More From ForbesEmma Hayes Attempts To Become First Female Coach In 12 Years To Reach Champions League Final","scope":{"topStory":{"title":"Emma Hayes Attempts To Become First Female Coach In 12 Years To Reach Champions League Final","uri":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/asifburhan/2021/05/01/emma-hayes-attempts-to-become-first-female-coach-in-12-years-to-reach-champions-league-final/","date":{"monthDayYear":"May 1, 2021","hourMinute":"05:00","amPm":"pm","isEDT":true},"index":1}},"id":"38e7dnnfipnc00"},{"textContent":"
May 1, 2021,04:39pm EDT
May 1, 2021,04:38pm EDT
May 1, 2021,03:58pm EDT
May 1, 2021,03:51pm EDT
May 1, 2021,03:32pm EDT
May 1, 2021,02:04pm EDT
After an uptick in cases of coronavirus in late March and early April, numbers have steadied considerably across the state of Illinois.
Some areas are still seeing upticks in hospitalizations, including Region 3, located in western Illinois, and Region 8, comprised of Kane and DuPage counties, but for the most part, those metrics have either steadied or began to decrease in the state.
Here is where things stand in each of Illinois 11 health care regions.
Positivity Rate: 5.3% (increasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 15% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 8/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 5.2% (steady)
ICU Bed Availability: 16% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 2.7% (decreasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 24% (increasing)
Hospitalization Trends: 8/10 days increasing
Positivity Rate: 2.6% (steady)
ICU Bed Availability: 34% (increasing)
Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 2% (increasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 20% (increasing)
Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 3% (increasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 40% (increasing)
Hospitalization Trends: 7/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 5.6% (steady)
ICU Bed Availability: 23% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 8/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 5.4% (decreasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 23% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 6/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 3.8% (decreasing)
ICU Bed Availability: 27% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 5/10 days increasing
Positivity Rate: 4.8% (steady)
ICU Bed Availability: 18% (decreasing)
Hospitalization Trends: 10/10 days decreasing or steady
Positivity Rate: 4.6% (steady)
ICU Bed Availability: 21% (steady)
Hospitalization Trends: 5/10 days increasing
His arm was a signal of his second COVID-19 vaccination, and that he was soon to be protected from the virus thatd so severely hit so many of his family members, even taking the life of his mother last year.
You get the second dose, probably feel (bad), but guess what, we got it done. So I love it, Towns said. Im excited to be fully vaccinated finally. Ive said it before and will say it again, I think its important for all of us to get vaccinated if we want to see life come back to normal. We all gotta make the sacrifice and make the effort to go get the vaccine.
Towns, his teammates and many other members of the Timberwolves organization took such measures this week.
Its kind of a relief. Little bit of excitement at the same time, it allows you to get back to normal as we move towards our threshold here, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. We can start operating with less constraints. Offseason scheduling and all that kind of stuff will be a little easier to manage. Thats whats most important, so were all looking forward to that.
Timberwolves forward Jarred Vanderbilt admitted he was a little skeptical about the vaccine at first, but ultimately decided to get the shot.
Once I got it, I felt good about it, not only for me, but for the people around me, Vanderbilt said. I was trying to make a safer environment for all of us. I feel good about it. It was a little bit of a sigh of relief.
Finch said it was a mixed bag of side effects between those who got the second dose.
Some guys felt it, some guys were OK, Finch said. Nobody was reporting anything untoward (Saturday) at shootaround.
Everyone was good to go for Saturdays contest against New Orleans.
Me personally, Im good right now, Vanderbilt said. I felt it a little bit (Friday). A little headache and a little body ache.
The Timberwolves winning streak has intoxicated its most loyal fans, but sports books are yet to buy into the teams success.
Minnesota was a hefty underdog in both of its games against Utah, was a narrow favorite against Houston the worst team in the league and was an underdog again at home Thursday against Golden State.
But the Wolves won all of those games. And theyd beaten New Orleans in each of their prior two meetings this season. So logic would suggest Minnesota would be a favorite Saturday at Target Center against the Pelicans, a fringe playoff team.
Nope, Minnesota was a four-point underdog.
Beyond the First Dose Covid-19 Vaccine Follow-through and Continued Protective Measures | NEJM nejm.org
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that some COVID-19 vaccine reactions, including fainting, dizziness and nausea, were due to anxiety -- and not the shots themselves.
The report, published Friday, looked at clusters of events reported to the CDC in dozens of people who received the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine at five mass vaccination sites in early April, before federal health agencies called for a temporary pause on the shot after six people in the U.S. developed a rare blood clot disorder.
Out of 8,624 people who received the J&J dose from April 7 to 9 at the five sites, 64 experienced anxiety-related reactions, none of which were considered serious, the CDC said. Slightly more than half reported light-headedness or dizziness. Excessive sweating was the next most common symptom, followed by fainting, nausea or vomiting, and hypotension.
The majority -- 61% -- were women, the median age was 36 years and 20% of the patients told vaccination site staff they had a history of fainting associated with receiving injections or an aversion to needles.
Most of the symptoms resolved within 15 minutes with care, such as food and hydration or lying down, while 20% of patients were hospitalized for further evaluation. Four of the sites temporarily suspended vaccination to investigate the reactions.
"Increased awareness of anxiety-related events after vaccination will enable vaccination providers to make an informed decision about continuing vaccination," the authors of the report said.
The report only looked at anxiety-related reactions after getting the J&J vaccine, though noted that "anxiety-related events can occur after any vaccination."
"I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about vaccines and, quite frankly, medicines as well, and the way that they're going to impact our bodies," Dr. Joy Gero, the program director of the general adult and behavioral health Intensive Care Unit at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, told ABC News.
A woman receives a vaccine at a new mass vaccination site in Orange County, the Providence Vaccine Clinic at Edwards Lifescience in Santa Ana, Calif., April 22, 2021.
When reviewing fainting events after receiving the J&J vaccine reported to the database Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System from March 2 to April 12, the CDC found that there were 8.2 episodes per 100,000 doses. By comparison, the reported rate of fainting after getting the flu vaccine during the 2019-2020 flu season was only 0.05 episodes per 100,000 doses, it found.
For Dr. Tara Sell, a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies vaccine risk communication, that could mean that the COVID-19 vaccine may be bringing out more injection-adverse people than the flu vaccine.
"You have a population of people who might already be inclined to have some anxiety about vaccines showing up here where they just would skip it for a flu vaccine," Sell told ABC News.
People may also be nervous about getting a COVID-19 vaccine because it's new or feeling overwhelmed due to the impact of the pandemic, she said.
"The flu vaccine is very normal, people are very familiar with it, so it doesn't seem like this big, momentous thing," she said.
Sell said the report shows how closely the COVID-19 vaccinations are being monitored for safety.
"This happened early in April, and we're not into May and we have a pretty clear answer on what was happening here," she said. "I think that's good."
For people who may be prone to anxiety when getting shots, practicing deep breathing and relaxation exercises before you get the vaccination can be "extremely helpful," Dr. Jeffrey Geller, president of the American Psychiatric Association, told ABC News.
Limiting caffeine intake, staying hydrated, eating well and "being intentional about engaging in self-care" also can help people who are struggling with anxiety, Gero said.
Once you've arrived at the location, especially a mass vaccination site, it may be helpful to distract yourself, Gero said, such as listening to music while waiting in line.
People also may want to let the medical team know if they're anxious, Geller said.
"You shouldn't keep it to yourself," he added. "They can be very accommodating."
A 21-year-old receives a shot of COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination drive organized by St. John's Well Child and Family at the Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, April 23, 2021.
While an injection is happening, don't look, close your eyes and "use imagery to imagine yourself being someplace else," Geller said.
If those practices won't suffice, there are treatments that may help people cope with their anxiety or if they have a fear of vaccinations, such as cognitive behavioral therapy or exposure therapy, Geller said.
"As many people as possible should get the COVID injection, and in this situation with COVID, there is no alternative," he said. "It's not like the flu where you have a nasal alternative. For COVID, you either get the shot or you don't get the shot."
Olivia Davies, a fourth-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin who will be starting her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital this summer, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
New Jersey on Saturday reported another 1,455 coronavirus cases and an additional 36 deaths, as the state surpassed crucial benchmarks of more than 7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered and more than 3 million people fully vaccinated.
As of Saturday afternoon, 7,056,881 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered across the Garden State, according to state data.
There were 3,054,030 people fully vaccinated in New Jersey as of Saturday afternoon roughly 44% of the states 6.9 million adults. The states goal is to have 70% of the states eligible population about 4.7 million people vaccinated by the end of June.
Slightly more than 4.2 million people about 61% of adults have received at least one vaccine dose. State officials have expressed confidence about reaching the 70% goal but have said they will need to be proactive about encouraging people to get their shots because demand has started to subside.
The day after the statewide rate of transmission plummeted to its lowest point in nearly a year, Gov. Phil Murphy posted the latest update on Twitter. On Saturday, the statewide rate of transmission dropped even further to 0.54, the lowest statewide rate of transmission in a year, when it was at 0.60 last May.
Statewide hospitalizations stayed below 1,600, after dropping below the mark for the first time since November on Thursday night.
As the numbers continue to trend positively, Murphy previously hinted he will have more information Monday on further easing restrictions and ramping up vaccinations. Murphy made the comments hours before he received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine in Atlantic City.
The statewide transmission rate fell to 0.54, down from 0.63 a day earlier. Thats the lowest point since the state was still in lockdown mode during the pandemics first wave. The rate hit a low of 0.60 last May, according to the state Department of Health.
Any number under 1 indicates the outbreak is slowing and each new case is leading to less than one additional case.
New Jersey announced Thursday that all six of its coronavirus vaccine mega-sites will offer walk-in vaccinations without an appointment from now on.
There were 1,582 coronavirus patients hospitalized across New Jerseys 71 hospitals as of Friday night. Thats the lowest number since Nov. 8.
The latest statewide positivity rate for tests conducted on Tuesday, the most recent day available, was 5.07%.
New Jersey has now reported 874,256 confirmed coronavirus cases out of more than 13.5 million PCR tests in the nearly 14 months since the state reported its first case March 4, 2020.
There have also been 124,556 positive antigen tests during the outbreak. Those cases are considered probable, and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests could overlap with the confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes given in tandem.
The state of 9.2 million people has reported 25,588 residents have died from complications related to COVID-19 including 22,963 confirmed deaths and 2,625 fatalities considered probable.
New Jersey has the most coronavirus deaths per capita among American states.
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all of the city will fully reopen from COVID-19 restrictions by July 1. And on Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said dining in the city can increase to 75% on May 7, the same level as the rest of the state.
Murphy has so far resisted releasing a broad timeline for New Jersey and has announced incremental steps instead. He announced Monday that outdoor gathering limits in the state will increase from 200 to 500 people starting on May 10, in time for college and high school graduations. Plus, private catered events such as weddings and proms will go from 35% to 50% of a venues capacity with a maximum of 250 people, up from 150.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 1,582 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases as of Friday night 16 more than the previous night, according to state data.
That included 326 in critical or intensive care (22 fewer), with 207 on ventilators (17 fewer).
There were 218 COVID-19 patients discharged Friday
By comparison, hospitalizations peaked at more than 8,300 patients during the first wave of the pandemic in April and more than 3,800 during the second wave in December.
SCHOOL CASES
New Jersey has reported 263 in-school coronavirus outbreaks, which have resulted in 1,157 cases among students, teachers and school staff this academic year, according to state data.
The state defines school outbreaks as cases where contact tracers determined two or more students or school staff caught or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school. Those numbers do not include students or staff believed to have been infected outside school or cases that cant be confirmed as in-school outbreaks.
There are about 1.4 million public school students and teachers across the state, though teaching methods amid the outbreak have varied, with some schools teaching in-person, some using a hybrid format and others remaining all-remote.
Murphy has said New Jerseys schools are expected to return to full in-person classes for the next school year.
AGE BREAKDOWN
Broken down by age, those 30 to 49 years old make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have caught the virus (30.9%), followed by those 50-64 (22.5%), 18-29 (19.9%), 65-79 (10.1%), 5-17 (9.9%), 80 and older (4.4%) and 0-4 (2%).
On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with preexisting conditions. Nearly half the states COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (45.9%), followed by those 65-79 (33.6%), 50-64 (16.1%), 30-49 (4%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0%).
At least 8,027 of the states COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.
There are active outbreaks at 220 facilities, resulting in 2,436 active cases among residents and 3,275 among staffers. Those numbers have slowed as vaccinations continue at the facilities.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of early Saturday afternoon, there have been more than 151 million positive COVID-19 tests across the globe, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 3.18 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 32.3 million, and the most deaths, at more than 576,400.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.
Editor's note: Images used in this story depict mass cremations and may be difficult for readers to look through.
COVID-19 cases are growing exponentially in India. As thisnew wave sweeps the nation of more than 1 billion, hospitals are running out of oxygen tanks and room to house patients.
And the COVID-19 death count keeps climbing, to the point where authorities are holding mass cremations.
India recorded 379,308 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That same day, 3,645 COVID-related deaths were also recorded.
India now holds the second-highest COVID-19 case count in the world more than 18 million since the pandemic started, with the U.S. in the top spot with more than 32 million confirmed cases since last year.
Family members and ambulance workers in PPE gear carry the body of a victim who died from COVID-19 complications to a cremation site in New Delhi, India on Tuesday.PRAKASH SINGH, AFP via Getty Images
Multiple funeral pyres of victims of COVID-19 burn in an area that has been converted for mass cremation in New Delhi, India, Saturday, April 24, 2021.Altaf Qadri, AP
Relatives and municipal workers in protective gear bury the body of a person who died due to COVID-19 in Gauhati, India, Sunday, April 25, 2021.Anupam Nath, AP
People stand near bodies of COVID-19 victims lined up before cremation at a mass cremation site in New Delhi, India on Wednesday.MONEY SHARMA, AFP via Getty Images
Exhausted workers, who bring dead bodies for cremation, sit on the rear step of an ambulance inside a crematorium, in New Delhi, India, Saturday, April 24, 2021.Altaf Qadri, AP
Published5:46 pm UTC Apr. 29, 2021Updated5:57 pm UTC Apr. 29, 2021
This virus is going to hang around for another couple of years before the world suppresses it, if were lucky, Fauci told me. I cant guarantee that well get a universal vaccine in place for this virus, but certainly we need it for the next one.
A universal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine may prove necessary to end this pandemic. Its also possible that the current generation of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines will hold up pretty well, and well require only a basic booster here and there. But even when this particular coronavirus has been suppressed, well still need to find a way to protect ourselves against others that lie in wait.
Thousands of related pathogens are estimated to be circulating among various nonhuman species, and some could make the jump to us at any time. In just the past 18 years, three coronaviruses have caused devastating human diseases (SARS, MERS, and COVID-19). Its not a question of if but when another pandemic coronavirus emerges, Martinez says.
Bjorkman shares this certainty. This isnt going to be the last one, she says. Were going to have SARS-CoV-3 and SARS-CoV-4. Everyone said this before the current pandemic. Most of the world ignored them. To do so again would really be burying your head in the sand.
The technology already exists to create a vaccine that protects humans from many coronaviruses at once. Vaccinating against all of them is a more elaborate challenge than taking on one or a few, but hypothetically possible. The broadest vaccine, though, isnt likely to come from discovering a single, conserved region of the spike protein that all coronaviruses share, and that also reliably stimulates our immune system. This would be something like finding one spot that will blow up the entire Death Stara little too easy. But we could find an array of frequently conserved regions that turn up in many coronaviruses.
The act of loading multiple targets into one vaccine is not difficult, according to Bjorkman. The postdocs in her lab can quickly create the proteins at the head of the spike and attach them to nanoparticles. Theyre really easy to make, she says modestly. The central challenge is in knowing which targets to include and making sure that they stimulate the immune system effectively.
The real issue is better understanding the universe of coronaviruses, says Wayne Koff, a biochemist and the head of the Human Vaccines Project. Its theoretically possible to learn the major changes in the viral genome that make them most likely to spread widely and devastatingly in humans, so that our bodies can develop at least partial recognition of whichever dangerous new coronaviruses may come along: What were especially concerned about are the coronaviruses that we dont even know about yet.
Koff believes we can figure out which common features or mutations could allow for such a vaccine, as we understand the coronavirus family tree at a more and more granular level. If animal ecologists can gather enough data from the field, you create an algorithm to find the ones that have the greatest potential to jump species, and then the ones that would kill people, he says. In his vision, supercomputing and advances in machine learning and modeling would accelerate the predictive process.
Funeral pyres burn in a disused granite quarry repurposed to cremate the dead due to COVID-19 on Friday in Bengaluru, India. The U.S. is set to impose new travel restrictions against travelers from the country. Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images hide caption
Funeral pyres burn in a disused granite quarry repurposed to cremate the dead due to COVID-19 on Friday in Bengaluru, India. The U.S. is set to impose new travel restrictions against travelers from the country.
The Biden administration is set to enact a travel ban on any non-U.S. citizens or permanent residents coming to the country from India as multiple coronavirus variants have driven India's COVID-19 outbreak to troubling new heights. The policy will take effect starting on Tuesday, the White House said.
India had already been under a Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory from the State Department, which issued or updated scores of travel advisories related to the continued spread of the coronavirus last week. The new ban will take the precaution to a new level.
The policy will not apply to U.S. citizens, a Biden administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Lawful permanent residents and other people with exemptions would also be allowed to travel from India to the United States.
As part of existing restrictions on international passengers, anyone arriving in the U.S. would still be subject to coronavirus testing measures and must enter quarantine if they have not been vaccinated.
The travel ban is being imposed on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
In a statement issued Friday, Psaki said, "The policy will be implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating" in India.
Like many countries, India dealt with an initial wave of the coronavirus in 2020. But it's now enduring a tsunami of new cases, forcing a shortage of key resources, from hospital space to oxygen tanks.
Unlike some nations that have been able to avoid a new spike in deaths and critical hospitalizations despite recent outbreaks, India is also seeing an unprecedented number of deaths. The country reported nearly 3,500 deaths on Friday alone. And some health professionals allege that local officials have pressured them to underreport COVID-19 deaths, as NPR's Lauren Frayer and Sushmita Pathak reported. Testing kits are also in short supply in India, feeding speculation that the scale of the outbreak is even larger than official reports suggest.
India has been setting, and breaking, world records for the most daily reported COVID-19 cases for the past week as its citizens and public health officials watch infection rates rise at terrifying rates. It reached a new high mark Friday when India's Health Ministry reported 386,453 new infections.
The rate of new cases in India has steadily eclipsed the previous world record of more than 312,000 cases that the U.S. reported in early January. The U.S. remains the country with the most reported COVID-19 cases, with more than 32.3 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. India has reported nearly 18.8 million cases.
The U.S. is sending several emergency relief shipments to India; the State Department said late Thursday night that the first flight landed.
Vice President Harris also told reporters Friday that a plane loaded with aid, including oxygen, was leaving the U.S. for India that night. "We have long-standing, decades-old relationships with India, with the Indian people in particular, around public health issues," Harris said.
There has also been positive news from laboratory studies showing that the two main vaccines being used here, Pfizer and Moderna, are effective against the New York variant, which is responsible for about 40 percent of new cases.
There are many pieces of the puzzle that all seem to be encouraging at this point in time, said Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiologist at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
Last summer, in the months following the first wave, the daily case count got to below 300 on average. Dr. Chokshi said that he anticipated case counts dropping below 550 a day a threshold the city set as a goal last year by July.
To get there, however, public health officials say they must raise vaccination rates across the city. Pockets with low vaccination rates, they say, could enable localized outbreaks, similar to those that the city saw in 2019 with measles. For that reason, the slow, person-by-person efforts to get people vaccinated must take center stage.
In early April, it was not uncommon for 100,000 vaccine doses to be administered a day in New York City. But the pace of vaccinations has begun to slow over the last two weeks. Distrust of the vaccines is a significant factor. On Monday, 45,000 vaccine doses were administered.
Tomas Ramos, the founder of the Bronx Rising Initiative, which has been organizing pop-up vaccine clinics in low-income areas of the Bronx, said that skepticism about the safety of vaccines, already a hurdle, rose considerably after the federal pause for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 13, with people canceling appointments even for other brands of shots.
In the days following the pause, as a result of six serious cases of blood clotting nationally, only 80 of about 250 people scheduled to receive a dose of the Moderna vaccine at his clinic showed up. We are very microfocused on this population that doesnt trust the government and doesnt trust the vaccine, he said. So this is hurting us a lot.
