COVID-19 spreads in U.S. households more often than previously thought, according to a new study.
The study, published Friday (Oct. 30) in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, involved 191 people in Tennessee and Wisconsin who lived with someone recently diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 102 people become infected within seven days of being enrolled in the study, for a "secondary infection rate" of 53%. (The secondary infection rate is the percentage of exposed people who catch COVID-19 from the first case.)
About 75% of these secondary infections occurred within five days of the first household member getting sick.
Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history
"We observed that, after a first household member became sick, several infections were rapidly detected in the household," study lead author Dr. Carlos Grijalva, an associate professor of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said in a statement.
Other studies looking at transmission of COVID-19 in households mostly conducted in Europe and Asia have found a secondary infection rate of 30% or lower. But the new study, which was conducted from April through September, is one of the first to look at COVID-19 transmission in U.S. households in a systematic way, with participants undergoing daily testing for COVID-19.
Part of the reason for the higher secondary infection rate in the new study, compared with previous reports, may be due to the study's rigorous methods and follow-up testing of household contacts, the authors said. In addition, studies in other countries may have had lower secondary infection rates because people in those countries were quicker to wear face masks inside their own home when another household member was sick. (Mask use when sick has not traditionally been part of American culture, whereas it is in some other countries.)
The study also found that "substantial transmission" occurred regardless of whether the first household case (known as the index case) was a child or an adult.
Indeed, in households in which the index case was under 12 years old, the secondary infection rate was 53%; and in households in which the index patient was ages 18 to 49, the secondary infection rate was 55%, the report found.
"Infections occurred fast, whether the first sick household member was a child or an adult," Grijalva said.
What's more, fewer than half of household members showed symptoms at the time they tested positive for COVID-19, and 18% remained asymptomatic over the seven-day study. This finding underscores the need for people to quarantine if they've had close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19, the authors said.
Overall, "persons who suspect that they might have COVID-19 should isolate, stay at home, and use a separate bedroom and bathroom if feasible," the report said. This isolation should begin even before a person gets tested or gets their results. In addition, all household members should start wearing a mask in their home, particularly in shared spaces where social distancing isn't possible, the authors said.
The authors note that their study was conducted in two U.S. cities Nashville, Tennessee, and Marshfield, Wisconsin and the families in the study may not be representative of the general U.S. population.
Originally published on Live Science.
Read: The pandemic is in uncharted territory
Jelic was among the doctors treating COVID-19 patients in New York in the spring, when hundreds of people were turning up at the citys hospitals everyday unable to breathe. Patients were crammed into hallways; doctors were overworked. Normally, Jelic says, she might have seen eight or 10 patients in a day. In April, she and two fellows were responsible for 60, any of whom might crash and need to be intubated.
Lack of knowledge about the virus constrained what doctors did. Hospitals initially favored ventilation in part because doctors feared that high-flow therapy oxygen could aerosolize the virus and spread it to staff who didnt have adequate supplies of personal protective equipment. (Now, of course, we know that the virus can be spread through aerosols generated from just normal talking and exhaling.) In some cases, aggressive intubation might have done more harm than good in patients who didnt need it. Doctors stopped putting every patient on a ventilator once they realized the benefits of less invasive oxygen therapy and even turning patients onto their bellies, also known as proning.
Because COVID-19 can, like many conditions, manifest so differently from person to person, knowing which patients might benefitor be hurtby a treatment is a key part of the learning curve. There isnt a one-size-fits-all treatment, says Nicholas Caputo, a doctor at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, who was one early advocate of proning. Ventilation is one example of a treatment that can help or hurt depending on the patient. Another is dexamethasone, a steroid that suppresses the immune system. The drug has been shown to reduce mortality in patients with severe COVID-19, whose immune systems have become hyperactive, but might harm patients with milder cases whose immune systems are still trying to clear the virus.
Read: Immunology is where intuition goes to die
Doctors have also learned to watch out for COVID-19s more unusual symptoms. The disease has been linked to kidney failure; those patients might need dialysis. Its also linked to blood clots; patients who show warning signs might need blood thinners. Seeing more cases of COVID-19 has also allowed doctors to refine details like the size of tubing used with ECMO, an artificial-lung technology for the sickest patients who arent doing well on ventilators.
A lot of this experience has been shared in real time and informally. J. Eduardo Rame, a cardiologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, helps convene a regular Zoom forum where doctors discuss the latest, such as how to use ECMO. Experiential learning, as Rame puts it, has been vital for sharing information about a new disease. But doctors are also trained to rely on data and randomized, controlled trials, not anecdotes. Were nowhere near the inflection point where we can have medical care dictated by evidence, Rame says, which puts doctors in a strange position. For now, they have experience to go on, which is better than nothing. But its not data.
Like a specter, the question looms: How risky is trick-or-treating with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the air and possibly on the candy?
In a study published October 30, 2020 in the journal mSystems, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and San Diego State University analyzed the viral load on Halloween candy handled by patients with COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets and aerosols. The risk of infection by touching fomites objects or surfaces upon which viral particles have landed and persist is relatively low, according to multiple studies, even when fomites are known to have been exposed to the novel coronavirus. Nonetheless, the risk is not zero.
Researchers say the main COVID-19 risk during Halloween festivities is interacting with people without masks, so if you are sharing candy, be safe by putting it in dish where you can wave from six feet away. Photo credit: Pixabay
The main takeaway is that, although the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by surfaces, including candy wrappers, is low, it can be reduced even further by washing your hands with soap before handling the candy and washing the candy with household dishwashing detergent afterwards, said co-senior author Rob Knight, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. The main risk is interacting with people without masks, so if you are sharing candy, be safe by putting it in dish where you can wave from six feet away. Knight led the study with Forest Rohwer, PhD, viral ecologist at San Diego State University, and Louise Laurent, MD, PhD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
For their study, the researchers enrolled 10 recently diagnosed COVID-19 patients who were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and asked them to handle Halloween candy under three different conditions: 1) normally with unwashed hands; 2) while deliberately coughing with extensive handling; and 3) normal handling after handwashing.
The candy was then divided into two treatments no post-handling washing (untreated) and washed with household dishwashing detergent followed by analyses using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, the same technology used to diagnose COVID-19 infections in people, and a second analytical platform that can conduct tests on larger samples more quickly and cheaply. Both produced similar findings.
On candies not washed post-handling, researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 on 60 percent of the samples that had been deliberately coughed on and on 60 percent of the samples handled normally with unwashed hands. However, the virus was detected only 10 percent of the candies handled after handwashing.
Not surprisingly, the dishwashing detergent was effective for reducing the viral RNA on candies, with reducing the viral load by 62.1 percent.
They had also planned to test bleach, but importantly, we noted that bleach sometimes leaked through some of the candy wrappers, making it unsafe for this type of cleaning use, Rohwer said.
The study authors underscored that the likely risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from candy is low, even if handled by someone with a COVID-19 infection, but it can be reduced to near-zero if the candy is handled only by people who have first washed their hands and if it is washed with household dishwashing detergent for approximately a minute after collection.
Additional co-authors include: Rodolfo A. Salido, Sydney C. Morgan, Celestien G. Magallenes, Clarisse Marotz, Peter DeHoff, Pedro Belda-Ferre, Stefan Aigner, Deborah M. Kado, Gene W. Yeo, Jack A. Gilbert, all at UC San Diego; and Maria I. Rojas of San Diego State University.
The ICU at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Fla., was 99% full this week, according to an internal report produced by the federal government. It's among numerous hospitals the report highlighted with ICUs filled to over 90% capacity. Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption
The ICU at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Fla., was 99% full this week, according to an internal report produced by the federal government. It's among numerous hospitals the report highlighted with ICUs filled to over 90% capacity.
As coronavirus cases rise swiftly around the country, surpassing both the spring and summer surges, health officials brace for a coming wave of hospitalizations and deaths. Knowing which hospitals in which communities are reaching capacity could be key to an effective response to the growing crisis. That information is gathered by the federal government but not shared openly with the public.
NPR has obtained documents that give a snapshot of data the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services collects and analyzes daily. The documents reports sent to agency staffers highlight trends in hospitalizations and pinpoint cities nearing full hospital capacity and facilities under stress. They paint a granular picture of the strain on hospitals across the country that could help local citizens decide when to take extra precautions against COVID-19.
Withholding this information from the public and the research community is a missed opportunity to help prevent outbreaks and even save lives, say public health and data experts who reviewed the documents for NPR.
"At this point, I think it's reckless. It's endangering people," says Ryan Panchadsaram, co-founder of the website COVID Exit Strategy and a former data official in the Obama administration. "We're now in the third wave, and I think our only way out is really open, transparent and actionable information."
The documents show that detailed information hospitals report to HHS every day is reviewed and analyzed but circulation seems to be limited to a few dozen government staffers from HHS and its agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health, according to distribution lists reviewed by NPR. Only one member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Adm. Brett Giroir, appears to receive the documents directly.
"Our goal is to be as transparent as possible, while still protecting privacy," an HHS spokesperson wrote in an email to NPR. "HHS and the White House Coronavirus Task Force utilize hospital capacity data to gain greater insights into how COVID-19 is spreading and impacting the population, and to better inform response efforts like staff deployments and supply shipments."
What data is being collected and shared internally?
The daily reports show county, city and hospital-level details, as well as national analyses that HHS does not post online.
A page from a report shared internally to HHS staffers presents hospital data from Oct. 27, including a list of cities where hospital and ICU beds are filling up. HHS hide caption
For instance, the most recent report obtained by NPR, dated Oct 27, lists cities where hospitals are filling up, including the metro areas of Atlanta, Minneapolis and Baltimore, where in-patient hospital beds are over 80% full. It also lists specific hospitals reaching max capacity, including facilities in Tampa, Birmingham and New York that are at over 95% ICU capacity and at risk of running out of intensive care beds.
In reviewing the analysis obtained by NPR, Panchadsaram says the local and hospital-level data HHS is collecting would be very useful to researchers and health leaders. "That stuff isn't easy to find at a national level," he says. "There's no one place [publicly] you can go to get all that data."
Hospitalization data is invaluable in looking ahead to see where and when outbreaks are getting worse, says Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. "Right now, as we head into the fall and winter surge," Murray says, "we're trying to put more emphasis on predicting where systems will be overwhelmed."
But what's missing for this kind of planning, he says, is "exactly the information" that appears in the internal report.
NPR has reviewed several of these reports generated in the past month. They present trends in hospital use, including increases in ventilator usage, along with a growing number of inpatient and ICU beds being occupied by COVID-19 patients. The Oct. 27 report showed that all three measures have increased by 14%-16% in the past month.
About 24% of U.S. hospitals are using more than 80% of their ICU capacity, based on reporting from nearly 5,000 "priority facilities," and more hospitals have joined their ranks in recent weeks.
A page from a report shared internally to HHS staffers shows the rising percentage of hospital ICUs that are at or above 80% capacity. It reflects data as of Oct. 27. HHS hide caption
A page from a report shared internally to HHS staffers shows the rising percentage of hospital ICUs that are at or above 80% capacity. It reflects data as of Oct. 27.
Researchers say observing these trend lines can help the nation know how to prepare for surge and be ready to intervene before systems become overwhelmed.
Daily hospitalization numbers in particular are key measures for tracking pandemic hotspots, Murray says, because they reflect the number of severe COVID-19 cases in a community.
"The best possible measure of where we are in the pandemic, and the one we would want to anchor modeling to, is daily hospitalizations," he says, which give an early warning of deaths that will likely follow.
Panchadsaram's data-tracking site COVID Exit Strategy pulls state-level hospital capacity estimates from HHS when they're updated, which generally happens once a week. In reviewing the reports obtained by NPR, Panchadsaram says it's clear that vital data is flowing into HHS daily. "But sharing with the public seems to be an afterthought," he says.
Gaps in transparency for state and local leaders
HHS tells NPR that more than 800 state-level employees have access to the daily hospitalization data it gathers, but only for their own state, unless another state grants them permission to view its data.
Without a larger view into national or regional data, some states like Tennessee, which has eight bordering states are missing out on valuable regional data, says Melissa McPheeters, who directs the Center for Improving the Public's Health through Informatics at Vanderbilt University.
"Hospitals in Tennessee serve patients who are from Arkansas and Mississippi and Kentucky and Georgia and vice versa, and so we're a little bit blind to what's going on there," she says. "When we see hospitals that are particularly near those state borders having increases, one of the things we can't tell is: Is that because hospitals in an adjacent state are full? What's going on there? And that could be a really important piece of the picture."
Lisa M. Lee, former chief science officer for public health surveillance at the CDC, now at Virginia Tech, says the federal government could help states work together across borders.
"It's very challenging for states to get the multistate view of things," she says. "It's just a lot easier when there's a knowledgeable third-party who can pull the data together, make them consistent across states and actually tell the story of what the information shows." Typically, she says, this role would be fulfilled by the CDC, but the agency was stripped of its role in collecting COVID-19 hospital data in July.
This kind of visibility into data could help policymakers decide how best to curb the spread of the virus. McPheeters and colleagues at Vanderbilt put out a report this week that found that Tennessee counties without mask mandates had more rapid increases in hospitalizations. That kind of analysis and insight would be possible at a much larger scale if HHS shared more granular hospitalization data, she says.
It could influence behavior among the public, says Lee. "The neighborhood data, the county data and metro-area data can be really helpful for people to say, 'Whoa, they're not kidding, this is right here,'" she says. "It can help public health prevention folks get their messages across and get people to change their behavior."
A page from a report shared internally to HHS staffers shows a list of health care facilities where beds are filling up, reflecting data as of Oct. 27. HHS hide caption
A page from a report shared internally to HHS staffers shows a list of health care facilities where beds are filling up, reflecting data as of Oct. 27.
A controversial data switch
Experts who reviewed the internal documents for NPR say that even for the limited group of federal employees who get them, the daily reports are not as useful as they could be.
"We're so focused on counting things but not contextualizing them," explains McPheeters. A community hospital might become overwhelmed at a different point than a big academic hospital, and without that context, she says, it's impossible to tell: "Is 75% [full] a good thing or is 75% a bad thing?"
Health data experts NPR consulted had ideas on how to improve the analysis. For instance, Panchadsaram suggested that some of the county-level charts, currently presented as raw numbers, would be more useful if analyzed per capita. "You really need to adjust it to the number of people [in an area] to get a sense of where things are being overwhelmed," he says.
And the quality of the underlying data is a concern. Health experts say the data quality was compromised by a controversial shift in data collection from the CDC to HHS in July, and that the issues with data quality have not been fully resolved.
Hospitals have had to adjust to onerous new reporting requirements, and the hospital data is no longer checked and analyzed by seasoned epidemiologists and other experts at CDC.
The daily trend documents circulated at HHS include this disclaimer: "This analysis depends on the data reported by hospitals. To the extent that the data is missing or inaccurate, this analysis will also reflect those issues."
According to HHS data posted on Monday, just 62% of the nation's hospitals reported all the required information last week.
But greater transparency, even of incomplete data, can be invaluable in a crisis, experts say.
HHS told NPR that since it took over collecting hospital capacity data, it has "consistently displayed state-level hospitalization data to help inform the public about COVID-19 prevalence in their communities."
But public health experts say the state level data isn't detailed enough and since the government is putting the effort into generating more granular daily analyses, it should share them.
"Even though they're collecting all these things and putting so much effort behind it, it gets blocked when it tries to get out of the door," Panchadsaram says.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Maine ticked up in the past week, with a geographic pattern that parallels the wider distribution in new cases as the state experiences a record surge of positive tests.
Throughout the pandemic, COVID-19 inpatient admissions have been concentrated at major hospitals in Maines three southernmost counties. But this weeks increases were primarily at hospitals in other parts of the state, with an unprecedented number of small hospitals having inpatients at the same time.
The total number of COVID-19 inpatients statewide is still low compared to other states. The count stood at 17 Friday, according to Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, well below the peak of 60 on May 26. But the agency Friday reported a record-breaking 103 new cases of the disease, which is spreading at twice the rate of a month ago.
Its a strong warning for all of us, said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth, the states largest hospital network and parent of Maine Medical Center. I would not say we are in a surge, but that we have all the ingredients for a surge and its baking.
We knew we would probably have a surge in the winter, she added, but I am concerned that all the ingredients are there and its still fall.
In a given week during the crisis, one or two of Maines smaller hospitals might have reported having a pandemic inpatient or two for a few days but would go weeks or even months without one. But this week many of these smaller hospitals had inpatients, including Franklin Memorial in Farmington, Waldo General in Belfast, York Hospital, Bridgton Hospital and A.R. Gould in Presque Isle.
PenBay Medical Center in Rockport and Rumford Hospital both had a higher average daily inpatient load than Maine Med this week, reporting 2 and 1.3 cases, respectively. In PenBays case, this weeks total of nightly COVID-19 inpatient counts 14 represented two-thirds of the hospitals total tally for the entire pandemic.
York Hospital had its busiest week since late August with 1.1 patients a day. Erich Fogg, who oversees COVID-19 testing at the hospital and its drive-thru rapid testing locate on Route 1, said it has also seen a steady rise in the proportion of tests coming back positive, with Thursdays total count of 80 being the largest daily figure yet. Were heading into a concerning trend line, he said.
Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor had its busiest week since July, averaging 1.7 COVID-19 inpatients a day for the period, while MaineGeneral in Augusta had 2.4 a day, its busiest week since the late May surge.
By contrast, Portlands hospitals were both unusually quiet for the week ending Thursday, with Maine Med reporting an average of only 0.9 patients per day, down from the low-to-mid 30s per day during the diseases peak surges in early April and late May. Mercy Hospital hasnt had a COVID-19 inpatient since Sept. 28.
The largest hospital in York County, Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center, also had 0.9 patients per day, while Mid Coast in Brunswick last had a COVID-19 inpatient on Oct. 2.
Androscoggin Countys major hospitals were quiet. Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston had 0.9 inpatients a day, less than half its burden in late September and the first half of October. Lewistons other hospital, St. Marys, had no COVID-19 inpatients at all for the period, whereas it had at least one every day from Sept. 26 to Oct. 19.
The window is getting narrower to get this under control, and its all in our hands, said Mills, a former director of the Maine CDC and younger sister of Gov. Janet Mills. Its the three Ws: Watch your distance, wear a mask, and wash your hands.
Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator in that they typically occur one to three weeks after a person is exposed to the disease, but unlike other metrics, it is not dependent on who and how many people were tested. They can end three ways: recovery, death or transfer to another facility.
The Press Heralds survey is for the seven days ending Oct. 29. It compiles data received directly from the hospitals and hospital networks. The data do not include outpatients or inpatients who were suspected of having the virus but never tested. The survey includes most of the states hospitals and accounts for the vast majority of the statewide hospitalizations reported each week by the Maine CDC.
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.
Previous
Next
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) Ten new COVID-19 deaths were reported on Saturday as South Dakota surpassed more than 14,000 active COVID-19 cases in the state, according to theSouth Dakota Department of Healths update.
The death toll is now at 425. The new deaths were six women and four men with two in the 50-59 age range, one in the 70-79 age range and seven in the 80+ age range. The new deaths were listed in the following counties: Davison, Fault, Haakon, Hughes, Jackson (2), Lyman, Oglala Lakota (2) and Union.
There has been 202 deaths in October, the deadliest month of the pandemic so far.
On Saturday, 1,434 new coronavirus cases were announced, bringing the states total case count to 45,992, up from Friday (44,559). There were 1,321 new PCR cases and 113 new antigen cases for 1,434 new total cases. Total recovered cases are now at 31,194, up from Friday (30,624).
Active cases are now at 14,373, up from Friday (13,520).
Current hospitalizations for COVID-19 are now at 415, up from Friday (403). Total hospitalizations, which includes only South Dakota residents, is now at 2,683, up from Friday (2,660).
Total persons tested negative is now at 213,540, up from Friday (212,097).
There were 2,877 new persons tested reported on Saturday. The test-positivity rate for Saturday was 49-percent.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Both North and South Dakota have the highest rates of COVID-19 cases and hospitalization in the nation per 100,000 people.
According to The New York Times COVID-19 tracker, South Dakota is first the in nation for states where deaths are increasing.
In tonights edition of COVID-19 Beyond the Numbers, we compare the beginning of October to the end and what has prompted health and community leaders to call for further action.
At the beginning of the month, South Dakota had 3,832 active cases of COVID-19. Today, there are nearly 4 times as many active cases at 13,520.
On October 1, 214 people were in the hospital. By the end of the month, that number had almost doubled to 403.
We are asking people to double down on doing what they can to help. Our COVID hospitalizations have risen dramatically, Dr. Benjamin Aaker of the South Dakota State Medical Association said on 10/27 at Mask Up South Dakota News conference.
236 deaths had been reported in the state on October 1. On October 30th, 415 people have died.
Its not just physicians and health systems asking people to mask up, business and community leaders say its essential to slow the spread and prevent even more deaths.
Im not sure when or why this issue became so dang political. Its quite ridiculous how political this has become. This is not an R or a D issue, this is a public health issue, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken said on 10/19 at news conference.
This week, South Dakota Secretary of Health, Kim Malsam-Rysdon, was optimistic about a vaccine arriving in the state within weeks.
We expect the vaccine to be allocated by the federal government to the state of South Dakota in the very near future. Weve been told to be ready for our first shipment in the middle of November, Malsam-Rysdon said. Malsam-Rysdon said on October 28th.
But when questioned about whats involved in testing and producing a vaccine and the fact that scientists say it will most likely not be readily available until 2021, Malsam-Rysdon clarified that the state will be ready to begin vaccination with health care workers when they do arrive.
The federal government has asked states to be ready as of November 15th. We will be ready. If a vaccine shows up on our doorstep that day, it will be getting out to folks immediately, Malsam-Rysdon said on October 28.
Doctors say we do have a tool that is just as good as a vaccine, should we chose to use it and thats wearing a mask.
If I told you I had a vaccine that just came on the market today that was 60 or 70 or even 90-percent effective at preventing COVID, youd be beating down my door to get it, Dr. David Basel said on October 20.
Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador issued a decree for three days of national mourning to take place during Day of the Dead celebrations. The holiday runs over the course of two days on November 1-2, while the three days of national mourning will start one day earlier on October 31.
The holiday is usually a colorful and lively event, where families gather in cemeteries to dance and sing and build altars known as "ofrendas" made of photographs, bright marigold flowers, and special food, drinks and tokens that were cherished by their lost relative.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell told reporters earlier this month that cemeteries would be closed because they could "become areas of high risk for contagion," a painful reminder to continue honoring social distancing guidelines and preventing further spread of the virus.
The government also canceled a traditional Da de Muertos parade in Mexico City that typically attracts thousands.
During the three days of mourning, Lpez Obrador said the flag at the National Palace in Mexico City will be raised at half mast, and an official ofrenda will be dedicated to the victims. The government expressed its "deepest condolences and reiterates its deepest solidarity" with the people who have been impacted.
Still, the pandemic has not entirely crushed the spirit of the holiday as some are turning to more creative methods for celebration. Annual Da de Muertos altar contests are being held in neighborhoods with guidance to maintain social distancing.
The National Museum of Interventions in Mexico City is hosting a contest where participants take photographs of their home-built altars and submit them to compete for a prize.
The intention of the contest "aims to preserve Mexican traditions and foster a spirit of community and respect among participants," as people are encouraged to join in the fun while staying in the comfort of their own home.
As the country awaits the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine, they can still make pan de muertos, traditional holiday bread, string colorful and intricately designed papel picado banners overhead, and decorate sugar skulls from home to commemorate the memory of their loved ones and preserve the rituals of the Aztecs kept alive by the special holiday.
(Reuters) - When the temperature dipped near freezing in Columbus, Ohio in mid-October, the children had no heat. The gas had been shut off in their apartment for nonpayment. DaMir Coleman, 8, and his brother, KyMir, 4, warmed themselves in front of the electric oven.
Kiki and Greg Kullman with their twin boys, Cam and Kyle pose in Columbus, Ohio, U.S. in this undated handout picture. Courtesy of the Kullman family/Handout via REUTERS
The power, too, was set to be disconnected. Soon there might be no oven, no lights and no internet for online schooling. The boys mother, Shanell McGee, already had her cell phone switched off and feared she could soon face eviction from their $840-a-month apartment. The rundown unit consumes nearly half her wages from her job as a medical assistant at a clinic, where she works full-time but gets no health benefits.
Just 14 miles northwest of McGees neighborhood, Kiki Kullman is having one of the best years of her life.
The real-estate business she runs with her family just sold the highest-priced house in its history: a 13,000-square-foot estate, listed for $4.5 million, that came with an elevator and a classic-car showroom. And in late October, Kullman closed on a home of her own -- a $645,000 three-story Colonial, painted a stately white with a front door flanked by columns, a pleasant place for her two-year-old twin boys to grow up.
Columbus exemplifies the economic split animating Americas coronavirus crisis.
Professionals like Kullman are thriving, thanks in part to pandemic-induced policies by the Federal Reserve that have buoyed the stock market and fueled industries such as real estate with record-low interest rates.
For many lower-wage workers, meanwhile, the crisis has delivered a cruel shove, toppling families like the McGees who were already living on the financial edge. Nationwide, millions of people including hotel workers, retail clerks, waiters, bartenders, airline employees and other service workers have lost jobs as COVID-19 fears crushed consumer demand.
Economists call this phenomenon a K-shaped recovery, in which those on the top continue to climb upward while those on the bottom see their prospects worsen.
Ned Hill, professor of economic development at Ohio State University, called that downward slope of the K fat and broad and long and ugly looking. He said theres little hope for a return to normal as long as coronavirus continues to spread unabated in the United States. In Ohio, COVID-19 cases are soaring and hit a record of 3,590 new cases on Oct. 29. In Columbus alone, at least 643 people have died.
Peoples jobs and incomes have disappeared, and they arent coming back until peoples threat of dying from the virus dissipates, Hill said. Thats it.
Located in the center of Ohio, about halfway between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, Columbus is a city of some 900,000 people. Home to Ohio State University and the states capital, its employment is rooted in sectors like hospitality, education and health, government, and professional and business services.
That mix has allowed it to fare better during the crisis than some other Rust Belt cities that are more heavily dependent on manufacturing. Columbuss September unemployment rate of 7.5% was lower than the national average of 7.9%. But like the rest of the United States, its front-line and modestly skilled workers have been slammed the hardest.
The divergence of fortune can be seen in the citys housing market.
For those with means, like the clients of real estate agent Kullman, low interest rates have translated into cheaper mortgages, allowing them to afford bigger houses. Columbus is just one of four U.S. cities - along with Cincinnati, Kansas City and Indianapolis - where houses are selling in less than five days on average, according to real estate research firm Zillow.
It is crazy to see in Columbus the million-plus price point getting multiple offers and all-cash bids, said Kullman, 36.
For renters hammered by the downturn, meanwhile, housing is a precarious business.
During the early days of the pandemic as Ohios residents sheltered in place, evictions in Columbus fell, thanks to local and federal protections to keep renters in their homes. But since September, 1,774 eviction cases have been filed, far surpassing summer levels, according to Princeton Universitys Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions. The Greater Columbus Convention Center now serves as a bustling eviction court.
Those filings came despite a Sept. 4 decree by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) banning all evictions nationwide until Jan. 1 to prevent a surge of newly homeless people from contracting and spreading the coronavirus. Under the moratorium, landlords cannot evict tenants who can no longer pay rent because their earnings have been affected by COVID-19.
But landlords are not required to inform tenants of these protections and are free to file eviction lawsuits. Only renters who know about the CDC ban, qualify for it and take legal action to assert their rights can stop their evictions. Among the 24 cities the Eviction Lab tracks, Columbus is one of the few where evictions did not fall after the ban.
The fallout can be seen across Columbus. The local pot of money from federal relief to help cash-strapped tenants pay rent was tapped out in September. Food banks are running low on staples, and homeless shelters are at capacity, according to community advocates.
Utility shut-offs have surged to the point that lawyers for the Legal Aid Society of Columbus have resorted to filing personal bankruptcy petitions for tenants to keep their heat, lights and water on.
If present conditions persist, and without a new round of federal relief, as many as 40 million people could be at risk of eviction in coming months, according to the Aspen Institute, a think tank. In a typical year, 3.6 million eviction cases are filed.
BEING POOR COSTS YOU
Even before the pandemic, McGee, 29, was struggling financially. In 2014, she bought a 2008 Chevy Malibu off a corner lot charging 22% interest. She said the junker stopped running long ago, so she stopped paying in 2016. McGee said she offered to return the vehicle, which has 176,475 miles on it, but the lender wouldnt take it back.
In March, McGees live-in boyfriend lost his job at a fast-food restaurant as Ohio went on lockdown, cutting their households income. In August, he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and the entire family had to quarantine. That same week, McGee got a call from her employer, telling her that her lender had gotten a court order to garnish 25% of her wages to repay more than $10,000, with penalties and late fees, that she still owed on the car.
That left her with take-home pay of $728 every two weeks. She couldnt afford school supplies for her sons and had to borrow gas money from her mom to get to work in her boyfriends car.
It was heartbreaking, it was everything all at once, said McGee, who wears rectangular glasses and has a broad, easy smile.
She sought help from Paul Bryson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society who filed a bankruptcy petition in October to get McGees utilities turned back on and the garnishment frozen. The court approved the petition, but not before McGees lender took $1,023 of her wages.
Being poor costs you a lot of money, Bryson said. Even before the pandemic, somebodys entire life falls apart when they get a garnishment. And now? If nothing is done, we are just going to have a lot of people on the street.
McGees car lender, Columbus Mortgage, did not respond to requests for comment.
For years, Kullman, the real estate agent, fantasized about living on Bedford Road, a coveted address in the Columbus suburbs.
In the regions poshest neighborhoods, sumptuous houses that make perfect pandemic compounds, with amenities like his-and-hers home offices and roomy basements for online schooling, can sell in a day, often with multiple offers in all-cash deals well above the asking price. Kullman said some shoppers are submitting bids without ever touring a house. The most desperate are agreeing to no-remedy inspections, meaning they wont ask for concessions if the inspection turns up a major defect. Others, she said, have authorized crazy escalation clauses with no cap. In real estate parlance, that means they will beat any other offer, no matter how high the price.
You have to sign away your life to get the house you want, Kullman said.
In August, Kullman, who runs the Kullman Group at Street Sothebys International with her husband, father and sister, found out that a couple who lived on Bedford Road were about to move. She made a bid before the house hit the market and the owners accepted. The Colonial is right next door to her sisters home; their kids will share backyards.
Kullman is aware of her good fortune amidst the pandemic, and the mean hand that coronavirus has dealt to the citys most vulnerable.
Her husband has been doing business with a landlord whos selling a portfolio of homes in Columbuss low-income neighborhood of Linden. Non-paying tenants in those properties have been getting eviction notices.
It is night and day, what we see here, Kullman said. Which is not what you would expect in COVID. Its sad but its true.
Reporting By Michelle Conlin in New York; Editing by Tom Lasseter and Marla Dickerson
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) 12 more South Dakotans have died from COVID-19, according to the latest update from the state department of health.
The death toll climbed to 415. The new deaths were four men and eight women. That makes 192 deaths in October, the deadliest month of the pandemic so far.
Active cases are now at 13,520, up from Thursday (12,462) and a new single-day record.
On Friday, 1,559 new coronavirus cases were announced, bringing the states total case count to 44,559, up from Thursday (43,000). There were 1,389 new PCR cases and 171 new antigen cases for 1,559 new total cases. Total recovered cases are now at 30,624, up from Thursday (30,135).
Total persons tested negative is now at 212,097, up from Thursday (210,514).
Current hospitalizations for COVID-19 are now at 403, down from Thursday (413). Total hospitalizations, which includes only South Dakota residents, is now at 2,660, up from Thursday (2,602).
