus, which typically causes colds, can do both: In adults, it destroys cilia; in children, it can kill the cells, which can be deadly.
73% of Illinois adults have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 58% are fully vaccinated
SPRINGFIELD The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 7,983 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 47 additional deaths since reporting last Friday, July16, 2021. More than 73% of Illinois adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and more than 58% of Illinois adults are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,407,929 cases, including 23,401 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Since reporting on Friday, July 16, 2021, laboratories have reported 241,150 specimens for a total of 26,534,129. As of last night, 670 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 135 patients were in the ICU and 44 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from July 16-22, 2021 is 3.3%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from July 16-22, 2021 is 3.5%.
A total of 13,056,857 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 19,928 doses. Since reporting on Friday, July 16, 2021, 139,495 doses were reported administered in Illinois.
*All data are provisional and will change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19.
After years of anticipation, plus one more due to a global pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics have arrived at long last. But even with a postponement from 2020, the mood around the Olympics is far from calm.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, an atmosphere of uncertainty has gripped the Games, particularly as athletes in Tokyo and other participants have tested positive for the virus.
Here is a list of all those so far who have tested positive for COVID-19, leading to the alteration of their Olympic dreams or the end of them altogether.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The number of new confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the borough continued to rise, averaging nearly 20 more per day over the past week compared to the week before.
Coronavirus hospitalizations here jumped by nearly 50% over the last seven days, although they were still lower than the total two weeks ago.
At the same time, the disease has claimed the lives of three more borough residents since July 16, city Health Department data shows.
As of 1 p.m. Friday, 63,809 confirmed coronavirus cases have been recorded in the borough since the pandemic struck about 17 months ago, according to the most recent data available.
That number marks an increase of 72 from Thursdays total of 63,737 cases.
It is also 396 higher than last Fridays posted tally of 63,413 or about 57 new cases daily during the past week.
Staten Island had averaged around 37 new coronavirus cases per day between July 9 and July 15. Previously, there had been about 19 new cases daily during the month of June.
In fact, four Staten Island ZIP codes COVID-19 infection rates were among the highest in the city for the seven-day period between July 14 and July 20, according to the most recent data available for those numbers, per the Health Departments web site.
ZIP code 10312, which includes Annadale, Arden Heights, Eltingville, Greenridge and Huguenot, had a rate of 4.62% for those tested.
The positivity rate in ZIP code 10308, which contains Great Kills, was 4.49%.
Just behind at 4.45 percent were ZIP codes 10307 (Tottenville) and 10309, which includes Charleston, Pleasant Plains, Princes Bay, Rossville and Woodrow.
In contrast, ZIP code 10310, which includes Port Richmond, Randall Manor and West Brighton, has the lowest seven-day positivity rate on the Island at 1.24%.
All data is preliminary, subject to change and can reflect lags in collection according to the Health Department.
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Also, as of Friday afternoon, 1,850 Staten Islanders are believed to have died from complications related to the coronavirus.
That total represents an increase of three from July 16.
The fatalities include 1,637 borough residents with confirmed COVID-19 cases, up three from the figure posted a week ago.
In addition, 213 deaths were in the probable category, the same number as last Friday.
A death is classified as probable if the decedent was a city resident who had no known positive laboratory test for the coronavirus, but the death certificate lists COVID-19 or an equivalent as a cause of death.
According to city Health Department data, the vast majority of confirmed coronavirus deaths in the five boroughs occurred in individuals with underlying medical issues.
Those conditions can include lung disease, asthma, heart disease, a weakened immune system, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease and cancer.
Meanwhile, 22 coronavirus in-patients were being treated in the boroughs two hospital systems on Friday. That count was up two from Thursday and marked an increase of seven from July 16s tally of 15 patients.
However, Fridays total was two less than the number two weeks ago on July 9, which was 24.
COVID-19 hospitalizations are just a fraction of what they had been.
From the beginning of the year until the end of April, Staten Islands coronavirus patient count had been in the triple-digits.
COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked on Jan. 18 at 302 patients.
Since then, those numbers have fallen, increased slightly, then dropped dramatically.
They have fluctuated in recent weeks.
On Friday, Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) was treating 18 patients, said Jillian OHara, a spokeswoman. That total was up six from a week ago.
Richmond University Medical Center was caring for four patients, a boost of one from July 16, Alex Lutz, a spokesman, said.
In other data, 795,506 confirmed coronavirus cases have been reported citywide as of Friday afternoon.
That tally is 3,901 higher than July 16s total of 791,605 cases, averaging to about 557 per day over the past week.
As for suspected coronavirus deaths across the five boroughs, that count has reached 33,502.
The fatalities consist of 28,399 individuals who were confirmed coronavirus cases.
There were 5,103 others whose deaths were deemed as probable COVID-19 cases.
With respect to testing, the data shows 13,400 of every 100,000 Staten Islanders checked or more than 1 in 8 have received positive results for the coronavirus, according to 2018 Census data projections and the Health Departments Friday afternoon tally.
Staten Islands infection rate is the highest, per capita, among the five boroughs.
The Bronxs infection rate is second highest.
In that borough, 10,684 residents per 100,000 have tested positive. The Bronx has had 153,003 confirmed cases.
Queens has the third-highest rate of confirmed coronavirus cases in the city with 10,190 residents per 100,000 testing positive. There have been 232,221 cases in that borough, the second-most populous.
Brooklyn, the borough with the largest population, has the fourth-lowest rate of infection per 100,000 residents 9,110.
However, Brooklyns 235,304 cases are the most among the five boroughs.
Manhattan has the lowest infection rate in the city with 6,823 per 100,000 residents testing positive of those who were examined.
There have been 111,122 positive cases in Manhattan, the data said.
Monday was the deadline for agencies to submit their back to work plans to the Office of Management and Budget, as Government Executive previously reported. When asked for any updates on the plans and/or changes in planning due to the spread of the Delta variant, which accounts for more than 83% of cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a senior administration official said on Thursday: Agencies are working through reentry plans, but we dont have anything new to share at this time. We will continue to follow the science and listen to doctors and adhere to CDC guidelines.
OMB said earlier this week that timelines vary agency by agency, based on each organizations unique mission and organizational considerations. Here are some of the other recent headlines you might have missed.
With concerns of the Delta variant spreading, Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, spoke during a briefing on Thursday about what the federal government is doing to help communities. Last week, we announced $400 million in American Rescue Plan funding for 1,540 small rural hospitals for COVID-19 to increase testing capacity in rural America, he said. And today...we're making an additional $1.6 billion investment in American Rescue Plan funding to bolster testing and mitigation measures in high-risk congregate settings, including homeless shelters, mental health and substance abuse treatment centers, domestic violence shelters, and prison systems.
Zients added that the administration's coronavirus surge response teams are working with governors and local public health officials and providing them with federal resources; the administration is providing the CDC technical expertise, including on genetic sequencing, data analysis, and outbreak response to Missouri, Illinois and Colorado and [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] will be deploying mobile vaccination clinics in North Carolina. Lastly, he pointed out that on Thursday Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was going to Nevada where federal resources and 100 personnel from HHS and FEMA were sent to support local public health efforts.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during the briefing that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is very effective and right now there isnt any data to show that individuals who received that vaccine need a booster shot.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that White House and CDC officials talked about recommending vaccinated people wear masks in certain settings due to the spread of the Delta variant. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky was asked during the briefing on Thursday if the CDC is considering changing its mask guidance and she did not give adirect answer. We are always looking at the data as the data comes in, Walensky said. We have always said that communitieslocal communities have to look at what is going on locally, as we have [a] very heterogeneous country right now. In areas that have a high amount of disease and low amounts of vaccination, that, you knowif you're unvaccinated, you should absolutely be wearing a mask.
During a briefing on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reiterated that there has not been a change in mask guidance. When pressed to confirm whether or not White House officials were a part of these discussions, she said the White House is regularly in touch and [we] have regular meetings with our public health officials, including the CDC, about how to continue to address the virus, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Also, the [Washington Post] report on it was a little breathless about what it implied was happening when the CDC director said that's not a decision that's been made.
Psaki was also asked during the briefing if there have been any talks about the White House promoting businesses choosing to verify vaccinated status for attending concerts or dining indoors or any discussion about changing its position on the matter? Our position has not changed, nor do I anticipate it would, on guidance coming from the federal government, Psaki replied. It is also entirely appropriate for private-sector entities and universities and hospitals to make decisions about how to keep their community safe.
The CDCs advisory committee on immunization practices agreed during a meeting on Thursday that the benefits outweigh the risks of Johnson &Johnsons vaccine after reports of rare side effects, Politico reported. But there was one caveat: Two of the panels 15 members suggested that those administering the vaccine ensure patients are aware of its risks, said the report. The panel also punted on booster shots. Whether immunocompromised people should get COVID-19 booster shots is a decision the committee is leaving up to the [Food and Drug Administration].
The Commerce Department announced on Thursday that $3 billion in funds from the American Rescue Plan will go to economic development in communities nationwide, which is the largest economic development initiative from the department in decades. With an emphasis on equity, [the Economic Development Administrations] investments made possible by the American Rescue Plan will directly benefit communities that have been denied full access to economic prosperity and who have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, said Secretary Gina Raimondo, in a statement. We will work with local communities across the country on innovative new approaches to ensure that we can increase American competitiveness by strengthening our workforce, businesses and communities and build back better in regions across the country.
Upcoming: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki will give a briefing at 12:30 p.m.
Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the coronavirus? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.
