1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 62.7 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 1.45 million.
Germans must do more to reduce their contacts to help slow the spread of the disease, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told Deutschlandfunk.
Doctors in Singapore are studying the impact of COVID-19 on unborn babies. An infant delivered by an infected mother earlier this month had antibodies against the virus but did not carry the disease.
Factory activity in China expanded at the fastest pace in more than three years in November. Growth in the services sector also hit a multi-year high, as the economy's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continued.
Turkey's COVID-19 death toll hit a record high for a seventh straight day yesterday, with 185 deaths reported.
Restaurants and non-essential shops will reopen on Thursday in the Czech Republic. Customers will be limited to allow for social distancing.
Indonesia has reported a record daily rise in COVID-19 infections, with 6,267 cases reported yesterday.
Indonesia has reported more than 500,000 cases overall.
Image: Our World in Data
South Korea has announced new restrictions as coronavirus infections spread at their fastest rate in nearly 9 months. Year-end parties are banned, as are some music lessons. Public saunas and some cafes have also been told to close.
A local association in Naples is offering residents the opportunity to take a rapid test for COVID-19, while paying for another test for an anonymous fellow citizen. It mimics a tradition where residents pay for two coffees, so someone in need can enjoy theirs for free.
2. WHO warning on malaria
Malaria deaths will far exceed those killed by COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization has warned.
More than 409,000 people globally were killed by malaria last year - the majority babies in the poorest parts of Africa. That figure is set to rise as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts services designed to tackle the mosquito-borne disease.
Cases and deaths are highest in Africa.
Image: WHO
Our estimates are that depending on the level of service disruption (due to COVID-19) ... there could be an excess of malaria deaths of somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them in young children, said Pedro Alsonso, director of the WHOs malaria programme.
Its very likely that excess malaria mortality is larger than the direct COVID mortality.
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 82 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum and supported by GHR Foundation and Porticus. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.
Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. These corporations are called on to stand with social entrepreneurs within their supply chains and the broader ecosystem, fulfil their agreements and extend their support to build a more inclusive & resilient economy and to:
For more information see the full action agenda here.
3. New York public schools to reopen
New York's public schools will begin to reopen for in-person learning next week. The reopening will start with elementary schools for students whose parents agree to a weekly testing regimen for COVID-19, Mayor Bill de Blasio said yesterday.
New York has the United States' largest school system, but schools were closed less than two weeks ago after the citywide rate of positive tests exceeded 3% - a benchmark agreed between the mayor and the teachers' union.
Its a new approach because we have so much proof now of how safe schools can be, de Blasio told reporters, saying the 3% benchmark was being scrapped and pointing to research that shows young children appear to be less vulnerable to COVID-19.
The city's rolling seven-day average of positive tests stood at 3.9% yesterday.
In a 1988 essay on pandemics Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and president of The Rockefeller University, reminded the medical community that when it comes to infectious disease, the laws of Darwin are as important as the vaccines of Pasteur.
As medicine battles bacteria and viruses, those organisms continue to undergo mutations and evolve new characteristics.
Lederberg advised vigilance: We have no guarantee that the natural evolutionary competition of viruses with the human species will always find ourselves the winner.
With the emergence of what seem so far to be safe and effective vaccine candidates, it appears that humanity may be the winner again this time around, albeit with a dreadful loss of life.
But vaccines wont put an end to the evolution of this coronavirus, as David A. Kennedy and Andrew F. Read of The Pennsylvania State University, specialists in viral resistance to vaccines, wrote in PLoS Biology recently. Instead, they could even drive new evolutionary change.
There is always the chance, though small, the authors write, that the virus could evolve resistance to a vaccine, what researchers call viral escape. They urge monitoring of vaccine effects and viral response, just in case.
Nothing that were saying is suggesting that we slow down development of vaccines, Dr. Kennedy said. An effective vaccine is of utmost importance, he said, But lets make sure that it stays efficacious.
Vaccine makers could use the results of nasal swabs taken from volunteers during trials to look for any genetic changes in the virus. Test results need not stop or slow down vaccine rollout, but if recipients of the vaccine had changes in the virus that those who received the placebo did not, that would indicate the potential for resistance to evolve, something researchers ought to keep monitoring.
There are some reasons to be optimistic that the coronavirus will not become resistant to vaccines. Several years ago, Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Read presented an analysis of the difference between resistance to drugs and vaccines. Neither bacteria nor viruses evolve resistance to vaccines as easily as they do to drugs, they wrote. Smallpox vaccine never lost its effectiveness, nor did the vaccines for measles or polio, despite years of use.
Antibiotics, on the other hand, can quickly become useless as bacteria and other pathogens like viruses and fungi evolve defenses. And resistance builds to other drugs as well.
The reasons have to do with the very basic principles of evolution and immunity. The two key differences are that vaccines generally act earlier than drugs, and that the natural immune response they promote is usually more varied, with more lines of attack. A drug may be narrowly targeted, sometimes attacking one metabolic pathway or biochemical process.
With most drugs, the virus or bacteria has already been reproducing in the patients body and if one variant is better at surviving the drugs attack, it will continue to grow and perhaps be transmitted to another person. A combination of drugs, as with H.I.V. treatment, can be more effective because it unleashes a multipronged attack.
Vaccines, on the other hand, act early, before the virus begins to proliferate and perhaps change within a patients body. So there are no new variants, like those forged in the heat of a drug attack to grow and spread from the infected person.
Vaccines offer the bodys immune system a glimpse of the virus, and then the immune system builds a broad attack. For example, after a tetanus shot, a persons immune system may produce 100 different antibodies.
Some vaccines, however, do drive viruses to evolve resistance, Drs. Kennedy and Read noted in their 2015 article. A vaccine stopped Mareks disease, an illness in chickens that is important commercially. But the virus could still infect the chickens. It replicated and spread without causing disease and quickly became resistant.
In humans, a type of bacteria that causes pneumonia bacteria evolved resistance to a vaccine when the bacteria recombined in nature with existing strains that were naturally resistant. A vaccine for hepatitis B created antibodies targeting only one small part of one protein a loop made by nine amino acids, which is tiny in protein terms. It did not create a broad attack. A pertussis vaccine also appeared to drive resistance. It worked to fend off the disease, but targeted only a few proteins and was not effective at stopping infection and transmission of the virus.
The coronavirus vaccines now in development use different ways to get the immune system to respond. Some coronavirus vaccines under development or in use in Russia and China, use whole virus particles, inactivated or attenuated, to spark an immune system response.
Many other vaccine candidates, like the ones from Pfizer and Moderna, now nearing review by the Food and Drug Administration for first use as early as December, are meant to get the immune system to react to only a portion of the coronavirus, the so-called spike protein, which would seem to offer fewer targets.
But Dr. Kennedy said that was not necessarily a problem. A vaccine based on just the spike protein has the potential to generate a broad immune response, he said, because there are multiple sites on the spike protein where potent neutralizing antibodies can bind.
Although these are the first vaccines that use RNA particles to instruct the cells to make a viral protein, other vaccines use parts of the virus, rather than the whole. So far, Dr. Kennedy said, there was no evidence to show one type of vaccine would be more likely to drive resistance. We have seen vaccine resistance evolve against many different kinds of vaccines, he said, but there are also plenty of examples for each of these where resistance has never emerged.
Resistance can also evolve in ways that arent driven by how a vaccine acts. There may already be variants of the coronavirus that are less susceptible to the actions of vaccines. This concern prompted Denmark to announce that it would cull all of its mink because a variant of the virus had appeared in mink which showed in very preliminary lab tests that some antibodies were less effective against it.
The worry has lessened since the Danes announced the problem, with scientists and the World Health Organization saying they saw no evidence yet that the variant would interfere with any vaccines in development.
But Denmark, after the resignation of a minister, who announced the cull too soon, and a legislative debate that appears to be leading to approval of the cull, still plans to kill all the mink in the country.
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And scientists say that caution in this kind of situation makes sense. As a virus jumps from people to animals and back again, as it has with mink, there are more opportunities for changes in the virus RNA, changes that could lead to resistance.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have discovered a kind of mutation that hadnt been seen in coronaviruses before and raises fresh concerns about the evolution of vaccine resistance.
In their search for mutations, researchers have mostly focused on flips of one genetic letter to another a kind of mutation known as a substitution. But Paul Duprex and his colleagues discovered that the viruses mutating in a chronically infected patient were changing differently: They were losing sets of genetic letters.
Typically, a mutation that deletes a genetic letter is catastrophic to a virus. Our cells read genetic letters three at a time to choose a new building block to add to a growing protein. A deletion of one genetic letter can entirely scramble the instructions for a viral protein, so that it cannot form a functional shape.
But Dr. Duprex and his colleagues found that the coronaviruses in the patient could lose genetic letters and yet stay viable. The secret: The viruses lost genetic letters in sets of three. Instead of destroying the genetic recipe for a viral protein, the mutations snipped out one or more amino acids.
As much as Dr. Duprex despises the pandemic, he finds it hard not to admire the elegance of these mutations. Its so cool, its brilliant, he said.
Having found these deletion mutations in viruses from one person, Dr. Duprex and his colleagues wondered how common they were.
Searching public databases of coronavirus genomes, they discovered that deletions were surprisingly widespread. Its happening independently in different parts of the world, Dr. Duprex said.
All the deletions, it turns out, only arise in one region, the spike protein. Dr. Duprex and his colleagues found that deletions in the spike gene didnt prevent the coronavirus from infecting cells.
Dr. Duprex and his colleagues posted their study online Nov. 19. It has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers are now infecting animals with deletion-mutant viruses to better understand the risk they may pose to vaccines.
Well, this paper does nothing to reduce the anxiety! Dr. Read said in an email. This is early data strongly suggesting the virus has the potential to escape human immunity.
But Drs. Read and Kennedy argue that viral evolution wont necessarily doom vaccines. Vaccine makers just need to stay aware of it, and devise new vaccines if necessary.
And there are numerous varieties of vaccines in development. The first two approaching approval in the United States both use a significant chunk of viral RNA to train the immune system. Other vaccines that are in development use the whole virus. And different vaccines deliver the virus or part of it in different ways, all of which could prompt a different immune response.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) With Thanksgiving now in the rearview mirror, medical experts are warning another coronavirus surge could be on the horizon.
The warning comes as a record number of travelers hit the road for the holiday at the time infection rates were already skyrocketing
Despite warnings from the CDC, millions of Americans still traveled this Thanksgiving holiday. More than 1.1 million people passed through TSA on Sunday, the highest daily number since the pandemic began in March.
(Photo Credit: KDKA)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Meet the Press, What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, that we might see a surge superimposed upon that surge we are already in.
Dr. Deborah Birx emphasized the importance of testing, telling Face the Nation on Sunday, Were really asking governors and mayors to make testing more available, so we can prevent people having to be hospitalized. But obviously, were deeply worried. Were over 90,000 inpatients right now.
In Pennsylvania, anyone who leaves the state is required to quarantine for 14 days unless they test negative for COVID-19. But local doctors say when you get the test matters, too.
Dr. Richard Zimmerman, a professor of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said, A serial interval is the time one person gives it to another. In the context of households, that has typically been about a week. And I give that information to help people realize when theyre most at risk.
In regards to testing, Allegheny Health Networks Dr. Nathan Shively said, That should not be over-reassurance that they couldnt develop symptoms or they couldnt develop a positive test.
Medical experts also encourage holiday travelers to tell their employers immediately before returning to work. And with the holiday season just beginning, some doctors fear that travel and gatherings could have a sobering impact, not only on hospitalizations, but staffing to care for those patients.
Its certainly a concern that the strain on our health care system will only increase as time moves on, said Shively.
Medical experts say they will not know for two weeks just how big the impact of Thanksgiving travel was on our case numbers.
Allegheny County Health Department Director Dr. Debra Bogen released the following statement on Monday:
Thank you to everyone who changed their plans this weekend and celebrated safely.
I know many people decided to travel over Thanksgiving weekend or spent time with people who dont live with them, in the face of stern advisories from myself and Dr. Levine. I hope you took precautions to stay as safe as possible like wearing masks, keeping at least 6 feet apart and staying outside despite making the risky decision to gather with others. Please monitor yourself for symptoms of COVID-19 over the coming days. Seek testing if you start to feel ill and avoid all others while you recover.
I expect to see a rise in new cases of COVID-19 from Thanksgiving and remained concerned that if our cases continue to rise at this rate, it will strain the capacity and staff of our regions hospitals.
People with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, are most infectious about two days before symptoms begin and for five days afterward, according to a new analysis of previous research.
A few patients who are extremely ill or have impaired immune systems may expel or shed the virus for as long as 20 days, other studies have suggested. Even in mild cases, some patients may shed live virus for about a week, the new analysis found.
The accumulating data presents a quandary: Should public health officials shorten the recommended isolation time if it means more infected people will cooperate? Or should officials opt for longer periods in order to prevent transmission in virtually all cases, even if doing so takes a harsher toll on the economy?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that infected people isolate for a minimum of 10 days from the beginning of their illness. The agency is considering shortening the recommended isolation period and may issue new guidelines as early as next week, according to two federal officials with knowledge of the discussions.
In September, France dropped its required period of isolation to seven days from 14 days, and Germany is considering shortening it to five days. (Isolation refers to people who are ill; quarantine refers to people who have been exposed to the virus and may become ill.)
Setting the isolation period at five days is likely to be much more palatable and may encourage more infected people to comply, said Dr. Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St Andrews in Scotland who led the new analysis, published in the journal The Lancet Microbe.
A recent survey in the United Kingdom showed that only one in five people were able to isolate for 10 days after developing symptoms. Even if we do more testing, if we cant ensure people self-isolate, I dont think well be able to control the spread, Dr. Cevik said.
In the United States, many people dont get tested for the infection until a day or two after they begin to feel ill. With the current delays, many receive results two or three days later, toward the end of the period during which they are infectious.
Even if you were to get the P.C.R. test right on the very first day that you could, by the time you get the results back, 90 percent of your shedding has been completed, said Dr. Michael Mina, a virologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This meta-analysis shows just how short your transmission window is.
Dr. Cevik and her colleagues set out to analyze the so-called kinetics of the coronavirus over the course of an infection, and to compare the pathogen to the closely related SARS and MERS viruses.
The researchers considered nearly 1,500 studies published from 2003 to June 2020 on the timing of infection in thousands of people, most of whom were sick enough to be hospitalized. The team drew data from 79 studies of the new coronavirus, 11 studies of MERS and eight studies of SARS.
People who never develop symptoms seem to carry about the same amount of the new coronavirus as symptomatic patients, Dr. Cevik and her colleagues found. But asymptomatic people seem to clear the virus more quickly from their bodies.
People with Covid-19 usually are most infectious a day or two before the onset of symptoms until about five days after, the analysis concluded. Yet patients may carry genetic fragments from the virus in their noses and throats for an average of 17 days, and, in some cases, for up to three months.
A few patients may carry infectious virus in their lungs as opposed to the nose and throat for as long as eight days after symptoms begin, noted Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University. For these patients, at least, isolation periods should probably be longer than five days, if only they could be identified.
The trouble is, who has Covid pneumonia versus who doesnt is not always fully apparent just based on physical exam, she said. They wouldnt know it on their own.
Older people tend to be infectious for longer than younger people, but no study in the analysis detected live virus beyond nine days of symptom onset. The results suggest that positive tests after that point find only genetic fragments, rather than whole live virus, Dr. Cevik said.
Because the infectious period seems to peak relatively quickly in the course of the illness, health care workers at community clinics may be at higher risk of becoming infected than those working in I.C.U. units, where patients tend to be in the later stages, Dr. Cevik added.
The analysis underscores data that has accumulated since March. In July, based on similar evidence, the C.D.C. truncated its recommendation for isolation to 10 days from 14 days.
But even at 10 days, the isolation period may be too long for many people, experts said. Patients may be financially unable to isolate for so long, or they may not feel sick enough to want to do so.
If you could make that shorter for people, I think that would really help people comply with the public health guidelines, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist affiliated with the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, referring to the recommended isolation period.
But the new analysis is limited by the fact that only a few of the included studies looked at live virus, she added.
Some people who are older or very sick may be infectious for longer than a week. But if a shorter recommended period encourages more people to isolate, the benefit will more than offset any risk to the community from the small amount of virus that a few patients may still carry after five days, said Dr. Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.
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But some doctors said that they were not convinced by the analysis that five days of isolation would prevent transmission from a majority of people.
Theres a sweet spot there, I would imagine, but I havent figured out where that is, said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care and infectious disease physician at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Cevik and other experts suggest that people can isolate as soon as they experience even mild symptoms, such as a sore throat or head and body aches without venturing out for a P.C.R. test right when they are most infectious.
But Dr. Bell said he was unsure how this would work in practice, because these early symptoms were similar to those from other viral infections, including the common cold.
Dr. Cevik said a P.C.R. test could be performed after isolation ended to confirm the diagnosis. Alternately, it may make sense to take a rapid antigen test which can detect high amounts of virus while isolating, so as to confirm an active coronavirus infection.
Other experts also endorsed the use of at-home rapid tests. I think thats a lovely solution, Dr. Ranney said. If you have symptoms, and you have a reliable test that you can do at home, stay home, test at home and isolate for five days.
Over all, the new analysis underscores how quickly the coronavirus blooms in the body and the speed with which both patients and doctors must respond to keep it contained, Dr. Baral said. Levels of the MERS virus peak at seven to 10 days from symptom onset, and those of the SARS virus peak at Days 10 to 14.
By contrast, the new coronavirus moves quick, Dr. Baral said. Its a very difficult virus to control, as compared to SARS.
Home isolation is safe for most of those newly infected with the coronavirus, he added essentially the model of care that doctors use for patients suspected of having influenza.
Some countries already have adopted policies to make it easier for people to isolate. Vietnam provides income support to people who need to take time off work. Until May, the Japanese government asked patients who were young and had mild symptoms to stay home for four days before seeking testing.
Japans guidelines now ask patients to consult by phone with their doctors and to seek testing only if they seem likely to be infected. Anyone who tests positive is admitted to a hospital or a hotel to isolate. In the United States, New York City and Vermont have made similar accommodations available to infected patients.
Even if the rest of the country doesnt implement such policies, having patients isolate at home while wearing a mask, keeping windows open, cleaning high-touch surfaces and staying far from other household members is more feasible for five days than for 10, Dr. Baral said.
I do think theres an element of diminishing returns with those last four or five days, he said. An intense amount of isolation during that first five to seven days would avert a ton of infections a ton.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo.
BALTIMORE (WJZ) The Baltimore Ravens continue to make numerous roster moves due to an outbreak of COVID-19 within the team.
As of Monday, 21 Ravens have been put on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. On Monday, the team officially placed Mark Andrews, Matthew Judon, Willie Snead IV and Terrell Bonds on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. Bonds had already been on injured reserve.
The team activated four players from the list on Monday: Jaylon Ferguson, D.J. Fluker, Iman Marshall and Broderick Washington. Tyre Phillips was also activated from injured reserve.
This comes as the outbreak within the team appears to only grow larger by the day.
As of Sunday night, at least 12 Ravens players and eight members of Baltimores staff had tested positive for COVID-19 over the past eight days, according to CBS Sports. That includes star quarterback Lamar Jackson, per NFL reports.
Players who test positive for COVID-19 are required to quarantine for a minimum of 10 days, according to the team. Players who are deemed high-risk close contacts have to sit out at least five days.
There are 19 players currently on the COVID-19/Reserve List ahead of Tuesdays game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Heres who is on the COVID-19/Reserve List and when the Ravens added them to the list:
Monday, Nov. 23: Mark Ingram II, J.K. Dobbins, Brandon Williams
Tuesday, Nov. 24: Pernell McPhee
Wednesday, Nov. 25: Calais Campbell, Patrick Mekari, Matt Skura
Thursday, Nov. 26:Jihad Ward
Friday, Nov. 27: Lamar Jackson, Patrick Ricard, Justin Madubuike, Morgan Cox
Saturday, Nov. 28: Jaylon Ferguson, D.J. Fluker, Will Holden, Broderick Washington, Tavon Young, Khalil Dorsey
Sunday, Nov. 29: Matthew Judon*, Mark Andrews*, Willie Snead*
Monday, Nov. 30: Terrell Bonds, (Matthew Judon, Mark Andrews and Willie Snead were officially added to the list on Monday after reports on Sunday indicated they would be)
The Ravens are expected to play the Steelers on Tuesday, December 1 at 8 p.m.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020.
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Departments website or call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
Yale undergraduate Henry Jacob had planned to spend last summer sifting through archives in the United States and Canada researching a proposed senior thesis on the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secretive militant group that sought to form a slave empire in the Americas during the U.S. Civil War.
The pandemic upended his plans. The archival repositories were closed. His thesis idea was shelved. The inability to access physical records made the rising senior and Saybrook College resident consider the importance of oral histories in capturing events for posterity.
Then Jacob had a conversation with Adam Haliburton 06 B.A., a resident graduate affiliate at Saybrook who studies East Asian languages and literature. Meant to be an interview forThe Yale Historical Review, a campus journal that Jacob edits, it became a two-hour tte--tte about Saybrook a topic of mutual affection. Jacob hadnt been to the college since the pandemic struck in March. Haliburton had hardly left.
Their discussion sparked an idea that has blossomed into Say and Seal: Lives at Yale During COVID-19, a new podcast that documents this difficult period on campus through the voices and experiences of those living through it.
We hope to provide a singular record of this time on campus, said Jacob, who is majoring in history and pursuing a Certificate in Spanish. Were recording the experiences of Yale students, faculty, and staff so that 50 years from now, researchers can get a sense of how the coronavirus shaped life on and off campus. There is no shortage of interesting stories happening now and we want to preserve some of them for the future.
Before launching the project, the pair enlisted the help of Micah Young 21, Jacobs former suitemate. The three then contacted University Archivist Michael Lotstein, who is leading theHelp Us Make History project, which encourages Yale students to share their academic and personal experiences during the pandemic with an eye toward helping future scholars understand this extraordinary time. Lotstein, a Saybrook College fellow, was excited to collaborate with them; he said the podcast nicely complements his own efforts to record this era for Yales archives.
You can't get a more firsthand account of the experiences of students during the pandemic in their own words than this podcast, Lotstein said. Its just a terrific student-guided project. I think it'll become a very rich and important historical resource.
Lotstein arranged for a web platform for the podcast and put the three creators in touch with Ryan McEvoy, a producer at the Yale Broadcast Studio, who has provided them key technical support. (None had any prior experience producing a podcast.)
The three recorded a brief introductory episode in which they share their own pandemic stories. Jacob, who is from New Haven, has been living with his parents since campus was closed last spring, occupying the third floor of their home. Young, who is from San Francisco, is living in off-campus housing. Haliburton spent the summer in the college with the head, dean, resident fellows, and their families, likening it to living aboard a vessel at sea.
It was something between a ghost ship and something manned with a skeleton crew, Haliburton said of his experience.
The three producers fondness for Saybrook is reflected in the podcasts title, whichreferences the colleges arms and badge.
The first full episode,which is now available, focuses on undergraduates who opted to take a gap year. It features interviews with three students: Liam Elkind, a rising senior and co-founder ofInvisible Hands, a New York City-based nonprofit organization that delivers groceries, medicine, and other essentials to at-risk individuals; Kari Hustad, a rising senior and film studies major, who took the semester off because COVID-related restrictions made it difficult to produce a high-quality senior film project; and Isabella Smeets, a first-year student who is volunteering with Sweet Readers, a non-profit that pairs middle school students with adults living with Alzheimers Disease, and is also studying ancient Greek online and volunteering with The Yale Review.
The interviews have a conversational tone. Jacob, Young, and Haliburton take turns asking questions, drawing out information about their subjects projects, motivations, and lifestyles amid the pandemic. They illicit small details, such as what shows the students are watching. (Elkind enthusiastically endorses the sitcom Jane the Virgin.)
The little details are important to creating a robust record, Jacob said.
The historical record is riddled with all kinds of discrepancies, pauses, and silences due to natural disasters like fires and earthquakes, or peoples inability to write, or sources being lost over time, he said. As someone who had planned to work in archives this summer, I just believe these small details can be really productive and become increasingly valuable with time.
The next episode will focus on peoples reactions to the recent national elections. The producers plan 9 or 10 episodes altogether and welcome ideas about potential subjects for future installments.
Young, who composed the podcasts theme music, said the project is about more than simply creating a record: Its also a way to stay in touch while so many people are dispersed and isolated due to the virus.
A podcast is a COVID-safe form of communication, said Young, who is majoring in economics and African studies. It can be an effective way to build and maintain community during this difficult situation.
The podcast is available on the Yale Librarys Department of Manuscripts and Archives website.It is also available onSpotify,Soundcloud,and Apple iTunes. Anyone interested in submitting ideas or getting involved should contactHenry Jacob.
With concerns that Thanksgiving gatherings could produce a surge on top of a surge of COVID-19 cases, Illinois wont be moving from Tier 3 COVID-19 restrictions for at least the next few weeks, Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday.
While cases have dropped, hospitalizations remain highest since the spring surge, Pritzker said.
If we are not especially careful right now, the surge will overwhelm our health care system, Pritzker said in explaining why he intends to keep restrictions in place, even if cases continue to decrease in the short-term.
The states public health director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, also recommended that anyone who got together with people outside of their immediate family for Thanksgiving get tested for the virus six or seven days after they spent time with others, saying that could help identify any COVID-19 spread.
Illinois public health officials reported 6,190 more probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 85 more people have died of the virus. Officials also say more than 5,849 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 as of Sunday night.
But what do the COVID-19 numbers actually tell us about how effective the measures have been so far? Furthermore, what can Illinois expect from this holiday season?
We took those questions to experts at Northwestern and University of Chicago Medical Centers.
Todays positive test results are really a snapshot from COVID-19 cases contracted an average of seven days before.
Pritzker noted Monday that the downward trend in case counts in the past week are not from Tier 3 restrictions which are from 10 days ago but rather more likely from the restrictions and adherence from weeks before.
The state shut down indoor dining and bars in much of the state around Oct. 30. Tier 3 restrictions went into effect Nov. 20, and cases have gone down in both Chicago and Illinois as a whole.
On Nov. 20, Illinois reported 12,954 new probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19. Over the past week, the state has averaged 8,812 cases a day. Thats a more than 20% decrease from the week prior.
What explains that drop? Again, its unclear.
Epidemiologists say that the most recent drop may be more about testing than cases.
Over the weekend, fewer people were tested for COVID-19 in Illinois than in the week prior, which could potentially contribute to the decline in positive cases were seeing right now. The Thanksgiving holiday also fell on a weekend, which means that test results can be delayed a bit.
On top of that, to give healthcare workers a break, some testing centers were also closed.
University of Chicago Hospital epidemiologist Emily Landon said the push of restrictions against the pull of holiday gatherings make it even more difficult to understand what exactly is happening right now.
I know that people are thrilled to see the numbers going down a little bit, and would like to see us stop some of the mitigations now, but I dont think thats a good idea, she said. You have to keep doing them for longer than youd think you have to.
Understand that the states numbers are merely a sketch of the pandemic situation at any given time. Doctors said that hospitalization rates tell you more about how serious the pandemic is, which Pritzker alluded to Monday.
An average of 5,944 people have been in the hospital for COVID-19 during the last seven days. Those people caught the virus within the last two to three weeks, on average.
Beating back COVID-19 is like stopping a tidal wave, said University of Chicago Hospital epidemiologist Emily Landon. You cant you can only slow it and the goal is to use restrictions to break the surge a little at a time.
Well know in about seven to 10 days what the initial wave of infections looks like. But it will take three to four weeks to understand the holidays full impact. Its more than just the people who were infected at a Thanksgiving gathering its a potential exponential spread of the virus.
Any one transmission event is not the real problem, Landon said. Its that those people then go out and infect two more people and those people go out and infect two more people. After two or three incubation periods, you have a massive outbreak.
Landon hopes that the Tier 3 mitigations put in place before Thanksgiving could have led to fewer people being exposed to COVID-19 ahead of the holiday. Those same restrictions could then limit someone who was infected at a gathering from spreading the virus throughout the community.
Its hard to say exactly how many people traveled and how many stayed home in Illinois. AAA estimated that 2.4 million people in Illinois were expected to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday, but that number could be lower as people monitored COVID-19 cases.
Nationally, CNN reports that 9.4 million people flew between the Friday before Thanksgiving and Sunday. Thats an all time high during the pandemic.
We dont know how many people attended unmasked gatherings, which is the real issue.
Lori Post is a professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University who closely surveils COVID-19 data. She is expecting a God awful upward spike in cases about a week from now. Theres quite a few risk factors at play as the pandemic is accelerating all across the country.
Emissions data shows that people are moving around more now than they were during spring lockdowns, and activities once considered nonessential are commonplace.
Not only are people travelling for the holiday, many students were sent home from college the rest of the year, because universities didnt want them bringing COVID-19 back to campus, Post said. Theyre more likely to be asymptomatic and infect older, less healthy relatives.
Statistically, the United States also has higher incidences of COVID-19 risk factors like heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, compared to other countries.
And in the spring, during the last peak, the virus was less prevalent outside of large urban areas. Now its everywhere, Post said.
Post, who is from Oklahoma, compared the dip in case numbers in the state to the calm before a tornado.
Right before a tornado touches down everything is still, she said. Thats where were at right now, and were about ready to go for a really big ride here.
If people gather unmasked again for Christmas, Hanukkah or New Years, there will obviously be more COVID-19 spread. But science is not divination there is literally no model that can tell us what the pandemic will look like a month from now.
However, hospitals are seriously concerned about capacity. Theres not much slack in the medical system, so a serious influx in cases can put lives in jeopardy.
Marc Sala is a pulmonologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Part of his job is managing ventilators for patients with COVID-19.
Right now, the hospital is not at capacity, but Sala said the tension doctors feel resembles the very beginning of the pandemic.
Its just a question of when the numbers will dramatically increase, he said. Its just an uncertainty of how much.
He said with the limited data we have, its very difficult to know how bad the wave will hit hospitals like his. He said their eyes are always on the number of ventilators and beds available.
We fear what will come from the winter holidays, he said. Weve seen numbers go up with this most recent surge over the last month. What we really dont want to have happen is a punctuated onslaught of new cases in the next week.
Vivian McCall is a news intern at WBEZ. Follow her @MVivianMcCall.
The United States passed four million cases of the coronavirus for November on Saturday, more than double the record 1.9 million cases set in October.
Now experts have warned Americans to expect that sharp rise in cases to continue, due in part to the Thanksgiving holiday potentially worsening heading into the December holiday season.
What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, is that we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in, Dr Anthony Fauci said in an interview on NBC News Meet the Press on Sunday.
The governments leading infectious disease expert added officials tried to get the word out for people, as difficult as it is, to really not have large gatherings but ultimately the travel industry suggested many Americans didnt heed calls to stay home.
Airline and transportation authorities report Americans traveled by the millions over the weekend, and amid Black Friday, retailers experienced large crowds and overnight lines despite government and merchant pleas to primarily shop online.
US surgeon general Jerome Adams acknowledged the surge on Sunday, adding that he expects the rise to continue. Covid-19 has now killed more than 265,000 people in America, with 1,192 new deaths from the virus reported on Saturday.
I want to be straight with the American people, its gonna get worse over the next several weeks, he told on Fox News Sunday. The actions that we take in the next several days will determine how bad it is or whether or not we continue to flatten our curve.
According to Covid-19 tracking data, more than 1.1 million people tested positive for the virus in the past week, an average of 170,000 people a day. On Saturday, public health officials reported a daily record of 91,635 hospitalizations.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said another state shutdown is not out of the question but, for now, he would just beg folks, particularly in the holiday season, to keep [their] guard up.
In terms of a shutdown, I dont anticipate it, and I sure as heck dont want to go that route, Murphy added.
Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson later told the show a state lockdown is the last resort. Were not trying to shut down businesses that are doing a good job, Hutchinson, a Republican, said. We realize that you can really increase problems across the board if you start shutting down businesses, putting people unemployed going into Christmas season.
In New York City, officials announced public schools will begin a phased reopening of in-person learning starting on 7 December.
Retailers had reported a far more muted Black Friday this year. Its not Black Friday. Its not people waiting in line the way were used to, Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at The NPD Group said, told NBC.
Meanwhile, health officials in Californias largest cities Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco have now imposed the strictest stay-at-home measures since spring in response to the national case surge.
The state reported 15,614 new Covid-19 cases and 32 new deaths on Sunday, bringing the state count to 1,198,934 cases and the death toll to 19,121 since the pandemic began, according to figures released by the California Department of Public Health.
Los Angeles county will impose a lockdown calling for its 10 million residents to stay home beginning Monday.
Santa Clara county is banning all high school, collegiate and professional sports and imposing a quarantine for those traveling into the region from more than 150 miles away.
Indiana health officials plan to have a school coronavirus case dashboard operational online by the end of September. Here's what we know so far. Wochit
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Nearly 2,000 additional cases of COVID-19 in Indiana schools were reported Monday by the Indiana State Department of Health. The majority of the cases occurred last week, but some date back to earlier in the month, according to the weekly dashboard update.
Of the additional cases reported Monday, 1,234 occurred instudents, 311 occurred inteachers and 368occurred in school staff members. This week's numbers show a marked drop in newly reported cases compared to the two weeks prior, likely due to the number of schools moving back to virtual learning. Schools do not have to report cases that occur in students who are receiving instruction entirely online.
Schools and students have had to make big adjustments this year, like wearing masks throughout the school day.(Photo: Kelly Wilkinson/IndyStar)
Coronavirus in Indiana: These schools going to eLearning or hybrid due to COVID-19 cases
In Marion County, the health department has ordered all schools closed from now until mid-January, in response to a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases. The positivity rate among school-age students has risen above thresholds that the county health department deemed safe as high as 18% for high school students.
The state department of health updates its dashboard of COVID-19 cases in schools weekly on Mondays and the current totals since the start of the school year are 11,677 students, 2,486teachers and2,899staff members statewide more than 17,000cases total. There are roughly 1.1 million students in the state, according to the Indiana Department of Education.
Participation in the state dashboard is not mandatory for schools, and 386schools have yet to report to the state. Of the schools that have reported to the state, the number that have not seen a case yet continues to drop. As of Monday, 1,775schools have at least one case and 205have no cases.
For the data that has been reported, the state dashboard lists data by school. IndyStar has compiled totals for public schooldistricts in Central Indiana those in Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, Morgan and Shelby counties.
Totals are listed as a minimum number of cases because for schools thatreported somewhere between one and five cases, the state has suppressed that data for privacy reasons.
Also listed areeachdistrict's2019-20 student enrollment figure and the date that the school year started. If a district started the year virtually, both the first day of school and the first day with the option of in-person class for at least some students are listed.
Here's a look at the latest district totals as of Monday, Nov. 30:
COVID-19 cases:At least 15students, at least one teacher and at least fivestaffers.
Enrollment: 3,381
School start date: Aug. 13
COVID-19 cases:At least 14students, at least three teachers and at least three staffers.
Enrollment: 1,732
School start date:Aug. 12
COVID-19 cases:At least 177students, at least 14teachers and at least sevenstaffers.
Enrollment:7,435
School start date: Aug. 10
COVID-19 cases: At least 167 students, at least nineteachers and at least 17staffers. The district was first included in the state database a month ago and historical data does not appear to be included. Per the district's dashboard, 274students have tested positive since Aug. 9, as well as 33teachers since Sept. 13 and 39staff members since Sept. 27.
Enrollment:16,664
School start date: Aug. 13
COVID-19 cases: At least 31students, at least three teachers and at least 10staffers.
Enrollment:2,351
School start date: Aug. 11
COVID-19 cases: At least 73 students, at least five teachers and at least 10 staffers. The totals this week on the state dashboard are the same as the previous week. Per HSE's dashboard,45students and 15employees (teachers and staff) tested positive during the week of Nov. 23to 29.
Enrollment:22,183
School start date: Aug. 6 virtually; Sept. 8 in-person; Grades 7-12 moved to virtual on Nov. 16 for the rest of the semester and PreK to 6 moved to virtual for Nov. 19 to Dec. 4
COVID-19 cases:At least 130students, at least eight teachers and at least eight staffers.
Enrollment:10,676
School start date: Aug. 4
COVID-19 cases:At least 17students, at least two teachers and at least three staffers.
Enrollment:1,031
School start date: Aug. 17
COVID-19 cases:At least 108students, at least 15teachers andat least four staffers.
Enrollment:8,435
School start date: Aug. 13
COVID-19 cases:At least 26students, at least threeteachers and at least twostaffers.
Enrollment:1,195
School start date: Aug. 3
COVID-19 cases:At least 35students, at least sixteachers and at least sixstaffers.
Enrollment:4,498
School start date: July 30
COVID-19 cases:At least 56students, at least fiveteachers and at least threestaff members.
Enrollment:4,338
School start date: Aug. 17
COVID-19 cases:At least 35students, at least 11teachers and at least fivestaffers.
Enrollment:3,801
School start date: Aug. 3
COVID-19 cases: At least 119students, at least sixteachers and at least eight staffers.
Enrollment:9,871
School start date: July 29
COVID-19 cases: At least 124students, at least fiveteachers and at least fourstaffers.
Enrollment:9,453
School start date: July 30
COVID-19 cases: At least 24 students, at least twoteachers and at least twostaffers.
Enrollment:2,487
School start date: Aug. 13
COVID-19 cases: At least sevenstudents, at least oneteacher and at least twostaffers.
Enrollment:1,534
School start date: July 31;Mill Creek moved to fulltime virtual instruction Nov. 12.
COVID-19 cases: At least 13students, at least threeteachers and at least twostaffers.
Enrollment:1,877
School start date: Aug. 5
COVID-19 cases: At least 53students, at least three teachers and at least threestaffers.
Enrollment:5,759
School start date: Aug. 5
COVID-19 cases: At least 111 students, at least 13teachers and at least eightstaffers.
Enrollment:8,876
School start date: Aug. 12
COVID-19 cases: At least 62students, at least 18teachers and at least three staffers.
Enrollment:6,979
School start date: Aug. 6
COVID-19 cases: At least threestudents, at least two teachers and at least onestaffer.
Enrollment:859
School start date: July 30
COVID-19 cases: At least 54students, at least fiveteachers and at least 23staffers.
Enrollment:5,031
School start date: Aug. 17
COVID-19 cases: At least 44students, at least fiveteachers and at least five staffers.
Enrollment:4,006
School start date: Aug. 6
COVID-19 cases: At least 15students, at least twoteachers and at least onestaffer.
Enrollment:1,981
School start date: Aug. 5
Marion County is requiring schools to return to virtual instruction by Nov. 30.
COVID-19 cases: At least 39 students, at least 12teachers and at least four staffers.
Enrollment:2,939
School start date: July 30 virtually; Aug. 10 in-person;Beech Grove started the transition to virtual instruction Nov. 10 for its high school, Nov. 16 for its middle school and Nov. 18 for elementary schools.
COVID-19 cases: At least 81students, at least seventeachers and at least sixstaffers.
Enrollment:10,305
School start date: Aug. 5; Nov. 23 moved to virtual
COVID-19 cases: IPS is not reporting cases to the state. It is reporting cases to the Marion County Health Department, which does not report school case information publicly, and on its own public dashboard. The district's dashboard lists 176cases recorded from Oct. 4 to Nov. 21.
Enrollment: 31,171
School start date: Aug. 17 virtually; Oct. 5 in-person; Nov. 23 moved to virtual
COVID-19 cases: At least 19students, at least nineteachers and at least eight staffers.
Enrollment:6,825
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