Editors note: This is a live account of COVID-19 updates from Friday, July 18, as the day unfolded. It is no longer being updated. Click here to see all the most recent news about the pandemic, and click here to find additional resources.
Washington could be in for another round of coronavirus restrictions, Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday, during a news conference where he announced a limit of 10 people at social gatherings in Washington counties that are further along in the reopening process.
Inslees announcement came as Washington set a new record for confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, with state health officials Thursday reporting 1,267 new cases and six additional deaths.The tally clocked in at nearly twice the average number of cases per day in the past two weeks.
Throughout Friday, on this page, well be posting Seattle Times journalists updates on the outbreak and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Thursday can be found here, and all our coronavirus coverage can be found here.
OLYMPIA In the lateststatewide COVID-19 situation report released Friday afternoon by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), public health officials describe "an explosive situation" in Washington state, where 1,267new COVID-19 cases were confirmed Thursday, the state's highest single-day uptick.
Per the report, transmission has steadily increased or accelerated across Washington state since the start of July "and will continue to do so unless concrete steps are taken to stop the spread." On July 14, Gov. Jay Inslee paused Washington's phased reopening plan through July 28.
The trends are not limited to early hot spots for the novel coronavirus, like King County, or locations with more recent flare-ups, like Yakima County.
While the reproductive number in Yakima County is lower than the rest of the state, positive signs from previous reports appear to be plateauing, the state DOH found, as the test positive rate remains high there.
The amount of daily new cases is higher than Washington's previous peak in March, the report stresses, with the demographics of the virus continuing to skew younger and with hospitalization on the rise across the state and across age groups.
Hospitalization rates are just starting to rise in Western Washington, where the surge is led by 20-to-39-year-olds. Per the state, the recent growth in cases among 20-to-29-year-olds is spreading to all age groups, "including low but increasing rates among children and teens." (In Eastern Washington, hospitalization rates are up among all age groups, per the report.)
In these trends, we are seeing the impact of our collective decisions, said Washington Secretary of Health John Wiesman in a news release. If we want to send our kids to school in the fall and avoid new restrictions, we must all make a conscious shift in the way we live our lives.
"That means staying at home as much as possible, reducing how many people we see in person and continuing to wear face coverings and keep physical distance in public.
Trevor Lenzmeier
State health officials confirmed 754 new COVID-19 cases in Washington on Friday, including seven new deaths, after reporting 1,267 new cases on Thursday a single-day record for the state.
The update brings the states totals to 45,067 cases and 1,434 deaths, meaning about 3.2% of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in Washington have died,according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
So far, 767,657 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.9% have come back positive.
The state has confirmed 12,766 diagnoses and 631 deaths in King County, the state's most populous, accounting for about 44.4% of the state's death toll.
Trevor Lenzmeier
WASHINGTON (AP) Joe Biden on Friday unveiled a plan to reopen schools in the era of coronavirus, seeking to establish federal safety guidelines that he says will be based on science and not on political pressure for the country to arbitrarily put the pandemic behind it.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominees proposal ultimately leaves final decisions up to state and local officials. His guidelines to resume classes comes as the White House argues that most parents are anxious to see schools resume in-person classes in the fall. President Donald Trump says the decision to possibly avoid doing so in some areas is more motivated by politics than by legitimate fears about the pandemic.
They think its going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed, Trump said at a White House discussion on school plans last week. No way. Were very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools.
Trump has also threatened to hold back federal funding if schools dont bring their students back in the fall and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on new guidance for how to do so.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has advanced much the same argument as Biden, saying the decision to reopen schools should be driven by science but arguing that doing so means bringing students back to classrooms.
Read the full story here.
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) With the first day of school just weeks away in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out sweeping new rules Friday that all but ensure most of the states K-12 schools serving 6.7 million students will not reopen classrooms when the academic year starts.
The rules also mandate that all staff and students above 2nd grade who do return to campuses wear masks in school as the coronavirus pandemic surges.
Newsom said all schools, public and private, in counties that are on a state monitoring list for rising coronavirus infections cannot hold in-person classes and will have to meet strict criteria for reopening. Currently, 32 of Californias 58 counties are on the watchlist, including the vast majority of the states population and its biggest cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and many others
Students, teachers, staff and parents prefer in-class instruction. But only if we can do it safely, Newsom said during a televised briefing. The one thing we have the power to do to get our kids back into school? Wear a mask, physically distance, wash your hands.
The governors strict new regulations mark a dramatic shift from his earlier position that it was up to local school districts and boards to decide when and how to reopen. His announcement came as many of the states 1,000 school districts are set to resume instruction in mid-August, with many still finalizing reopening plans.
Read the full story here.
The Associated Press
Fresh studies give more information about what treatments do or dont work for COVID-19, with high-quality methods that give reliable results.
British researchers on Friday published their research on the only drug shown to improve survival a cheap steroid called dexamethasone. Two other studies found that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not help people with only mild symptoms.
For months before studies like these, learning what helps or harms has been undermined by desperation science as doctors and patients tried therapies on their own or through a host of studies not strong enough to give clear answers.
For the field to move forward and for patients outcomes to improve, there will need to be fewer small or inconclusive studies and more like the British one, Drs. Anthony Fauci and H. Clifford Lane of the National Institutes of Health wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Its now time to do more studies comparing treatments and testing combinations, said Dr. Peter Bach, a health policy expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Read the highlights of recent treatment developments here.
The Associated Press
Detroit Public Schools invited students to in-person summer classes this week during the coronavirus pandemic and immediately faced demonstrations that wound up with some arrests of protesters and a lawsuit aiming to get the classes to shut down. The protesters said the district was using children as guinea pigs.
In Westwood, Mass., a summer school employee who didnt feel well tested negative for COVID-19 and returned to her job working with students with disabilities only to learn she really had the disease, WCBV reported. The Westwood Schools superintendent said in a statement that her exposure to students was limited to a three-hour block and noted that she was wearing personal protective equipment.
As school districts across the country struggle to make final plans about whether and how to open schools for the 2020-21 academic year, they are getting some real-time examples of what can happen when students return to school buildings.
Read the story here.
The Washington Post
On Thursday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced tighter restrictions on social gatherings that effectively halted the burgeoning trend of drive-in concerts.
Starting Monday, anew 10-person limit on gatheringswill be imposed on counties in the third phase of the governorsSafe Start reopening plan. The five-person limit for counties in Phase 2 including King, Pierce and Snohomish remains in place.
The new order wipes outseveral drive-in concertsthat had recently emerged as an alternative to traditional shows. However,drive-in movie theaterswill still be allowed to operate.
Read more here.
Michael Rietmulder
Americas mainstream medical establishments have given their endorsement: Universal masking is essential for the nation to find its way out of a crippling COVID-19 pandemic and get schools back in session and the economy restarted.
The data is clearly there, that masking works, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday in awebcastwith the Journal of the American Medical Association. If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think that in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.
A CDCstudyreleased Tuesday said that by early May, a survey estimated that about 76% of American adults who left home in the previous week had used a cloth face covering.
Anotherreportby the CDC about two hairstylists at a salon in Missouri showcased masks remarkable effectiveness in preventing disease transmission.
The stylists fell ill with respiratory symptoms yet continued to work at the salon for several days, only to later test positive for the coronavirus.
The stylists served 139 clients while they were ill, typically spending 15 to 45 minutes with each of them. Yet not a single client was reported to have become sick, and none of those tested receive a positive test result. The reason? Scientists believe it was because both the hairstylists and their customers wore masks.
Here are four common myths about masks, debunked.
Read the story here.
Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times
Most Chicago children would return to the classroom two days a week and spend the other three days learning remotely once the school year begins under a tentative plan outlined Friday by officials from the nations third-largest school district.
Chicago Public Schools officials called the proposed hybrid approach a preliminary framework, though, and asked parents, students and staff to weigh in. A final decision about in-person instruction for fall classes wont come until late August, with classes set to begin Sept. 8.
We have to be ready for any possibility, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. COVID-19 has been unpredictable from the start and we have a responsibility to be prepared for what the public health indicators dictate, whether that means remote learning, in-person learning or something in between.
The Chicago Teachers Union this week called on the district to stick with virtual instruction to start the fall.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
The British government ordered an urgent review Friday into how daily coronavirus death figures in England are calculated amid claims the current method overestimates the tally.
The review was prompted by concerns over why England is still recording way more deaths than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Researchers looked at whether differing methods may account for the discrepancy.
On some days recently, England has seen more than 100 daily virus-related deaths as opposed to none in the other parts of the U.K. As a whole, the U.K. has recorded a coronavirus death toll of 45,119, the third-highest in the world behind the United States and Brazil.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
New York City is on track to allow zoos to open at limited capacity and allow professional sports to begin without spectators starting next week under the next phase of its reopening plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
While a formal approval from the state had yet to be announced, de Blasio said the city is set to begin a limited version of Phase 4 of the reopening process starting Monday.
That means botanical gardens and zoos can reopen at 33% capacity, production of movies and TV shows can proceed and professional sports like baseball can be played without fans in the stands, de Blasio said.
The rest of the state is already in Phase 4, which typically permits opening malls and certain arts and entertainment centers. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week that even if the city is approved to enter Phase 4, the state wont allow any additional indoor activity in places like malls and museums because of coronavirus transmission risks.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
At the start of one of the most daunting and divisive summits in recent history, the atmosphere among the European Union leaders was downright giddy.
Blame the coronavirus pandemic. With all kinds of masks, social distancing rules, and new ways of greetings, some of the leaders reveled in the novelty of it all as they met in person for the first time since February.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, so often a study in gravity at such meetings, was all merriment when she saw Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov with his mask slipped. With her face drawn in fake shock and horror, she pointed at his exposed nose to show he had committed a serious COVID-19 faux pas.
Other leaders at the summit in Belgium were trying out various versions of the elbow bump, with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel almost turning it into an elbow duel. But there was no mistaking his good nature since he had Moien! the Luxembourgish for Good morning! printed on his mask.
The apparently carefree mingling and schmoozing disguised the reason they had all gathered in a cavernous Brussels meeting room instead of holding their summit by videoconference: The issues they are grappling with are so historic and divisive they need to look one another in the eye, and have face-to-face talks as they negotiate.
Since the pandemic hit Europe early this year, the EU has seen an unprecedented recession with the economy of the 27-nation EU contracting by 8.3% this year and lost 135,000 of its citizens to the disease.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
With infection spreading through social gatherings, Oregon set yet another single-day record on Thursday with 437 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19, the Oregon Health Authority reported.
The latest daily tally, the highest since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, raised the states case count to 13,509. Two more deaths were reported on Thursday as well, raising Oregons death toll from the disease to 249. The dead, both from Malheur County, were a 97-year-old man with underlying medical conditions and a 58-year-old woman whose health conditions are being confirmed.
States all over the country have seen surging case counts since they began easing limits on gatherings and business operations. Washington state also reported a single-day record Thursday, with 1,267 new cases.
Read more here.
Bennett Hall, Albany Democrat-Herald, Ore.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp sued the city of Atlanta over its face-mask requirement just after President Donald Trump arrived in the city without wearing a mask, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Friday.
In an interview on CBS This Morning, Bottoms questioned the timing of the lawsuit filed shortly after Trumps Wednesday visit to the city, calling the litigation really odd.
I pointed out that Donald Trump violated that order when he landed at our airport and did not wear a mask, she said.
She said Kemp is a Trump loyalist and he seems to work very hard to please the president of the United States, and that is often at the expense of the people in our state.
Asked whether she thinks Trump encouraged Kemp to file the lawsuit, she said she couldnt speak about whatever conversations they had.
But she added that Trump was violating the rules of our city in just a blatant disregard for the science.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
A return of stringent coronavirus restrictions in Israel, another daily record of reported cases in Japans capital and outbreaks in remote areas such as Chinas Xinjiang region underscored Friday the ongoing battle to quash COVID-19 flare-ups as the worlds latest hot spots pushed the confirmed global case tally toward 14 million.
India said the countrys total confirmed cases surpassed 1 million, the third-highest number behind the United States and Brazil, and its death toll reached more than 25,000. That followed Brazils announcement Thursday evening that its confirmed cases exceeded 2 million, including 76,000 deaths.
Governments are frantically trying to prevent and put down fresh outbreaks and keep their economies running as the pandemic accelerates in some parts of the world and threatens to come roaring back in others. Worldwide, confirmed cases numbered more than 13.8 million Friday and COVID-19 deaths totaled more than 590,000.
Israel on Friday reimposed sweeping restrictions to tackle a new surge in coronavirus cases in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called interim steps to avoid another general lockdown.
Climate pollution is making heat waves longer, hotter and more frequent. As communities throughout the United States face surges in COVID-19 infections, more intense heat is creating additional public health challenges, with sweltering conditions complicating efforts to contain the virus and leading to a cascade of difficult choices.
The current heat wave across the South and Southwest has seen heat warnings and advisories for at least 11 states, stretching from Southern California to the Florida Panhandle. Last weekend in Phoenix, temperatures hit a record high of 116 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, July 12and were measured at or above 110 degrees for at least ten consecutive days.
This is part of a long-term upward trend in global temperatures caused by climate pollution. Over the last 60 years, each decade has been decisively warmer than the previous one. The number of deadly heat waves in 50 major cities across the U.S. has increased dramatically from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s, to more than six per year during the 2010s.
Now layer in a deadly pandemic.
Up to a quarter of all American households dont have access to air conditioning, and they are often the poor and the elderly, for whom coronavirus poses the greatest risk. Moving them to crowded cooling centers like public libraries, community centers and senior centers increases the likelihood of exposing and possibly killing those most vulnerable to the disease.
Consider, too, the millions of Americans who work outdoors who, for example, deliver mail or labor on highway construction crews as temperatures soar and heat waves worsen. These conditions set up an impossible choice between a persons health and the job that feeds their family.
Then there are the 25 million Americans with asthma: As temperatures climb and heat waves become more frequent, the metaphorical rope around their chests will tighten. Heat and humidity encourages mold growth and seasonal pollen, which are asthma triggers. On very hot days, the problem of ozone pollution which happens when heat and sunlight combine with pollutants to create ozone also increases. Ozone causes damage to everything from human lungs to crop yields. While this is especially worrisome for people with asthma and related illnesses, ozone is bad for all peoples health, triggering problems including chest pain and coughing. It can also harm lung tissue and reduce lung function, which is especially worrisome amid the threat of COVID-19, which itself can cause serious lung damage.
Because the burden of asthma is strongly related to social and economic status, access to health care and exposure to environmental triggers, the most vulnerable are most at risk here, too. African Americans, Latinos, and the poorparticularly poor childrenhave a higher incidence of the illness.
If you think putting up with a spell of hot weather is not a big deal, look at recent history. In France, record heat waves in June and July 2019 killed more than 1,400 people. In India, an intense heat wave in 2015 killed more than 2,300 people and had temperatures hot enough to melt pavement in New Delhi.
All across the United States, temperatures are climbing. According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the number of days in Minnesota with a heat index above 90 degrees could quadruple by around mid-century if no action is taken to climate pollution. And in Florida, the average number of days when the heat index is 105 degrees or higher is projected to increase more than five times by then from 25 dangerous heat days a year to 130 more than any other state.
There are also agricultural and economic impacts. Rising temperatures increase the likelihood of droughts and spread insect borne diseases. They will also have a profound impact on outdoor recreation and sports heat is already a leading cause of death and disability among high school athletes.
We have to tackle both health threats defeating the immediate threat of COVID-19, while also dramatically reducing the pollution thats heating up the planet. That means transitioning to clean energy, electrifying transportation, putting limits on pollution and prioritizing communities that carry the highest burden and health disparities.
As we move to repair the COVID-battered economy, we have a chance to make it better than it was before. In the U.S., we can rebuild better by investing in clean energy to create more jobs and less pollution. In doing so, well reduce shocks to the system from the global pandemic to devastating heat waves made worse by climate change.
Its time to act.
The reopening and relaxing of social distancing restrictions in some states may be contributing to the first noticeable nationwide increase in coronavirus fatalities since April, when the pandemic initially peaked.
The number of cases in late June surged higher than during the outbreaks first peak. At this same time, daily Covid-19 fatalities decreased slightly, leading President Trump to proclaim that deaths were way down. But that divergence may have come to an end last week, when the average number of new deaths per day began steadily rising again.
Where deaths have increased since June 1
Daily new deaths since June 1
States where deaths have increased since June 1
Daily new deaths since June 1, seven-day average
Note: Data as of July 15.
Public health experts have pointed to a few factors that help explain why the death count was initially flat. Treatment has improved and young people, who are less likely to die from Covid-19, make up a larger share of new cases.
Additionally, more widespread testing means cases are caught sooner, on average. That means that the lag between diagnosis and death would be longer than in March, when tests were in critically short supply.
That lag may have come to an end last week, as the number of new deaths began to rise. Many of the states that reopened early are the ones seeing the biggest increases, while New York, the countrys hardest-hit city, has seen a 64 percent drop since June 1.
Deaths in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut
Deaths in rest of the United States
While the growth rate of new deaths has flattened slightly in the past few days, data suggest that the recent increase in deaths may continue. Most of the states seeing the sharpest increase in deaths also have some of the countrys highest positive test rates, as well as soaring hospitalization rates, an indicator that many more residents may be gravely ill.
In addition, a high share of positive tests most likely signals that there are a larger number of people whose infections are going undetected in a states official numbers.
Sources: New York Times database from state and local governments; the Covid-19 Tracking ProjectNote: Data is as of July 15, 2020. States listed above have a minimum of 100 cumulative deaths. Positive test rates are calculated using positive results from July 2 to July 15. Trend lines and new deaths per million show seven-day average data.
While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there's no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading the virus, there have been reports of pets being infected.
And since the coronavirus is believed to have infected wild animals before jumping to humans, this is an area scientists need to learn more about in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19 and future illnesses.
Covid-19 was found in three of 11 cats at one mink farm, and the government said cats may play a role in the spread of the virus between farms.
At a farm in Teruel, Spain, 92,700 mink are to be culled after 78 of 90 animals tested were found to have the coronavirus -- 87% of the sample.
Can I catch coronavirus from my pet?
The CDC says the risk of animals spreading Covid-19 to people is "considered to be low" and the agency does not recommend routine testing of pets.
A YouTube video released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-June said that "it doesn't seem like animals can give you the virus," although you may be able to give it to them.
Since animals can spread other diseases to humans, it's always best to wash your hands after touching a pet and before touching your face.
Didn't the coronavirus originate in wild animals?
Researchers believe the coronavirus spent some time infecting both bats and pangolins before it jumped into humans. Scientists suspect humans first came into contact with an animal sick with the disease at a wet market in China.
What is clear is that the coronavirus has swapped genes repeatedly with similar strains infecting bats, pangolins and a possible third species, a team at Duke University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and elsewhere reported in the journal Science Advances in May.
What's also clear is that people need to reduce contact with wild animals that can transmit new infections, they concluded.
How can I protect my pet from Covid-19?
Consider avoiding dog parks and other crowded public places, the FDA advises. The six-foot distancing rule applies to leashed pets, as well as to other people.
The FDA also suggests avoiding contact with animals if you are sick -- if possible, have someone else care for your pet until you're well again, or wear a face covering around them.
If your pet gets sick after contact with a person with Covid-19, call your veterinarian and find out about telemedicine consultations or other plans for seeing pets.
Animal rights groups warned that a bigger risk than the spread of the virus from animals to humans is the "spread of fear" causing owners to abandon their pets.
Should this change how we behave around animals?
Fur farms such as those where the mink outbreaks occurred are banned in many countries because of concerns around animal welfare and ethics.
Research published in Science Advances warned that humans are setting ourselves up to be infected with new viruses by operating "wet markets" where many different species of live animals are caged and sold, and by moving deeper into forests where animals live.
They said "reducing or eliminating direct human contact with wild animals is critical to preventing new coronavirus zoonosis [transmission from animals to humans] in the future."
Jane Goodall, the pioneering chimpanzee expert, said she hoped that the coronavirus would make us reflect on our relationship with the natural world.
She said humans had "disrespected" nature and animals, "and as we destroy the forests and the habitats, species which normally wouldn't interact have been crowded together" and have been forced into closer contact with humans.
Goodall noted that HIV originated with the hunting of chimpanzees, that Middle East respiratory syndrome -- another coronavirus -- comes from camels, and that modern farming practices create ideal conditions for a virus to jump from an animal to a human. The climate crisis could also bring further problems and more diseases.
"So, let's hope we come out of the pandemic and can work out together, a greener future economy, and a better way to live in harmony with the natural world," Goodall said, "for the sake of the environment, animals, our own health and future generations."
CNN's Maggie Fox, Laura Prez Maestro, Mick Kerver, Rob Picheta and Jen Christensen contributed reporting.
The West Virginia Department of Health andHuman Resources (DHHR)reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 17, 2020, there have been 222,427 totalconfirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 4,783 totalcases and 100 deaths.
Inalignment with updated definitions from the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, the dashboard includes probable cases which are individuals that havesymptoms and either serologic (antibody) or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to aconfirmed case) evidence of disease, but no confirmatory test.
CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (24/0), Berkeley (539/19), Boone(53/0), Braxton (6/0), Brooke (35/1), Cabell (207/7), Calhoun (4/0), Clay(15/0), Fayette (98/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (21/1), Greenbrier (76/0),Hampshire (46/0), Hancock (51/3), Hardy (48/1), Harrison (133/1), Jackson(149/0), Jefferson (262/5), Kanawha (472/12), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (19/0),Logan (42/0), Marion (124/3), Marshall (77/1), Mason (26/0), McDowell (12/0),Mercer (68/0), Mineral (69/2), Mingo (48/2), Monongalia (654/15), Monroe(14/1), Morgan (19/1), Nicholas (19/1), Ohio (173/0), Pendleton (18/1),Pleasants (4/1), Pocahontas (37/1), Preston (90/24), Putnam (99/1), Raleigh(92/3), Randolph (196/2), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (12/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor(26/1), Tucker (7/0), Tyler (10/0), Upshur (31/2), Wayne (144/2), Webster(2/0), Wetzel (40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (192/10), Wyoming (7/0).
Ascase surveillance continues at the local health department level, it may revealthat those tested in a certain county may not be a resident of that county, oreven the state as an individual in question may have crossed the state borderto be tested. Such is the case of Harrison and Ohiocounties in this report.
Please note that delays may be experiencedwith the reporting of information from the local health department to DHHR.
Please visit the dashboard at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.
Additional report:
To increaseCOVID-19 testing opportunities, the Governor's Office, the Herbert HendersonOffice of Minority Affairs, WV Department of Health and Human Resources, WVNational Guard, local health departments, and community partners today providedfree COVID-19 testing for residents in counties with high minority populationsand evidence of COVID-19 transmission.
Todays testing resulted in 914 individuals tested: 279 inBerkeley County; 416 in Jefferson County; and 219 in Mercer County. Please notethese are considered preliminary numbers.
Testingwill be held tomorrow in Berkeley, Jefferson and Monongalia counties in these locations.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice on Friday announced plans for how they will resume hearings for asylum seekers currently in the Migrant Protection Protocols after court dates were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program, also called remain in Mexico, requires that most asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their court dates in front of an American immigration judges. Since the MPP program began in late 2018, more than 60,000 asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico, including more than 20,000 in the El Paso-Ciudad Jurez area.
It will likely take weeks for the criteria to resume hearings to be met. For Texas it means the state must achieve reopening at a level designated as stage three by Gov. Greg Abbott. The state had reached that level, Abbott announced, when he allowed restaurants to expand their occupancy to 75% capacity and bars to operate at 50% capacity. But hes since rolled back capacity at eateries and closed bars completely after Texas and more than a dozen states began experiencing surges of cases after reopening.
In order to resume MPP hearings in a responsible manner that will minimize risk to public health and the spread of disease, DHS plans to adhere to recommended federal guidance and protocols, including in particular the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions social-distancing and sanitization standards, the DHS and U.S. Department of Justice said in a joint statement. DHS is working to secure the equipment and resources necessary to support this safe resumption of MPP hearings.
In addition to the state guidelines, the DHS said it will also wait for the U.S. Department of State and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lower their global health advisories to Level 2. The State Department is currently at Level 4, which advises U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19, and the CDC is at Level 3, which recommends the same guidance.
Mexico must also achieve yellow status for the states that border the United States, which include Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua on the Texas border and Sonora and Baja California to the west. Yellow status means most business and places are open but residents are still urged to practice caution with an emphasis on the countrys vulnerable population. As of Wednesday, about half the country was one level higher at orange, and the rest of the states at red, the highest in the system, the Associated Press reported.
Once those metrics are achieved, the DHS said it will will develop detailed, location-specific plans to safely resume MPP hearings consistent with CDC guidelines, according to the statement. Once the criteria are met, the Departments will provide public notification at least fifteen calendar days prior to resumption of the hearings with location-specific details.
Face masks will also be required for immigrants and other visitors, and temperature checks will be conducted. If a court room has reached capacity, hearings will be rescheduled, according to the guidance.
Even before the pandemic struck the globe, the MPP program was widely criticized by immigration attorneys and advocates who said it placed thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers at risk of violence in Mexican border cities that have seen sustained or increased bloodshed in border states. Attorneys have also argued that the program makes proper representation nearly impossible because they cant communicate with clients in migrant shelters or, in more dire cases, asylum seekers who have no place to stay. They argue that instead of returning the migrants to Mexico, they should instead be paroled into the United States and places with family members already living in the country. Despite multiple lawsuits aimed at stopping the program, district courts have allowed it to proceed.
Researchers on Tuesday reported strong evidence that the coronavirus can be transmitted from a pregnant woman to a fetus.
A baby born in a Paris hospital in March to a mother with Covid-19 tested positive for the virus and developed symptoms of inflammation in his brain, said Dr. Daniele De Luca, who led the research team and is chief of the division of pediatrics and neonatal critical care at Paris-Saclay University Hospitals. The baby, now more than 3 months old, recovered without treatment and is very much improved, almost clinically normal, Dr. De Luca said, adding that the mother, who needed oxygen during the delivery, is healthy.
Dr. De Luca said the virus appeared to have been transmitted through the placenta of the 23-year-old mother.
Since the pandemic began, there have been isolated cases of newborns who have tested positive for the coronavirus, but there has not been enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the infants became infected by the mother after they were born, experts said. A recently published case in Texas, of a newborn who tested positive for Covid-19 and had mild respiratory symptoms, provided more convincing evidence that transmission of the virus during pregnancy can occur.
In the Paris case, Dr. De Luca said, the team was able to test the placenta, amniotic fluid, cord blood, and the mothers and babys blood.
The testing indicated that the virus reaches the placenta and replicates there, Dr. De Luca said. It can then be transmitted to a fetus, which can get infected and have symptoms similar to adult Covid-19 patients.
A study of the case was published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Dr. Yoel Sadovsky, executive director of Magee-Womens Research Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study, said he thought the claim of placental transmission was fairly convincing. He said the relatively high levels of the coronavirus found in the placenta and the rising levels of virus in the baby and the evidence of placental inflammation, along with the babys symptoms, are all consistent with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Still, Dr. Sadovsky said, it is important to note that cases of possible coronavirus transmission in utero appear to be extremely rare. With other viruses, including Zika and rubella, placental infection and transmission is much more common, he said. With the coronavirus, he said, we are trying to understand the opposite what underlies the relative protection of the fetus and the placenta?
Another study published on Tuesday in eLife, an online research journal, may help answer that question. It found that while cells in the placenta had many of the receptor proteins that allow viruses to propagate, there was evidence of only negligible amounts of a key cell surface receptor and an enzyme that are known to be involved in allowing the coronavirus to enter cells and replicate. The study was led by Dr. Robert Romero, chief of the perinatology research branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The report from doctors in Paris said that the woman was 35 weeks pregnant when she came to the hospital with a fever and a cough that she developed a couple of days earlier in what was an otherwise healthy pregnancy. She tested positive for the coronavirus. After three days, fetal heart monitoring indicated signs of distress, and the baby was delivered by emergency cesarean section.
The baby was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit and was connected to a ventilator for about six hours, the authors reported. He seemed to be doing well, but on his third day he became irritable, had trouble feeding and was experiencing muscle spasms and rigidity.
A brain scan showed some injury to the white matter, which Dr. De Luca said resembled symptoms of meningitis or inflammation in the brain. He tested negative for other viruses or bacterial infections that could have caused such symptoms, while tests of his blood and fluid from his lungs were positive for coronavirus infection, the authors said. The baby gradually recovered and left the hospital after 18 days.
The authors said that the highest levels of the coronavirus were found in the placenta, higher than those in the amniotic fluid and in the blood of the mother and baby, which Dr. De Luca said suggested that the virus might be able to replicate in placental cells.
Dr. De Luca, who is also the president-elect of the European Society for Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care, said his team was analyzing other suspected cases of placental transmission of the coronavirus.
This will be helpful for clinicians and policymakers in order to manage pregnant women, check neonates and reduce the risk of viral transmission from mothers to neonates, he said, adding, The good news is that the baby recovered spontaneously and gradually despite all this, and this confirms that the disease is milder in early infancy.
India has become the third country to record more than 1m coronavirus infections, following the US and Brazil, as it reported 34,956 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the national total to 1,003,832.
New peaks continue to appear around the world, including an alarming rise in the Brittany region of France.
Amid evidence that the disease was taking hold in poorer, rural areas of India with less effective public healthcare, the latest tally prompted renewed concerns about the countrys ability to cope with rising infections.
The figures have been released after a week in which authorities in India were forced to impose new lockdowns, including fresh restrictions on 128 million people in the state of Bihar, which came into force on Thursday.
The continuing and escalating outbreaks, on top of record cases in the United States which passed 75,000 daily cases in the last count have dampened hopes that the pandemic is anywhere close to being brought under control, even as researchers race to find a viable vaccine.
Three states in India Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu account for more than half of the total cases in the country so far. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, warned that the majority of cases in the country were still being missed.
The continuing rise has forced authorities to reinstate lockdowns in some cities and states.
In Bangalore, the government ordered a week-long lockdown that began on Tuesday evening after a rapid rise in cases.
Dr Anant Bhan, a global health researcher, said India was likely to experience a series of peaks as the virus spread in rural areas. He said the capital, New Delhi, and the financial capital, Mumbai, had already recorded surges, while infections have now shifted to smaller cities.
Indias response to the virus was initially sluggish, but on 24 March the prime minister, Narendra Modi, imposed a three-week nationwide lockdown of its 1.3-billion population.
By Friday more than 13.8m infections had been confirmed worldwide and nearly 590,000 people had died, according to Johns Hopkins University, with Brazil recording more than 2m infections by the end of the week and the US more than 3m.
Countries around the world have moved quickly to reintroduce restrictions as outbreaks flare up again. Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, Spains second largest city, announced a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people from Saturday as part of a package of measures to curb an increase in coronavirus cases in the Catalan capital.
We have to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people Only 10 people will be allowed in weddings and funerals from Saturday, Colau told a press conference. Residents were urged to shop online and cultural and sports events will also be limited.
In France, which had already announced plans to make mask wearing mandatory in enclosed public spaces, authorities reported a sharp rise in the infection rate in Brittany. According to data released on Friday, the diseases reproduction rate in Brittany had risen from 0.92 to 2.62 between 10-14 July.
Its a worrying number because it means the epidemic is taking off again, Eric Caumes, an infectious disease specialist at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris, told BFM TV.
In China, flights into the city of rmqi in the far-western Xinjiang region were restricted on Friday, and underground and public bus services suspended, according to local social media.
The latest outbreak has underlined the continuing difficulty China faces in stamping out the virus even with its imposition of draconian measures which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Amid fears around the world over the ease in which new resurgences have escalated after countries relaxed restrictions, Hong Kong reported 50 new locally transmitted cases on Friday, stoking further concern about a third peak of infections in the global financial hub.
Tokyo hit a daily high of 293 infections as Japan tried to keep the worlds third-largest economy running while curbing infections, a precarious balancing act of opening restaurants and theatres with limited seating, and having store clerks work behind plastic shielding.
We have asked people and businesses to raise their alert levels, said Tokyos governor, Yuriko Koike. She said the recent higher numbers partly reflected more aggressive testing.
To the Editor:
Re A Vaccine Doesnt Work if People Dont Take It (Sunday Review, July 12):
I thank Dr. Phoebe Danziger for her thorough and persuasive argument in favor of a more concerted effort to educate the population about the importance of vaccinations. I wholeheartedly agree that the approach needs to change, engaging social and religious leaders as well as medical professionals.
However, her article identifies but never provides an answer for the primary reason I will wait before vaccinating myself and my family: the deeply corrupt, anti-science government that President Trump has created.
Through intimidation, bullying and threats to fire those who disagree, he has created a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is amending its health guidelines within hours of an angry tweet, he has promoted harmful and phony cures, and he has awarded a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to a pharmaceutical company that has never successfully brought a product to market.
Under these conditions, who can possibly trust that the first vaccine to emerge from Operation Warp Speed (a name that also does not imply careful and meticulous work) will have undergone the proper testing and scrutiny that other vaccines have?
I do not doubt the hard work and integrity of the many scientists and doctors who are working on this. But the last few months have given me no reason to trust the government that regulates their work. I have given my young daughter every vaccine recommended by her pediatrician, without a second thought. I will most definitely not be first in line for this one not until Mr. Trump and his crooked team are swept out of office. I believe in science. This administration does not.
Pian RockfeldNew York
To the Editor:
Dr. Phoebe Danziger lays out a number of difficulties in recruiting the large numbers of people needed to accept a Covid-19 vaccine, and thus make it truly effective.
Sorry to add to the problems she outlines, but I would include older Americans among those with concerns. Many drug trials have historically eschewed using older people or those with any pre-existing conditions during drug trials. As a result, we have little way of knowing if a positive effect in children and younger adults will hold true with senior citizens.
I believe in vaccines and I see the complexities. Transparency, clarity about risks and benefits, and a medical-political alliance in communicating are essential. We dont have that now, not even close.
Mary Anne LusheWalled Lake, Mich.
To the Editor:
I agree with Dr. Phoebe Danziger that some strategies, such as green vaccines or coalitions of persuasive leaders, may influence some of those whose distrust of science, government or the world in general would lead them to avoid vaccination. I think what will work to persuade hard core anti-vaxxers is a daily scorecard: Of the people who present with disease, how many of the sick were vaccinated against the disease versus how many were not? If you want to protect yourself and your child, which group do you think you should join?
Joyce AdamsPortland, Ore.
To the Editor:
I know several people who refuse to take vaccines. Sadly, I will miss them!
I. Milton KarabellPhiladelphia
]]> How to overcome the market failure in developing novel antibiotics? Credit: Shutterstock.
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More than 20 major biopharmaceutical companies, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Wellcome Trust and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have launched the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) Action Fund to help stop the world losing its most powerful tool in healthcare.
This initiative, which is coordinated by trade association the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations(IFPMA), has raised nearly $1bn to respond to the AMR threat. This funding, and technical support from big pharma, will be used to strengthen and accelerate antibiotic development.
The WHO predicts that AMR could claim 10 million lives per year by 2050 and cause a global economic recession as large as the 2008 financial crisis.
AMR is a slow tsunami that threatens to undo a century of medical progress, said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at an IFPMA launch event. Antibiotics are truly game-changing medicines that are used to support cancer treatment and organ transplantation, as well as protect people from deadly infectious diseases, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), malaria and tuberculosis (TB).
This situation has emerged because of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. This has been exacerbated by the lack of economic incentives for pharma companies to invest in infectious disease research. The aim of developing novel antibiotics is that they will be used as a last resort as bacteria develop resistance, but this means it is incredibly hard for pharma, or investors, to make back their research and development (R&D) costs, let alone make a profit on antibiotics.
As a result, IFPMA director general Thomas Cueni noted there has not been a new class of antibiotics developed since the 1980s.
Although tackling AMR is something that has been high on the agenda of international organisations for almost a decade, since Jim ONeills AMR review was published in 2014, there has been limited progress so far.
However, Covid-19 has put a spotlight on the flaws in the infectious disease treatment landscape. In the last six months, almost 600,000 people have died from Covid-19, while approximately 700,000 die every year as a result of drug-resistant infections.
Covid-19 has posed an unprecedented challenge, but AMR is another challenge we now need to face, explained Bayer president of pharmaceuticals Stefan Oelrich at the IFPMA launch.
Science and industry needs to ensure the world is better prepared for future and emerging health threats, added Merck Group chairman and CEO Stefan Oschmann. GlaxoSmithKline CEO Emma Walmsley agreed, stating: The pandemic is teaching us many things, one is that the world needs to be better prepared for health threats.
Unlike Covid-19, AMR is a predictable and preventable crisis, said Cueni at the launch. We must act together to rebuild the pipeline and ensure that the most promising and innovative antibiotics make it from the lab to patients.
Over the past 12 months, the public and private sectors came together to form a coalition and a fund to overcome this market failure. Cueni declared: The AMR Action Fund is one of the largest and most ambitious collaborative initiatives ever undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry to respond to a global public health threat.
Expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2020, the main focus of the AMR Action Fund is to use the $1bn committed to invest in promising small biotechs working on developing innovative antibiotics; the aim is to bring between two and four new antibiotics to the market by 2030.
Companies that receive funding will be determined by an independent scientific advisory board, which will aim to invest in particularly innovative approaches and focus on pathogens on the WHOs 2017 priority list. In addition to TB, which is a serious public health threat, other bacteria on the WHOs critical priority list include those that are a large threat in hospitals: Acinetobacter,Pseudomonasand various Enterobacteriaceae, such as E.coli.
The AMR Action Funds portfolio companies will also benefit from the technical support, expertise and resources from the pharma industry supporters of the fund. This will help to optimise a biotechs chance of success in the antibiotics field.
Although the AMR Action Fund is focusing on improving antibiotics R&D, it will not fully solve the issue of creating a long-term viable economic model for bringing antibiotics to market.
This is may be an important first step in the right direction, as Dame Sally Davies, the UKs Special envoy on AMR, noted at the funds launch. However, Cueni stated that the next debate needs to be about incentives and the longer-term problems. The fund has created push incentives on the R&D side, but then we need pull incentives from the business model, said European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) director general Nathalie Moll at the launch.
Oschmann added that a system that would only pay for consumption would be wrong and that the industry, patients and public health stakeholders need to work together to overcome this next challenge.
The AMR Action Fund will support innovative antibiotic candidates through the most challenging later stages of drug development, ultimately providing governments time to make the necessary policy reforms to enable a sustainable antibiotic pipeline, added IFPMA president and Eli Lilly CEO and chairman David Ricks.
There is already starting to be a shift from policymakers around changing the business model for antibiotics. A noteworthy example is the UK Governments scheme to create a subscription-style payment model for antibiotics. This initiative was announced in 2019 as part of the UKs five-year national action plan on AMR and officially launched in mid-June 2020.
In this model, the National Health Service (NHS) will pay companies upfront for access to their antibiotic product and the price will be based on its value to the NHS, not how much is used. The government hopes the first antibiotics will be available to patients under this model by 2022.
In a statement, Davies noted: Governments and industry must work together to produce new antibiotics and ensure that we can continue to treat common diseases.
The UK is leading the way by encouraging companies to produce new antibiotics to stay one step ahead of life-threatening diseases.
UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock added: This new way of buying antibiotics for patients in the NHS breaks down restrictive barriers to offer companies a vital springboard to foster innovation and develop potentially life-saving new products.
