TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR)reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 6, 2020, there have been 188,875 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 3,442 total cases and 95 deaths.
In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.
CASES PER COUNTY (Caseconfirmed by lab test/Probable case): Barbour(17/0), Berkeley (474/18), Boone (24/0), Braxton (3/0), Brooke (14/1), Cabell(161/6), Calhoun (2/0), Clay (11/0), Fayette (72/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant(15/1), Greenbrier (66/0), Hampshire (42/0), Hancock (29/3), Hardy (44/1),Harrison (79/0), Jackson (145/0), Jefferson (240/5), Kanawha (346/9), Lewis(19/1), Lincoln (9/0), Logan (26/0), Marion (85/3), Marshall (43/1), Mason(21/0), McDowell (6/0), Mercer (57/0), Mineral (56/2), Mingo (20/3), Monongalia(285/14), Monroe (15/1), Morgan (19/1), Nicholas (14/1), Ohio (109/1),Pendleton (13/1), Pleasants (4/1), Pocahontas (30/1), Preston (73/16), Putnam(68/1), Raleigh (62/1), Randolph (169/2), Ritchie (2/0), Roane (11/0), Summers(2/0), Taylor (16/1), Tucker (6/0), Tyler (5/0), Upshur (20/1), Wayne (119/1),Webster (1/0), Wetzel (18/0), Wirt (5/0), Wood (124/8), Wyoming (7/0).
As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Monroe and Nicholas counties in this report.
Please visit thedashboard at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.
The 2020 coronavirus and 1918 Spanish influenza pandemics share many similarities, but they also diverge on one key point.
A major difference between Spanish flu and COVID-19 is the age distribution of fatalities, according to Deutsche Bank DB, -1.30%. For COVID-19, the elderly have been overwhelmingly the worst hit. For the Spanish flu of 1918, the young working-age population were severely affected too. In fact, the death rate from pneumonia and influenza that year among 25-34-year-olds in the United States was more than 50% higher than that for 65-74-year-olds. A remarkable difference to Covid-19.
Francis Yared, the global head of rates research at Deutsche Bank, said the overall mortality rate measured by weekly new deaths and weekly new cases is around one-third of the level observed in the second half of April.
So we have an interesting situation at the moment, where rapidly rising cases in the U.S. are slowing reopenings (negative) but the death rate is falling (positive). This may eventually give us more faith that we are now better at living with the virus, the bank said.
There wasnt such a big trade-off between economic activity and public health during the 1918 Spanish flu, because you needed to suppress the virus to enable consumers to be more confident and for businesses to operate as normal.
During the 1918 flu, cities that implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing and school closures tended to have better economic outcomes over the medium term, Deutsche Bank added. This offered historical support to the argument that there wasnt such a big trade-off between economic activity and public health, because you needed to suppress the virus to enable consumers to be more confident and for businesses to operate as normal.
Some 500 million people, or one-third of the worlds population, became infected with the 1918 Spanish flu. An estimated 50 million people died worldwide, with about 675,000 deaths occurring in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin, the agency added.
During the 1918 flu pandemic, mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic, the CDC said. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, had infected nearly 11.6 million people globally and 2.9 million in the U.S. as of Monday evening, adding more than 156,000 confirmed cases from Thursday evening to Sunday evening of the July Fourth holiday, according to official figures collated by Johns Hopkins Universitys Center for Systems Science and Engineering. The disease had claimed at least 538,933 lives worldwide and 130,312 in the U.S.
While COVID-19s progress has slowed in New York, where most cases in the U.S. are still centered, confirmed coronavirus cases have recently risen in nearly 40 U.S. states.
Letter from New York:When I hear an ambulance, I wonder if theres a coronavirus patient inside. Are there more 911 calls, or do I notice every distant siren?
There are also some similarities between influenza and COVID-19, including their nearly identical symptoms: fever, coughing, night sweats, body aches, tiredness, and nausea and diarrhea in the most severe cases. Like all viruses, neither is treatable with antibiotics. They can both be spread through respiratory droplets from coughing and sneezing, but they come from two different virus families and ongoing research to develop a universal vaccine for influenza shows how tricky both influenza viruses and coronaviruses can be.
The 1918 Spanish flus second wave was even more devastating than the first wave.
Historians believe that a more virulent influenza strain hit during a hard three months in 1918 and was spread by troops moving through Europe during the First World War. The 1918 Spanish flus second wave was even more devastating than the first wave, Ravina Kullar, an infectious-disease expert with the Infectious Diseases Society of America and adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, told MarketWatch. A mutated strain would be a worst-case scenario for a second wave of SARS-CoV-2 this fall or winter.
Though the 1918 pandemic is forever associated with Spain, this strain of H1N1 was discovered earlier in Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. But similar to the Communist Partys response to the first cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, World War I censorship buried or underplayed those reports. It is essential to consider the deep connections between the Great War and the influenza pandemic not simply as concurrent or consecutive crises, but more deeply intertwined, historian James Harris wrote in an article about the pandemic.
Doctors and members of the public, as of now, were spooked by how otherwise strong, healthy people fell victim to the 1918 influenza. Doctors today attribute that to the cytokine storm, a process where the immune system in healthy people reacts so strongly as to hurt the body. A hallmark of some viruses: A surge of immune cells and their activating compounds (cytokines) effectively turned the body against itself, led to an inflammation of the lungs, severe respiratory distress, leaving the body vulnerable to secondary bacterial pneumonia.
The Dow Jones Industrial Index DJIA, -1.51% and the S&P 500 SPX, -1.08% opened lower Tuesday, after rising Monday on the back of better-than-expected unemployment numbers last week amid a surge of coronavirus in states that have loosened restrictions.
UPCOMING FREE COMMUNITY TESTING: MARSHALL, MERCER, MONONGALIA, PRESTON, AND WAYNE COUNTIES Additionally during his briefing, Gov. Justice offered a reminder that the next round offree community COVID-19 testingwill be provided later this week Friday, July 10 and Saturday, July 11 in Marshall, Mercer, Monongalia, Preston, Upshur, and Wayne counties.
Click here to read more
The effort is part of a plan to provide free optional testing to all residents in several counties that are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 transmission. It targets residents who have struggled to be seen by a physician or do not have insurance to pay for testing. However, other residents, including those who are asymptomatic are welcome to be tested.
Testing is scheduled as follows:
Marshall County Friday, July 10 9 a.m. 4 p.m. McMechen City Hall: 325 Logan Street, McMechen, WV 26040 Saturday, July 11 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Marshall County Health Department: 513 6th Street, Moundsville, WV 26041
Mercer County Saturday, July 11 9:30 a.m. 4 p.m. Mercer County Health Department: 978 Blue Prince Road, Bluefield, WV 24701
Monongalia County Friday, July 10 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Morgantown Farmers Market (Downtown): 400 Spruce Street, Morgantown, WV 26505 Saturday, July 11 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Mountainview Elementary School: 661 Green Bag Road, Morgantown, WV 26508
Preston County Friday, July 10 & Saturday, July 11 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Kingwood Elementary School: 207 South Price Street, Kingwood, WV 26537
Upshur County Friday, July 10 & Saturday, July 11 10 a.m. 7 p.m. Buckhannon-Upshur High School: 270 B-U Drive, Buckhannon, WV 26201 Friday, July 10 & Saturday, July 11 10 a.m. 4 p.m. 78 Queens Alley, Rock Cave, WV 26234
Wayne County Friday, July 10 10 a.m. 4 p.m. Dunlow Community Center: 1475 Left Fork Dunlow Bypass Road, Dunlow, WV 25511 Saturday, July 11 10 a.m. 4 p.m. Wayne Elementary School: 80 McGinnis Drive, Wayne, WV 25570
Airlines are preparing to cut thousands of workers and tap government loans as a surge of coronavirus cases and fresh government travel restrictions upend a nascent recovery in travel.
After New York, New Jersey and Connecticut said last month they would require people arriving from hot-spot states to quarantine for 14 days, United Airlines Holdings Inc.s reservations for travel within the coming month quickly began to slide, according to a presentation to United employees Monday viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Today, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed documents detailing Microsofts work to disrupt cybercriminals that were taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic in an attempt to defraud customers in 62 countries around the world. Our civil case has resulted in a court order allowing Microsoft to seize control of key domains in the criminals infrastructure so that it can no longer be used to execute cyberattacks.
Microsofts Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) first observed these criminals in December 2019, when they deployed a sophisticated, new phishing scheme designed to compromise Microsoft customer accounts. The criminals attempted to gain access to customer email, contact lists, sensitive documents and other valuable information. Based on patterns discovered at that time, Microsoft utilized technical means to block the criminals activity and disable the malicious application used in the attack. Recently, Microsoft observed renewed attempts by the same criminals, this time using COVID-19-related lures in the phishing emails to target victims.
This malicious activity is yet another form of business email compromise (BEC) attack, which has increased in complexity, sophistication and frequency in recent years. According to the FBIs 2019 Internet Crime Report, the most-costly complaints received by their Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) involved BEC crimes, with losses of over $1.7 billion, representing nearly half of all financial losses due to cybercrime. While most of the publics attention in recent years has justifiably focused on the malign acts of nation state actors, the increasing economic harm caused by cybercriminals must also be considered and confronted by the public and private sectors. For our part, Microsoft and our Digital Crimes Unit will continue to investigate and disrupt cybercriminals and will seek to work with law enforcement agencies around the world, whenever possible, to stop these crimes.
These cybercriminals designed the phishing emails to look like they originated from an employer or other trusted source and frequently targeted business leaders across a variety of industries, attempting to compromise accounts, steal information and redirect wire transfers. When the group first began carrying out this scheme, the phishing emails contained deceptive messages associated with generic business activities. For example, the malicious link in the email was titled with business terms such as Q4 Report Dec19, as seen below.
With these recent efforts, however, the phishing emails instead contained messages regarding COVID-19 as a means to exploit pandemic-related financial concerns and induce targeted victims to click on malicious links. For example, using terms such as COVID-19 Bonus, as seen here.
Once victims clicked on the deceptive links, they were ultimately prompted to grant access permissions to a malicious web application (web app). Web apps are familiar-looking as they are widely used in organizations to drive productivity, create efficiencies and increase security in a distributed network. Unknown to the victim, these malicious web apps were controlled by the criminals, who, with fraudulently obtained permission, could access the victims Microsoft Office 365 account. This scheme enabled unauthorized access without explicitly requiring the victims to directly give up their login credentials at a fake website or similar interface, as they would in a more traditional phishing campaign.
After clicking through the consent prompt for the malicious web app (pictured below), the victim unwittingly granted criminals permission to access and control the victims Office 365 account contents, including email, contacts, notes and material stored in the victims OneDrive for Business cloud storage space and corporate SharePoint document management and storage system.
Microsoft takes many measures to monitor and block malicious web apps based on telemetry indicating atypical behavior and has continued to enhance our protections based on this activity. In cases where criminals suddenly and massively scale their activity and move quickly to adapt their techniques to evade Microsofts built-in defensive mechanisms, additional measures such as the legal action filed in this case are necessary. This unique civil case against COVID-19-themed BEC attacks has allowed us to proactively disable key domains that are part of the criminals malicious infrastructure, which is a critical step in protecting our customers.
As weve observed, cybercriminals have been adapting their lures to take advantage of current events, using COVID-19-related themes to deceive victims. While the lures may have changed, the underlying threats remain, evolve and grow, and its more important than ever to remain vigilant against cyberattacks.
To further protect yourself against phishing campaigns, including BEC, we recommend, first, that you enable two-factor authentication on all business and personal email accounts. Second, learnhow to spot phishing schemesand protect yourself from them. Third,enable security alertsabout links and files from suspicious websites and carefullycheck your email forwardingrules for any suspicious activity. Businesses can learn how to recognize and remediate these types of attacks and also take these steps to increase the security of their organizations.
Tags: business, COVID-19, cyberattacks, cybercrime, Digital Crimes Unit, Office 365, phishing
Firms Are Designing New Offices With COVID-19 in Mind | The American Lawyer The American Lawyer
`;articleContent = document.querySelector(".article-content");articleContent.innerHTML = articleContent.innerHTML + formbox;function waitForElement(id, callback){ var goStahp = setInterval(function(){ if(document.getElementById(id)){ clearInterval(goStahp); callback(); } }, 100);}waitForElement("customAnvatoPlayerForHowTipsBecomeStories", function(){ AnvatoPlayer("customAnvatoPlayerForHowTipsBecomeStories").init({url: "https://ep-lin-publish.storage.googleapis.com/videos_lin/variant/5541156.m3u8",width: "100%",poster: "https://www.kxan.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2020/05/Featured-Image-Tip-Form-Video.jpg","share" : 0,"mcp":"LIN","plugins":{"googleAnalytics":{"trackingId":"UA-32507368-26","events":{"VIDEO_STARTED":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - videoContentPlay","category":"Video"},"VIDEO_FIRST_QUARTILE":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - video 25%","category":"Video"},"VIDEO_MID_POINT":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - video 50%","category":"Video"},"VIDEO_THIRD_QUARTILE":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - video 75%","category":"Video"},"VIDEO_COMPLETED":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - videoComplete","category":"Video"},"USER_PAUSE":{"alias": "How a Tip Becomes A Story - videoPause","category":"Video"}}},}});});
Dive Brief:
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has issued an "immediate" and "decisive" rejection of a request to raise residential electric rates to compensate for COVID-19, leading consumer advocates and industry analysts to conclude that similar requests in other states are likely to suffer the same fate.
"The utilities' request to recover lost revenue was beyond the pale, and, simply put, a bridge too far," said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Indiana's Citizens Action Coalition. "The reaction from the public and elected officials was immediate, decisive, and left no doubt that this request was unacceptable."
On May 8, nearly a dozen Indiana utilities joined forces to request authorization to document and defer costs and losses associated with the COVID-19 crisis, including increased costs associated with responding to the public health emergency, losses associated with government orders suspending disconnections, and decreased revenue due to declining sales. They then sought permission to adjust utility rates in order to recover the deferred revenue within 24 months.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission rejected this proposal, citing the utilities' obligation to provide "safe, reliable service" in exchange for "just and reasonable rates."
"Asking customers to go beyond their obligation and pay for services they did not receive is beyond reasonable utility relief based on the facts before us," the order states.
Indiana Energy Association President Danielle McGrath said the company's her organization represents were still reviewing the IRUC order, but highlighted the fact that many Indiana utilities volunteered to suspend disconnections early in the pandemic.
Robert Mudge, a principal at The Brattle Group, said that while it remains to be seen how regulators across the nation will respond to the question of COVID-19 cost recovery, rushing to make a decision could result in negative outcomes for utilities and their ratepayers.
Research by The Brattle Group suggests that utilities nationwide have experienced a 5% reduction in load, resulting in potential net income losses of up to 30%. That kind of loss could be "survivable" for the utility, but the money has to come from somewhere, Mudge said, taking money away from essential services.
But if regulators and utilities aim to recapture these losses too soon, Mudge said, it could have a disproportionately negative impact on ratepayers if the 5% load reduction becomes permanent or even increases as commercial and industrial bankruptcies continue.
"Let's say it's implemented in 2021," Mudge said. "That's going to be a pretty concentrated step up in rates to customers who remain on the system, and are therefore being called upon to make up those differences. What does that look like in terms of a rate hike? That's a question, but it might be sizable, and it might fall on customers who are economically challenged."
Securitization, rather than cost recovery, might be the best option in this case, Mudge said. Issuing bonds to cover losses tied to the pandemic would provide utilities with the money they need up front, while stretching the cost to rate payers over several decades, avoiding rate shock.
Matt Kasper, research director for the Energy and Policy Institute, said he believes utilities that seek similar provisions in other states will likely face rejection for requests he described as "absurd."
In addition to Indiana, he said, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission refused to extend recovery to losses due to declining sales in an mid-April decision. Officials in Michigan and Virginia have also indicated they would not support utilities that sought to recover lost revenue, arguing that shareholders, not customers, should bear the burden of declining sales, leading Kasper to his conclusion that there is very little appetite for these cost-recovery requests.
However, if COVID-19 results in long-term changes to demand for electricity or other services, Kasper said those trends could become the subject of future rate cases.
"If a utility isn't collecting as much revenue from the industrial users as expected," he said, "it will look to raise rates in a future rate case on residential customers in order to get its annual revenue requirement."
Americans have lost more than $77 million in fraud related to Covid-19, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
But that tally is likely a severe undercount amid an "unprecedented" scope of scams connected to the coronavirus, according to John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League, a consumer advocacy group.
"I think the FTC's numbers are almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fraud losses," Breyault said. "We know fraud is historically an under-reported crime."
More from Personal Finance:Gig workers are eligible for this $1,000 grantCovid-19 could upend retirement plansWealth management firms took PPP loans
Con artists have scammed consumers out of $77.4 million in coronavirus-related fraud since the beginning of the year, according to FTC data through Sunday.
Consumers reported around 62,400 instances of fraud. Nearly half were linked to some financial loss. The median loss was $272.
Scammers have targeted the billions in aid doled out through new federal programs help prop up individuals and businesses during the coronavirus-induced recession.
One prime target has been the one-time stimulus checks issued by the IRS beginning in April.
The checks could be as large as $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for couples, with an extra $500 per eligible child. About 160 million payments totaling $269 billion have been sent.
Scammers have tricked Americans into forking over money or personal information, sometimes in the guise of helping them to receive their checks faster.
Fraudsters may also try leveraging news that the federal government is considering a second round of checks to try to rip off unwary consumers, Breyault said.
A huge rise in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits and extra federal money being supplied to these jobless Americans has also attracted thieves.
In some cases, they will pose as individuals helping file for unemployment benefits and then steal personal information.
More than 31 million Americans are currently collecting unemployment benefits, according to the Labor Department.
Federal authorities have also uncovered plots by international organized crime rings to file fraudulent unemployment claims in hopes of collecting the weekly payout from states.
Those sums may be especially lucrative given an extra $600 a week the federal government is paying jobless Americans through July.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, meanwhile, anew program for self-employed workers and independent contractors, among others, allows workers to self-certify their need for jobless aid, making that program more susceptible to fraud, according to the Labor Department's inspector general.
Scammers are seeing this as an unprecedented opportunity to take advantage of consumers.
John Breyault
vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League
Americans have also fallen prey to other scams, such as ones tied to fake treatments and cures for Covid-19 and fraudulent threats of utility shutoffs to coax money out of consumers, Breyault said.
"Scammers are seeing this as an unprecedented opportunity to take advantage of consumers, who are not only in dire financial straits but are being inundated with information about Covid cures or protections that are dubious at best and fraudulent at worst," he said.
The most common reports lodged by consumers were around online shopping and vacations, according to the FTC.
Price gouging for in-demand products like hand sanitizer, bleach, disinfectant wipes and other cleaning products is likely fueling complaints about online shopping, while an ability to get refunds for airline tickets and hotels is likely a lead contributor to vacation complaints, Breyault said.
CHARLOTTE COUNTY
Tuesday, a new COVID-19 testing site opens at the Charlotte County Sports Park.
It will provide tests on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. until 11 a.m.
You must be at least 18 to get a test and it is a drive-thru service.
Appointments are not required at that testing facility but healthcare officials say it will speed up the process if you register beforehand.
Doctors stressed how important testing and contact tracing are.
It allows you to narrow down who has it and also who these people are coming in contact with and potentially further spreading the virus.
Thats why the CDC is stressing even if you have minimal to no symptoms you should still get tested.
But remember, if you receive a negative test it doesnt mean youre in the clear.
Receiving a negative diagnosis doesnt put the matter to rest, correct? Because the virus is still out there. So just because youre negative today doesnt mean that you may be negative tomorrow And remember theres an incubation period from 2-14 days, said Dr. Bindu Mayi, Professor of Microbiology at NSUs College of Medical Sciences.
Results could take between 7-10 days to come back, but doctors say they are hoping to speed up that return.
