TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reportsas of 10:00 a.m., on September 3, 2020, there have been 444,902 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 10,845 total cases and 237 deaths.
DHHRhas confirmed the deaths of a 64-year old female fromKanawha County, an 86-year old male from Kanawha County, a 95-year old femalefrom Mercer County, a 60-year old female from Kanawha County, a 92-year oldfemale from Kanawha County, a 95-year old male from Randolph County, and a 71-yearold female from Lincoln County. "We grieve, together with their families, the tragic loss of theseWest Virginians, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary.
CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (34), Berkeley (812), Boone(145), Braxton (9), Brooke (97), Cabell (560), Calhoun (12), Clay (27),Doddridge (7), Fayette (369), Gilmer (20), Grant (142), Greenbrier (106),Hampshire (92), Hancock (123), Hardy (75), Harrison (280), Jackson (205),Jefferson (373), Kanawha (1,553), Lewis (34), Lincoln (122), Logan (503),Marion (221), Marshall (133), Mason (120), McDowell (73), Mercer (323), Mineral(144), Mingo (262), Monongalia (1,259), Monroe (127), Morgan (38), Nicholas(53), Ohio (291), Pendleton (45), Pleasants (15), Pocahontas (43), Preston(140), Putnam (307), Raleigh (377), Randolph (227), Ritchie (6), Roane (33),Summers (19), Taylor (108), Tucker (11), Tyler (15), Upshur (45), Wayne (269),Webster (7), Wetzel (45), Wirt (8), Wood (313), Wyoming (68).
Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the localhealth department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain countymay not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual inquestion may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Lincolnand Wetzel counties in this report.
Pleasevisit the dashboard located at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the 26th straight day that New York State's COVID-19 infection rate has remained below 1 percent. Yesterday, 0.80 percent of tests reported to the state were positive. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov.
"Defeating COVID-19 requires a shared commitment among all New Yorkers to wear masks, socially distance and wash hands, and I thank them for listening to state guidance and taking social action to get us to this point today. 26 straight days with an infection rate below 1 percent is no mean feat," Governor Cuomo said. "However, high case levels throughout the country are storm clouds on the horizon, and we have to stay vigilant in partnership with the enforcement of local governments. We're all in this together, and we'll get through it togetherstay tough, New York."
Yesterday, the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited 1,144 establishments in New York City and Long Island and observed 3 establishments that were not in compliance with state requirements. A county breakdown of yesterday's observed violations is below:
Today's data is summarized briefly below:
Of the 88,447 test results reported to New York State yesterday, 708, or 0.80 percent, were positive. Each region's percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:
REGION
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
Capital Region
0.6%
1.3%
0.5%
CentralNew York
1.3%
0.9%
0.7%
Finger Lakes
0.4%
0.4%
0.2%
Long Island
1.2%
1.0%
0.8%
Mid-Hudson
1.3%
0.8%
0.9%
Mohawk Valley
0.3%
1.9%
0.9%
New York City
0.9%
0.9%
0.7%
North Country
0.2%
0.3%
0.6%
Southern Tier
0.7%
0.7%
0.6%
WesternNew York
2.0%
1.6%
1.7%
The Governor also confirmed 708 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 436,218 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 436,218 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
County
Total Positive
New Positive
Albany
2,791
5
Allegany
89
0
Broome
1,315
4
Cattaraugus
216
10
Cayuga
180
0
Chautauqua
428
23
Chemung
205
0
Chenango
229
0
Clinton
151
0
Columbia
570
1
Cortland
102
1
Delaware
120
5
Dutchess
4,878
After tens of thousands of unmasked protesters turned out to rally against virus restrictions in the German capital over the weekend, the city instituted a rule that requires masks for demonstrations with more than 100 participants.
Dilek Kalayci, the city senator for public health, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the rules would go into effect immediately. She noted that in certain cases, like when demonstrators are singing or chanting, masks could become mandatory even for smaller protests.
Last week, the city tried to ban the scheduled protests because the authorities worried that infection rules would be flaunted, but the decision was overturned in a court. Soon after a march numbering 18,000 began on Saturday morning, the police chief ordered the protesters to wear masks. When many refused, the police shut down the protest, although it let another, bigger gathering in the afternoon go forward.
Updated September 1, 2020
Though Germany has been lauded for its coronavirus response and low death rate, a vocal minority has taken to the streets to protest measures to contain the spread. On Monday, the country registered 1,218 new virus cases, according to the federal agency keeping track.
Other rules set by Berlin on Tuesday regulated family gatherings and large crowds.
The new laws will be tested quickly: On Tuesday afternoon, another demonstration against virus rules is expected in Tiergarten, the large central park in Berlin. If all 500 registered protesters show up, masks will no longer be optional.
The coronavirus situation at the South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tenn., did not look like a crisis a week ago. The prison had reported fewer than 100 cases since the pandemic began. And according to Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for CoreCivic, the private company that runs South Central, only 10 of the prisons roughly 1,500 inmates were showing Covid-19 symptoms.
But state officials ordered mass testing at the prison last week, and the results are eye-popping: As of Tuesday morning, 965 inmates of 1,410 tested about two-thirds of the total population were positive, and another 168 test results were still pending, the state said.
CHICAGO People are spreading misinformation online that downplays the deadliness of coronavirus.
Over the weekend, people on social media widely shared incorrect posts that falsely claimed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was saying just 6-7 percent of people reported as dying from COVID-19 had actually died from the virus. Thats inaccurate, Chicagos top doctor said Tuesday.
According to the CDCs own website, COVID-19 was the only cause of death mentioned for 6 percent of people reported to have died from the virus but all that means is 94 percent of other people who died from coronavirus also had a comorbidity, like lung disease.
Officials have long warned comorbidities like heart disease and diabetes put people at a higher risk for severe symptoms or even death from COVID-19.
Coronavirus can exacerbate or even cause medical issues, like lung and heart failure, that play a role in a persons death, Dr. Allison Arwady said at a Tuesday press conference. COVID-19 has also caused severe kidney problems in some patients.
All of this is because theyve gotten COVID-19, Arwady said. If, unfortunately, this person dies while theyre in the hospital, the doctor has to fill out the death certificate and you list the things that this person had as well as what is the ultimate cause of death.
Those people are dying from coronavirus, Arwady said, but a death certificate will include the other conditions they had and developed. The determination of what killed the person is made by a doctor or medical examiner.
In cases where coronavirus didnt cause someones death, its not listed as the cause of death. Arwadys example: If a person who had COVID-19 was shot to death, their cause of death will be listed as the shooting, even though they had coronavirus.
The reports of people who died of COVID-19 are people who died because of being infected with COVID, Arwady said.
If anything, Chicago has likely undercounted the number of people who have died from coronavirus, Arwady said, though she thinks most people who have died from the virus have been counted.
Throughout the United States, its estimated thousands of people have died from coronavirus without being counted, which means the countrys death toll should be higher than reported.
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JERUSALEM With the coronavirus spreading fast through the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed Monday night to cool its latest round of hostilities with Israel in exchange for a cash infusion from Qatar and for Israels agreement to let fuel flow back to Gazas power station, officials said.
For several weeks, Gaza, ruled by Hamas, has launched hundreds of balloons laden with incendiary devices and explosives and more than a few rockets into southern Israel, torching large tracts of farmland and keeping thousands of Israeli civilians on edge. Israel has responded with frequent airstrikes and tank fire on what it said was Hamas military infrastructure in Gaza.
Far from resolving anything, though, Mondays agreement which effectively bought the promise of a months calm was just another familiar step in the miserable minuet that has entangled Israel and Hamas for years.
Hamas again promised that it was to get long-sought progress on major economic projects; it did not detail them, but as of last week it was demanding an extended power line and a new industrial zone that could alleviate Gazas appallingly high unemployment rate.
By contrast, Israel announced that it was merely allowing routine cargo activity at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza and permitting Gazas fishermen to resume plying the Mediterranean waters up to 15 nautical miles off its shores.
Once again, it was understood by each side that the failure to live up to its promises could bring about another round of escalation.
This decision will be tested on the ground, the Israeli military agency responsible for Gaza, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, said in a statement. If Hamas, which is accountable for all actions that are taken in the Gaza Strip, fails to stand by its obligations, Israel will act accordingly.
For his part, Yehya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, announced that the agreement would contain the escalation and halt the Zionist aggression on our people.
Talal Okal, a Gaza-based political analyst, said the understanding had little hope of leading to a long-term cease-fire.
Were in the middle of a vicious cycle, he said. It seems that the situation hasnt changed significantly and that the tensions can come back in the snap of a finger. He said the success of Mondays agreement would depend on Israels willingness to implement it something he accused the country of evading in past deals with Hamas.
The agreement was trumpeted by Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari ambassador who heads that nations Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza and has been shuttling back and forth between Israel and Gaza for days. But while he alluded to projects that Hamas has agitated for, he said that the calming of tensions was paving the way for their implementation, suggesting that work was not about to begin imminently.
None of the parties publicly disclosed the amount of Qatars cash infusion. A person familiar with the agreement, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it, put the payment at $27 million.
It was not immediately clear what Hamas would use the money for. Officials say that previous payments from Qatar have been used in Gaza, which is in dire economic condition, to buy fuel, pay civil servants salaries and provide relief to impoverished families.
Politics has loomed over the heated-up Gaza-Israel border in multiple ways, analysts said particularly with an election coming up to decide the leadership of Hamas. Khaled Meshal, a former Hamas leader now in exile in Qatar, is believed to be vying to topple Ismail Haniya, the Gaza-based Hamas political director.
Mr. Haniya and Mr. Sinwar have sought to show that they are capable of compelling Israel to make meaningful improvements to conditions in Gaza, whether in easing its blockade or in advancing big projects.
But the political situation in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in a kind of permanent campaign mode, repeatedly dangling the prospect of taking the country to another election, has made it difficult to imagine Israel doing much to benefit Hamas in the near future.
Updated September 1, 2020
For Qatar, meanwhile, restoring calm can enhance its stature in the region, said Celine Touboul, a Gaza expert and co-director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation, an Israeli think tank. Simply put, they want to be a player, she said. And to be a player for them is to demonstrate that they can contribute to shift the situation and calm it.
Hamas noted in announcing Mondays understanding that it would help provide a measure of relief to Gaza in light of its battle with the coronavirus. But the most crucial missing element in that fight was electricity, as Israel had halted shipments of fuel into Gaza in retribution for the flaming balloons and rockets.
That standoff became dire last Monday, when Hamas officials reported the first cases of community transmission. And the spread of the virus in Gaza appears to have accelerated: As of Monday morning, there were 243 active cases of local spread and 37 among returning travelers held at quarantine facilities, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Officials have reported three virus-related deaths in the past week.
Virus testing kits are in short supply in Gaza, the ministry said, and it is testing at a slow pace. As of Monday morning, it had conducted just 670 tests in the preceding 24 hours.
Nickolay E. Mladenov, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, wrote on Twitter that he welcomed Mondays agreement: Ending the launching of incendiary devices and projectiles, restoring electricity will allow #UN to focus on dealing with the #COVID19 crisis. All parties should return to the calm understandings.
Mr. Mladenov and Ambassador Emadi, among other officials, were expected to meet on Tuesday at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Earlier on Monday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Jamie McGoldrick, called upon Hamas to stop the rockets and balloons and Israel to restore electricity, which was down to just four hours a day, in line with its obligations as an occupying power.
The situation is hindering the provision of services in the quarantine facilities and the capacity of the health system to cope with the increased demands, such as the ability to detect new COVID-19 cases, Mr. McGoldrick said. Power outages in hospitals are having serious repercussions, with patients in intensive care, chronic and emergency cases particularly vulnerable.
David M. Halbfinger reported from Jerusalem and Adam Rasgon from Tel Aviv. Iyad Abuheweila contributed reporting from Gaza City.
CHICAGO Illinois reported 1,668 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past day and seven more deaths.
Four of the deaths happened in Cook County: a man and a woman in their 70s, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s.
There have now been 2,868 COVID-19-related deaths in Chicago and 8,026 in the state.
The states overall positivity rate remained at 4.1 percent on Monday. Thats the rolling, seven-day average of tests administered that yield positive cases.
As of Sunday night, 1,492 people in Illinois were hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 347 patients were in the ICU and 157 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. Last Thursday by comparison, 1,546 people were hospitalized, including 352 people in the ICU and 132 people on ventilators.
Some of the nation's leading public health experts say that the most commonly used type of coronavirus test in America could be generating positive results for large numbers of people who are carrying low levels of the virus and therefore may not be contagious, Apoorva Mandavilli reports for the New York Times.
The 3 biggest questions about Covid-19 testing, answered
However, according to Mandavilli, those experts also say that doesn't necessarily mean the country should be testing less.
The most commonly used coronavirus tests in America are polymerase chain reaction tests, or PCR tests. According to Mandavilli, PCR tests provide a yes or no answer to whether a patient is infected with the novel coronavirus.
"We've been using one type of data for everything, and that is just plus or minusthat's all," Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained. "We're using that for clinical diagnostics, for public health, for policy decision-making."
But other types of tests can also provide information on how much of the virus a person is carrying, Mandavilli reports. According to Mandavilli, PCR tests look for genetic matter from the new coronavirus using amplification cycles. The fewer cycles needed to detect genetic matter from the virus, the higher a patient's viral load and the more likely that person is contagious, Mandavilli reports.
However, the number of amplification cycles that was needed to detect genetic matter from the virus, which is referred to as the cycle threshold, typically isn't included in test results sent to doctors and patients, Mandavilli reports.
Mina said that information is more telling, as it indicates a patient's viral load, and patients carrying minuscule amounts of the virus may not be contagious. Therefore, information on a patient's viral load should be used to determine the patient's next steps, Mina said.
"It's really irresponsible, I think, to forgo the recognition that this is a quantitative issue," he added.
But further complicating the matter, according to some experts, is that many commonly used tests for the novel coronavirus are too sensitive, so they generate positive results when patients are carrying low loads of the virus, Mandavilli reports.
According to Mandavilli, many coronavirus tests have fairly high cycle thresholds, with most set at 40 and some set at 37. That means a number of patients who aren't carrying much of the new coronavirus are still testing positive, even though they may not be contagious, Mandavilli reports.
Mina explained that tests with high cycle thresholds could be detecting genetic fragments of the virus, or pieces of the virus that are leftover from a previous infection that don't pose any current transmission risk.
Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California-Riverside, said she believes any test with a cycle threshold over 35 is too sensitive. "I'm shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive," she said.
And according to Mandavilli, a review conducted by the New York Times of three sets of coronavirus testing data from Massachusetts, Nevada, and New York found that up to 90% of patients in those data sets who tested positive for the coronavirus had very low viral loads.
Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said of the Times review's results, "I'm really shocked that it could be that highthe proportion of people with high [cycle threshold] value results." He added, "Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing."
Morrison said a better threshold would be 30 to 35, while Mina said he'd recommend setting the threshold to 30 or less.
According to Mandavilli, CDC data shows that it's very difficult to detect significant loads of live coronavirus within a patient sample that tests positive at a cycle threshold above 33, meaning patients who test positive at a cycle threshold of 33 or higher likely are not carrying enough of a viral load to transmit the virus to others. Mandavilli reports that CDC has said it's looking into using cycle threshold measures "for policy decisions," and it will work with FDA and device manufacturers to make sure the measures "can be used properly and with assurance that we know what they mean."
Mina said there's a simple solution for weeding out which patients are and aren't contagious: "Test them again, six hours later or 15 hours later or whatever."
Mina explained that using a rapid coronavirus test, which can be less accurate than PCR tests but provide quicker results, could be useful for this type of re-testing. Those tests may be less sensitive, but they'd catch patients whose viral loads are rising quickly, indicating they've recently been infected with the novel coronavirus and are not just carrying leftover fragments of the pathogen, he said.
Sensitive PCR tests made sense at the start of America's coronavirus epidemic, but with outbreaks persisting throughout the United States, tests that are faster, lower cost, and more abundant are what's now needed to get the epidemic under control, Mina said.
"It might not catch every last one of the transmitting people, but it sure will catch the most transmissible people, including the superspreaders," he said. "That alone would drive epidemics practically to zero" (Mandavilli, New York Times, 8/29).
What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters? Mr. Biden asked. He is recklessly encouraging violence. He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is.
The latest social media outburst by the president came just days after he accepted the nomination for a second term in an election in which he has been trailing for months. Mr. Trump sought to capitalize on any momentum generated by the Republican National Convention, posting a series of tweets asserting that he is actually leading in polls.
A new poll by Morning Consult, however, showed that Mr. Trump had narrowed Mr. Bidens lead but that the president still trailed. The survey, conducted on Friday, the day after the conclusion of the Republican convention, found Mr. Biden ahead 50 percent to 44 percent, a six-point lead compared with the former vice presidents 10-point advantage a week ago after his own convention. Another poll by Yahoo News and YouGov likewise showed Mr. Bidens lead shrinking to six percentage points, down from nine points.
A post-convention bounce is typical in presidential years but it does not always last, and an ABC News-Ipsos poll showed that Mr. Trump did nothing to improve his own standing with voters, only 31 percent of whom reported a favorable view, roughly the same as before the Republican convention. Democrats, however, are growing more concerned that Mr. Trump is successfully using violence in the streets after police shootings of Black Americans to energize his own supporters and tar Mr. Biden and his party as weak on law and order.
In that vein, many of Mr. Trumps Sunday morning tweets focused on the violence in Portland, where the shooting death of a man exacerbated an already tense situation. The man was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in the Portland area that has clashed with protesters before.
Mr. Trump repeatedly assailed Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland for resisting federal help and delighted in showcasing a peaceful protest held at the mayors own home on Friday, even retweeting a post accusing the Mr. Wheeler of committing war crimes. Rather than calling for calm, Mr. Trump seemed to justify aggressive action against demonstrators by his supporters.
The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing, Mr. Trump wrote, as he retweeted a journalists post reporting that Trump supporters were firing paintballs and pepper spray, including at the reporter. The people of Portland wont put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!
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Utahs rate of new coronavirus cases was down slightly on Tuesday, but school outbreaks surged, with the biggest one-day rise in school cases since the fall term began.
There were five new school outbreaks reported in the past day, linked to 14 new cases and one new hospitalization, the Utah Department of Health reported. The state defines an outbreak as two or more cases within 14 days.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 121 patients infected in 25 school outbreaks, with a median age of 18. Seven of those patients have been hospitalized; none have died.
With 296 new coronavirus cases reported statewide on Tuesday, Utahs rate of new diagnoses declined slightly, staying under the governors target of fewer than 400 cases per day.
For the past seven days, Utah has averaged 374 new positive test results per day, UDOH reported on Tuesday, the deadline for Gov. Gary Herberts goal to get the state below 400 new cases per day. Utahs rate of new coronavirus cases dipped below 400 nearly three weeks ago.
Utahs death toll from the coronavirus stood at 409 on Tuesday, with two fatalities reported since Monday:
Hospitalizations were up slightly on Tuesday, with 126 Utah patients concurrently admitted, UDOH reported.
On average, 120 patients have been receiving treatment in Utah hospitals each day for the past week the same as Mondays average, and well below the peak average of 211 patients hospitalized each day at the end of July.
In total, 3,110 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up 17 from Monday.
There were 4,666 new test results reported on Tuesday, below the weeklong average of 4,846 new tests per day. The rate of tests with positive results for the past seven days was at 9% on Tuesday, up slightly from Mondays 8.9%.
Testing demand has been dropping since late July, state officials and hospital administrators have said; in mid-July, the state was reporting more than 7,000 new test results per day, on average.
To help meet the relentless demand for COVID-19 diagnostics, Thermo Fisher Scientific has stood up a new, $40 million manufacturing facility in six weeks.
The 120,000-square-foot plant at its Lenexa, Kansas site will be dedicated to producing viral transport media, the combination of buffering solution and plastic tubes that keep swab samples viable until they can be tested in the lab for the novel coronavirus.
Thermo Fisher was previously tapped by the U.S. government to provide large amounts of aseptic transport media, through a $381 million contract signed in May. That month, the company would ramp up production in Lenexa from 50,000 to over 1 million media-filled tubes per week.
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"We have a proven blueprint for high-quality VTM production in Lenexa and look forward to bringing significant new capacity on line as quickly as possible to continue the necessary testing ramp-up in the U.S.," Thermo Fishers chairman, president and CEO, Marc Casper, said at the time.
RELATED: Thermo Fisher, WuXi and Mayo Clinic to develop open-platform COVID-19 antibody test
The companys Lenexa site, located just outside Kansas City, previously manufactured a range of prepared media, collection and transport products, such as plates, bottles and tubes for biopharma and food laboratories.
The latest addition, with an official ribbon-cutting held August 28, brings on more than 300 full-time workers and has since increased production to 8 million units per week, the company said.
