Pharmacists prepare doses of the covid-19 vaccine at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, an early epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.Photo: Karen Ducey (Getty Images)
A cursory glance at country-by-country covid-19 vaccinations shows the U.S. well ahead of other countries. But dive a little below the surface and the data tell a different story. While more than 2.1 million people have received their first covid-19 vaccine shot, more than 9.3 million doses lay waiting to be shot into Americans arms, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control. At the current rate, the U.S. will take a decade to hit the critical vaccination threshold for us to safely move past this mess.
A vacuum of federal leadership is leaving Americans needlessly exposed to the biggest public health crisis in a century, the effects of which have played out right before our eyes, with 334,000 Americans dead and hospitals so overwhelmed, some are turning away ambulances. With the stakes so high, there is a collective failure to meet the moment rooted in individualistic conservatism. And its a warning for what awaits us in the coming decades of the climate crisis unless we act decisively and collectively to stave off ecological collapse.
The vaccine rollout in the U.S. has followed a familiar course in the Trump era of big promises, failure to deliver on them, and then casting the blame elsewhere. The administration promised to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December. Were a day away from the calendar turning over to January and 20 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month arent even distributed, let alone close to going into peoples arms.
Despite knowing that, and the prospect of those vaccines being approved, little appears to have been done to set up a realistic vaccine rollout outside setting a big, round number goal. The Republican-controlled Senate didnt pass a bill to give cash-strapped states the funds to distribute them until late last week. The relief bill includes $8 billion for states to distribute vaccines, money that states have been asking for since October. Nothing stopped the Senate from passing this bill, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was more committed to his project of reshaping the judiciary, confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and trying to protect corporations from coronavirus lawsuits than delivering needed aid.
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The Trump administration has been absent as well. The presidents main contribution so far has been to tweet on Tuesday, it is up to the states to administer. Get moving! like some kind of abusive cheerleader. Meanwhile, Operation Warp Speed has moved the goalposts, telling Stat News the plan all along was to distribute 20 million doses by the end of December despite the head of the program previously saying that was the vaccination goal.
Setting up and implementing a vaccine program is no small lift, and its fair to expect some stumbles even with months of lead time. Its not entirely on the federal government, and in the coming months, well surely learn about state failures, to say nothing of the failures of an intensely capitalist society that lets the rich jump the line (something thats already happening for Modernas board members). But the failure of the richest country on Earth to do so and, instead, moving at a vaccination pace that would take 10 years to adequately protect against covid-19 is real failed-state territory.
The Biden administration will have to use all the tools at its disposal to speed up the vaccination rate, cut down on needless lives sacrificed, and reduce the economic harm. President-elect Biden has promised as much, saying he plans to move heaven and earth to get us going in the right direction. With the new, more contagious variation of the coronavirus just discovered in Colorado, that effort cant come soon enough.
The parable of the vaccinemuch like the parable of coronavirus testing and prevention before itis one that exposes the utter failure of the past four-plus decades of accepting the Reagan view of the federal government. A hollowed-out government coupled with a toxic brand of individualism pushed by conservative news from Fox News to OANN to Breitbart has left the U.S. unable to do what it needs to do. If we dont heed the parable as we move into the decade of the climate crisis, the results will be catastrophic.
An effective national vaccine program requires a high degree of coordination, expertise, money, and strong leadership. But next to an effective national program to decarbonize every sector of the economy, its like frying an egg compared to preparing a 24-course molecular gastronomy meal. To fully decarbonize the U.S. at the pace and scale needed to avert catastrophic levels of warming will require every facet of the government pulling together in the same direction along with trillions of dollars in investments for new infrastructure, a just transition for fossil fuel workers, increased public transit, and more. Concurrent with reducing emissions, the U.S. will also have to adapt to the impacts already in the pipeline. This again will require long-term thinking, strong oversight and coordination, and staggering sums of money. (The cost of doing nothing is inordinately higher both in terms of economics and human life, so spare me the bUt HoW wIlL wE pAy FoR iT garbage.)
Most importantly, cleaning up the countrys emissions and protecting its citizens will have to be a sustained effort over multiple decades until the last ton of carbon from hard-to-mitigate sectors like concrete and aviation is abated and the last community on the Navajo Nation is connected to clean power and the economic opportunities of the 21st century. The Biden administration may well start us on this course even without the Senate, but every president and Congress afterward will need to stay that course or risk Americanand even globalruin.
All of this will require us to learn from the failures of the American brand of conservative governance that the pandemic has laid bare. Instead of a government that focuses on the things that actually matterhuman well-being, protection from covid-19s health and economic impacts, rapid vaccinationswe have one that has been shrunken and only cares about protecting corporate profits and members of Congress themselves.
In an instantly iconic campaign ad earlier this year, Sen. Ed Markey inverted the famous JFK line, Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Instead, the senator put it this way: Its time to start asking what your country can do for you. So far, it appears Republicans (and some Democrats) havent heard that ask. With little time left to spare and so many lives lost to both the pandemic and the climate crisis, its time to start asking it a little louder.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) When the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were given to long term care residents in Oklahoma on December 21, CVS said it would have the vaccine at every facility its contracted with across the country.
Were going to continue to contract with a lot of these facilities, CVS Health District Leader Shawn Francis told News 4.So, its only a matter of time. Id say within the next couple of weeks.
Francis says so far CVS has immunized around 27,000 people in 176 long term care facilities across Oklahoma.
That vaccine comes from the states supply, and he knows many nursing home patients are still waiting.
If you havent heard anything it is coming. It will be within your facility, Francis said. We are having many allotments being sent out to us, whether its the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Its only a matter of time.
Francis expects vaccine to reach all of the facilities in the next couple of months.
He also says the facilities are the ones that schedule the vaccine appointments with them.
That facility actually goes in, goes online, creates an appointment and sort of a schedule date, Francis said. We come in and do their initial appointment, and then three weeks after, saw we are administering the Pfizer vaccine, well schedule that second date as well.
Updated on December 30th: The United Kingdom on Wednesday gave emergency authorization to the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, bringing the medical community closer to a full-powered response to the pandemic that continues to rage across the world.
The U.K. was also the first western country to approve the vaccine from Pfizer. The country, which is being ravaged by the virus in part due to a mutant strand that has made it far more communicable, plans to roll out the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine en masse instead of rationing administration and saving doses for a second shot.
This fall, the vaccine hit speed bumps in its development, with a halted Phase III trial, communication issues with the FDA, and uncertain results. Patched-together trial results found an efficacy rate around 62 percent when both doses were administered, though results released earlier this month suggested that a half-dose followed by a full-dose months later had a 90 percent efficacy rate.
This was unplanned, it was unexpected, but it might be a very important serendipitous finding. It is possible, and this is perhaps the most likely explanation, that by giving a low dose of the vaccine early on, the body doesnt mount an immune response against the vector because this is a virus vector delivered vaccine, Dr. Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief ofThe Lancet, told CNBC in early December.
See Also: How Bill Gates Helped Make the COVID-19 Vaccine Possible
The U.K. authorized two full doses and said that in separate limited trials that took place in India and Brazil, a first full dose had a 70 percent efficacy rate. The decision to go with full doses is linked to the longer time that Britons will go between receiving their first and second doses.
The AstraZeneca vaccine holds several distinct advantages over the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which have already begun roll-out in the United States. The FDA wont rule on the vaccine before next week, but the US government reached an agreement back in May to buy 300 million doses for $1.2 billion if its approved.
The cost of the vaccine is one of its two game-changing attributes. AstraZeneca plans on selling the vaccine at-cost in perpetuity, which puts it at just $4 a dose. It also does not have to be stored with special deep-freezing refrigeration, which distinguishes it from Pfizers vaccine.
Both the vaccines price and the fact that it can be stored at standard pharmaceutical temperatures and transported without fear of spoiling mean that it will not only help supplement the need for vaccines in the United States and Europe, but it will also be the go-to vaccine for the developing world.
Further, the AstraZeneca vaccine is said to be effective against the mutant strain of COVID-19 that has been responsible for the large spike in infections in the UK over the last month.
(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
PHOENIX Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order Wednesday aimed at speeding up distribution of the coronavirus vaccine in Arizona.
Duceys order requires the Arizona Department of Health Services implement a state-directed allocation model and uniformed approach to vaccinate the states high-risk and high-priority groups.
The order comes as state health director Dr. Cara Christ said only about 20% of eligible individuals in the states top priority group about 57,000 of 275,000 have been vaccinated as of Wednesday.
The state has received about 315,000 doses since distribution began earlier in December.
Any delay in the vaccine getting to Arizonans, any dose that sits in a freezer rather than reaching the arm of a health care worker or long-term care resident, carries too great a cost, Ducey said in a press release.
This is a health emergency, and we need all levels of government and our health system operating as such. Vaccines dont do any good sitting in a freezer.
Currently, each of Arizonas 15 counties have their own plans for how to distribute the vaccine, which typically comes in two doses.
Christ said her team is already beginning to implement Duceys plan for a uniform model, with more progress expected by the start of next week.
Before Ducey issued his order, Christ said more people were expected to receive their first vaccine doses next week than in previous weeks.
Vaccine distribution began in Arizona two weeks ago for people in phase 1A, which includes front-line health care staff, emergency medical workers and residents and staff at long-term care facilities.
We want it in peoples arms so we are going to continue to work, Christ said during a press conference.
Coronavirus case and hospitalization numbers continue to look grim in Arizona despite the vaccine rollout.
On Wednesday, Arizona health officials reported 5,267 coronavirus cases and 78 additional deaths, bringing the states documented totals to 512,489 COVID-19 infections and 8,718 fatalities.
The number of COVID-19 patients in the states ICU beds increased to 1,076 on Tuesday, the sixth consecutive day with a record high.
Statewide, suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients took up 53% of all inpatient beds and 61% of all ICU beds, both records.
Overall, inpatient beds were 91% and ICU beds were 90% full.
Banner Health, the states largest hospital system, is pausing all elective surgeries starting Friday to handle the rise in coronavirus patients.
For all articles, information and updates on the coronavirus from KTAR News, visit ktar.com/coronavirus.
As Covid-19 patients flood into hospitals nationwide, doctors are facing an impossible question. Which patients in the E.R. are more likely to deteriorate quickly, and which are most likely to fight off the virus and to recover?
As it turns out, there may be a way to help distinguish these two groups, although it is not yet widely employed. Dozens of research papers published over the past few months found that people whose bodies were teeming with the coronavirus more often became seriously ill and more likely to die, compared with those who carried much less virus and were more likely to emerge relatively unscathed.
The results suggest that knowing the so-called viral load the amount of virus in the body could help doctors predict a patients course, distinguishing those who may need an oxygen check just once a day, for example, from those who need to be monitored more closely, said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease physician at Columbia University in New York.
Tracking viral loads can actually help us stratify risk, Dr. Griffin said. The idea is not new: Managing viral load has long formed the basis of care for people with H.I.V., for example, and for tamping down transmission of that virus.
Little effort has been made to track viral loads in Covid-19 patients. This month, however, the Food and Drug Administration said clinical labs might report not just whether a person was infected with the coronavirus, but an estimate of how much virus was carried in their body.
This is not a change in policy labs could have reported this information all along, according to two senior F.D.A. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Still, the news came as a welcome surprise to some experts, who have for months pushed labs to record this information.
This is a very important move by the F.D.A., said Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I think its a step in the right direction to making the most use of one of the only pieces of data we have for many positive individuals.
The F.D.A.s change followed a similar move by the Florida Department of Health, which now requires all labs to report this information.
The omission of viral load from test results was a missed opportunity not just to optimize strained clinical resources, but also to better understand Covid-19, experts said. Analyzing the viral load soon after exposure, for example, could help reveal whether people who die from Covid-19 are more likely to have high viral loads at the start of their illnesses.
And a study published in June showed that the viral load decreases as the immune response surges, just like youd expect it to be for any old virus, said Dr. Alexander Greninger, a virologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the study.
An uptick in the average viral load throughout entire communities could indicate an epidemic on the rise. We can get an idea of whether the epidemic is growing or declining, without relying on case counts, said James Hay, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Minas lab.
Fortunately, data on viral load or at least a rough approximation of it is readily available, built into results from the P.C.R. tests that most labs use to diagnose a coronavirus infection.
A P.C.R. test is performed in cycles, each doubling the amount of viral genetic material originally drawn from the patients sample. The higher the initial viral load, the fewer cycles the test needs to find genetic material and produce a signal.
A positive result at a low cycle threshold, or Ct, implies a high viral load in the patient. If the test is not positive until many cycles have been completed, the patient probably has a lower viral load.
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York recorded viral loads among more than 3,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients on the day of their admission. They found that 40 percent of patients with high viral loads whose tests were positive at a Ct of 25 or below died while in the hospital, compared with 15 percent of those with positive tests at higher Cts and presumably lower viral loads.
In another study, the Nevada Department of Public Health found an average Ct value of 23.4 in people who died from Covid-19, compared with 27.5 in those who survived their illnesses. People who were asymptomatic had an average value of 29.6, suggesting they carried much less virus than the other two groups.
These numbers may seem to vary by very little, but they correspond to millions of viral particles. These are not subtle differences, Dr. Greninger said. A study from his lab showed that patients with a Ct of less than 22 had more than four times the odds of dying within 30 days, compared with those with a lower viral load.
But the use of Ct values to estimate viral load is a fraught practice. Viral load measurements for H.I.V. are highly precise, because they are based on blood samples. Tests for the coronavirus rely on swabbing the nose or throat a procedure that is subject to user error and whose results are less consistent.
The amount of coronavirus in the body changes drastically over the course of the infection. The levels rise from undetectable to yielding positive test results in just hours, and viral loads continue to increase until the immune response kicks in.
Then viral loads quickly decline. But viral fragments may linger in the body, triggering positive test results long after the patient has stopped being infectious and the illness has resolved.
Given this variability, capturing viral load at one point in time may not be useful without more information about the trajectory of illness, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center and a member of the incoming administrations coronavirus advisory group.
When on that curve are you measuring the viral load? Dr. Gounder asked.
The exact relationship between a Ct value and the corresponding viral load can vary between tests. Rather than validate this quantitative relationship for each machine, the F.D.A. authorized the tests to deliver diagnoses based on a cutoff for the cycle threshold.
Most manufacturers conservatively set their machines thresholds for diagnosis from 35 to 40, values that generally correspond to an extremely low viral load. But the exact threshold for a positive result, or for a specific Ct to indicate infectiousness, will depend on the instrument used.
Thats why I get very anxious about a lot of these assessments on the basis of Ct values, said Susan Butler-Wu, director of clinical microbiology at the University of Southern California.
Certainly, it is a value that can be useful in certain clinical circumstances, Dr. Butler-Wu said, but the idea that you can have a unicorn Ct value that correlates perfectly with an infectious versus noninfectious state makes me very nervous.
Other experts acknowledged these limitations, but said the benefit from recording Ct values outweighed the concerns.
All of those are valid points when looking at an individual patients test results, but it doesnt change the fact that on average, when you look at the admission test results of these Ct values, they really identify patients at high risk of decompensating and dying, said Dr. Michael Satlin, an infectious diseases physician and lead researcher of the Weill Cornell study.
Dr. Satlin said adjusting his teams results for duration of symptoms and several other variables did not alter the high risk of death in patients with high viral loads. No matter how you try to adjust, statistically, this association is extremely strong and will not go away, he said.
At a population level, too, Ct values can be valuable during a pandemic, Dr. Hay said. High viral loads in a large group of patients can indicate recent exposure to the virus, signaling a nascent surge in community transmission.
This could be a great surveillance tool for less well-resourced settings who need to understand the epidemic trajectory, but do not have the capacity to carry out regular, random testing, Dr. Hay said.
Over all, he and others said, viral load information is too valuable a metric to be ignored or discarded without analysis.
One of the things thats been tough in this pandemic is everybody wants to do evidence-based medicine and wants to go at the appropriate speed, Dr. Greninger said. But we also should expect certain things to be true, like more virus is usually not good.
Last week, Congress passed its most consequential piece of legislation in months. Among other things, the 5,600-page combined economic stimulus and federal budget measure averted a government shutdown and gave Americans hundreds of billions of dollars in relief. On Sunday, after initially criticizing the measure, President Donald Trump signed the $2.3 trillion package into law.
Like any massive piece of federal legislation, the law will have sweeping consequences for Floridians. Here are five things you need to know about the law and the politics that led to its creation.
If you collect state unemployment between December 26, 2020 and March 14, 2021, you will be eligible for $300 in additional federal weekly benefits. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which passed in the spring, included a similar provision which added $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits to state payments. The provision, called Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, expired in July, then was briefly revived by an executive memorandum from President Trump in August. Now, that provision is back.
The bill also extends the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which paid up to $275 in weekly federal benefits to those who wouldnt otherwise be eligible: the self employed, independent contractors, etc. That program expired Saturday, leaving thousands of Floridians in a state of uncertainty. The federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which extends unemployment benefits by up to 13 weeks past the 12 weeks normally offered by Florida, was also renewed after expiring Saturday.
Its unclear how many Floridians currently rely on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs, which briefly expired between Saturday and when Trump signed the relief and spending bill Sunday. Requests to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity for those figures were not returned Monday or Tuesday.
Although Trump briefly let those programs lapse, this weeks federal payments will be paid out, the Department of Labor announced Tuesday.
The departments unemployment benefits dashboard shows that Florida saw nearly 32,700 coronavirus-related unemployment claims in the first two weeks of December.
Is this spending bill good? If youre a Republican, it depends on which elected official you ask. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a former congressman, blasted Congress process, noting that the final text of the gargantuan bill was available just hours before it passed.
Now, I dont know about you all, but I cant read 5,000 pages in six hours, DeSantis quipped.
The bill was so long because it was a combination of two complicated pieces of legislation: the $900 billion coronavirus economic relief package and the $1.4 trillion spending bill that will keep the federal government funded until Sept. 30, 2021. Both pieces of legislation came after months of negotiation between the White House and congressional leaders.
Sen. Rick Scott, one of just six U.S. senators to vote against the bill, also criticized the process and the cost of the bill.
In classic Washington style, vital programs are being attached to an omnibus spending bill that mortgages our children and grandchildrens futures without even giving members a chance to read it, Scott said in a statement.
But Floridas other U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio, was instrumental in creating the federal Paycheck Protection Program, a loan program which was extended by the bill. (More on that in a bit.) A provision championed by Rubio also helped ensure that residents who are married to non-citizens would still be eligible for the $600 direct payment coming to millions of American adults because of the bill.
You sent me here to solve problems and to make a difference, and thats what we did this year, Rubio said in a video message on the paycheck loans.
Floridas most famous Republican resident, President Donald Trump, embodied the divide in the party over the relief and spending measure. When Congress first passed the bill, he slammed the relief portion for being inadequate, calling for $2,000 direct payments to Americans instead of the $600 payments currently in the bill. (A measure to increase the direct payments to Trumps preferred $2,000 amount passed the House of Representatives Monday. Its fate in the Republican-controlled Senate is unclear.) Trump also criticized portions of the spending package, including some recommended by his own budget proposal. But on Sunday, after days of suspense, the president signed the measure.
When all was said and done, the bill got good reviews from Floridas Republican Party.
Thank you @POTUS for signing the stimulus bill that will provide much needed help for hard working families, the Florida GOPs twitter account wrote Monday.
The relief bill included some $284 billion more for the popular program, which gives businesses loans that can turn into grants if the businesses use the money to keep staff employed. (The Tampa Bay Times and its related companies got such a loan earlier this year.)
In December, it was revealed that the first round of paycheck protection loan money went disproportionately to some bigger businesses although more than nine in 10 loans were for less than $250,000. About 423,000 Florida businesses got loans the first time around, the federal Small Business Administration has reported.
This time, businesses that apply for the loans cant be larger than 300 employees, and loans are capped at $2 million. Businesses have to show they lost more than 25 percent of their normal revenue because of the virus in order to get a loan.
There are few businesses that were hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than independent concert venues. Susan Crockett, president and CEO of Clearwaters Ruth Eckerd Hall, said her organization had seen earned revenues fall by almost 99 since the theater closed in March.
The coronavirus relief and spending package offers a lifeline to venues, concert promoters, producers, theaters and museums. Those businesses are eligible for up to $10 million in grants from the federal government if they can show they lost as much as 25 percent of their revenue in one of 2020s four quarters.
In April, Ruth Eckerd Hall got about a $1.2 million paycheck protection loan, which allowed the venue to preserve 239 jobs. But once that funding dried up, the company was forced to let go some 150 employees, Crockett said.
Now, with the latest round of federal grants in its sights, Ruth Eckerd Hall wants its workers back.
This is a light at the end of the tunnel if this comes through, Crockett said.
Because the coronavirus relief package was folded into a budget bill, the measure includes a sprawling laundry list of unrelated items. Adults in Florida making less than $75,000 will get $600 direct payments from the coronavirus relief bill similar to the $1,200 direct payments residents got from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Floridians will also be more protected from surprise medical bills from out-of-network providers, and theyll see about $15 billion worth of their taxpayer dollars go to Space Force spending. Billions more will go to environmental projects in Florida such as the central Everglades ecosystem restoration.
Perhaps the most notable of these environmental efforts is the $25 million set aside by the bill for researching harmful algal blooms associated with water resources development projects. In 2018, Florida was hit hard by a red tide with a stench that repelled tourists from the states normally pristine Gulf Coast beaches.
However, the money isnt going directly to researching why the Gulf Coast was hit so hard then. Instead, federal researchers will focus on Lake Okeechobee, which was also devastated by a different toxic algae bloom in 2018. The outbreak became a major talking point during that years governors race, with then-congressman Ron DeSantis notably blaming the outbreak on fertilizers used by south Floridas massive and influential sugar industry.
Another seven Mainers have died as health officials on Tuesday reported 590 new coronavirus cases across the state.
Tuesdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 22,909, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 22,319 on Monday.
Of those, 19,582 have been confirmed positive, while 3,327 were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
A man in his 70s from Androscoggin County, a woman in her 80s and a woman in her 90s from Cumberland County, a woman in her 80s from Oxford County, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 70s from Penobscot County and a woman in her 80s from York County have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 333. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 453.3, up from 434.6 a day ago, up from 430.7 a week ago and up from 163.6 a month ago.
Health officials have warned Mainers that forceful and widespread community transmission is being seen throughout the state. Every county is seeing high community transmission, which the Maine CDC defines as a case rate of 16 or more cases per 10,000 people.
There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel.
So far, 1,041 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 184 people are currently hospitalized, with 48 in critical care and 19 on ventilators.
As of Tuesday, 19,634 Mainers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
A majority of the cases 13,368 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Tuesday, there have been 1,158,549 negative test results out of 1,187,533 overall. Nearly 2.4 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 6,879 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 94 have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (2,533), Aroostook (528), Franklin (448), Hancock (514), Kennebec (1,727), Knox (353), Lincoln (291), Oxford (1,081), Penobscot (1,923), Piscataquis (111), Sagadahoc (363), Somerset (723), Waldo (376), Washington (343) and York (4,703) counties. Information about where an additional 13 cases were reported wasnt immediately available.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 19,334,975 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 335,623 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
"What will be done is a registry ... of those people who have been offered it and simply rejected it," Illa told Spain's La Sexta TV channel.
But health care professionals have warned that the idea presents potential dangers.
"The most important thing is to know how the registry will be used," said Jose Luis Cobos, deputy direct of the Spanish General Council of Nursing.
"If it's for public health purposes, to better understand COVID, and it's anonymous, that's one thing," he said.
"But if it's 'I'm now on the list of the bad people,' that's another thing. We don't think a registry should be used to infringe on liberties, or for employers against people," he added.
Vaccine rollout underway
Hours after Illa's television interview on Monday, the head of Spain's Medicines Agency, Maria Jesus Lamas, told Spain's SER radio that the new registry would be used "to understand the causes behind declining the vaccination ... doubt or rejection."
"The registry is anonymous," she added. "There's no chance of identifying anyone in the registry."
Spain's 17 regional governments administer vaccines across the nation.
In the southern region of Andalusia, people currently appear in a registry if they are given a vaccine, including its batch number and who administered, it for quality control purposes, an Andalusia health department spokeswoman told CNN.
The spokeswoman also noted that there is no registry for members of the general public who decline vaccinations, although Andalusia health care workers must sign a document if they refuse a vaccination.
Spain has the world's ninth largest number of coronavirus cases, at more than 1.8 million, and the tenth highest number of deaths, at just over 50,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Health researchers say wearing masks and washing your hands often is more important than wiping down surfaces when it comes to protecting yourself from the coronavirus. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images hide caption
Health researchers say wearing masks and washing your hands often is more important than wiping down surfaces when it comes to protecting yourself from the coronavirus.
At the start of the pandemic, stores quickly sold out of disinfectant sprays and wipes. People were advised to wipe down their packages and the cans they bought at the grocery store.
But scientists have learned a lot this year about the coronavirus and how it's transmitted, and it turns out all that scrubbing and disinfecting might not be necessary.
If a person infected with the coronavirus sneezes, coughs or talks loudly, droplets containing particles of the virus can travel through the air and eventually land on nearby surfaces. But the risk of getting infected from touching a surface contaminated by the virus is low, says Emanuel Goldman, a microbiologist at Rutgers University.
"In hospitals, surfaces have been tested near COVID-19 patients, and no infectious virus can be identified," Goldman says.
What's found is viral RNA, which is like "the corpse of the virus," he says. That's what's left over after the virus dies.
"They don't find infectious virus, and that's because the virus is very fragile in the environment it decays very quickly," Goldman says.
Back in January and February, scientists and public health officials thought surface contamination was a problem. In fact, early studies suggested the virus could live on surfaces for days.
It was assumed transmission occurred when an infected person sneezed or coughed on a nearby surface and "you would get the disease by touching those surfaces and then transferring the virus into your eyes, nose or mouth," says Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies airborne transmission of infectious disease.
So people were advised to clean common areas with disinfectant, wipe down cans and boxes from the grocery store and even wear gloves.
In retrospect, Marr says that was "overkill." Today, she says, "all the evidence points toward breathing in the virus from the air as being the most important route of transmission."
Scientists now know that the early surface studies were done in pristine lab conditions using much larger amounts of virus than would be found in a real-life scenario.
Even so, many of us continue to attack door handles, packages and groceries with disinfectant wipes, and workers across the U.S. spend hours disinfecting surfaces in public areas like airports, buildings and subways.
There's no scientific data to justify this, says Dr. Kevin Fennelly, a respiratory infection specialist with the National Institutes of Health.
"When you see people doing spray disinfection of streets and sidewalks and walls and subways, I just don't know of any data that supports the fact that we're getting infected from viruses that are jumping up from the sidewalk."
Marr says focusing on cleaning surfaces is not the best way to slow infection.
"Instead of paying so much attention to cleaning surfaces, we might be better off paying attention to cleaning the air, given the finite amount of time and resources," Marr says.
Fennelly agrees, noting that airborne transmission is more likely in indoor public places like restaurants.
"Why aren't we doing more to figure out ways to ventilate those areas?" he asks. "It would be better to use ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, which we know can kill these viruses in the air."
Figuring out how to prevent coronavirus transmission in office buildings, schools, bars and restaurants is definitely a challenge, he says, but "we have a lot of really smart engineers and architects and industrial hygienists who know how to handle airborne infection."
Spraying disinfectant is not only unproductive, but it's potentially dangerous, according to Delphine Farmer, an atmospheric chemist at Colorado State University.
Heavy use of disinfectants, like bleach and hydrogen peroxide, can "produce toxic molecules that then we breathe," she warns.
And breathing in toxic particles can affect our health, Farmer says. The molecules can react directly with the cells in lung tissue and cause oxidative stress. And certain molecules are known to be toxic. "It's like breathing in poison," she says.
Early on in the pandemic, Farmer says, many people were making cleaning mistakes: "There were a lot of cases of people cleaning their groceries with bleach and vinegar, which is a recipe to create some very nasty chlorine gas, and people were getting quite ill from those side effects."
Bottom line: Health experts emphasize that the most important way to avoid infection is to stay away from crowds and wear a mask whenever you leave the house. Limit the time you spend in any indoor space with people outside of your own household and wear a mask when you're in those spaces.
When you're out in public, be aware of surfaces you touch, and wash your hands often. It's much more effective to wash your hands thoroughly than try to clean everything you touch.
And if you do decide to keep wiping down canned goods or packages that arrive at your house, there's no need for fancy cleaning products; "old-fashioned soap and water" will do just fine, Farmer says.
Weve basically had a complete abdication of the federal response, Gregg Gonsalves, an assistant professor in epidemiology of microbial diseases at Yale, told me when asked about the interplay between public health and economic struggles.
If we want people to take individual actions to help curb the spread of the virus, we also need to invest in their ability to do so. The government could send every household masks a plan the Trump administration nixed early on. It could pay Americans to stay home if they feel sick, test positive or work for a business that should close for public health reasons, to avoid choosing between their health and their bills.
If you want people to do the right thing you have to make it easy, and weve made it hard, Dr. Gonsalves noted. States, too, have been told theyre on their own, with Congressional Republicans refusing to agree to the money Democrats want to send to help fill the vast hole left by the pandemic. In response, some governors seem to be prioritizing businesses over public health, handing out ineffectual curfews to restaurants and bars rather than just shutting them down.
But to help small businesses, and to return to strong economic growth, tamping down the pandemic still has to come first.
Theres no realistic prospect of fostering a complete and durable recovery until the public health situation has been brought under control, said David Wilcox, an economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The last 10 months have given us a very clear message: We are inextricably connected to each other. We cant stay healthy unless our neighbors can do so, too. The economy cant properly function if Americans are sick and dying. The economy is only a means to an end, a way to improve living conditions. The economy should serve us we cannot sacrifice our lives at its altar.
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