Some young people in Alabama are throwing COVID-19 parties, a disturbing competition where people who have coronavirus attend and the first person to get infected receives a payout, local officials said.
The parties are being held in Tuscaloosa, and infected people are urged to attend so others can intentionally contract the virus, City Council member Sonya McKinstry told CNN. She said she heard about the trend from fire officials.
"We thought that was kind of a rumors at first. We did some research, not only do the doctors' offices confirm it, but the state confirmed they also had the same information," she said.
During a presentation to the City Council this week, Fire Chief Randy Smith also said young people in the city are throwing parties with a payout if they catch coronavirus, McKinstry said.
The first person confirmed by a doctor to have coronavirus after the exposure wins the money made off the ticket sales, she said. Over the past few weeks, there have been several parties in the city and surrounding areas, and probably more that officials don't know about, she added.
"It makes me furious," McKinstry said. "Furious to the fact that something that is so serious and deadly is being taken for granted. Not only is it irresponsible, but you could contract the virus and take it home to your parents or grandparents."
The city is working on getting the word out and breaking up such parties. It also passed a mask ordinance this week that goes into effect Monday.
"This is not political. This is a public health issue. People are dying and there is no cure. We have to do whatever we can to save as many lives as possible, McKinstry said.
CNN has reached out to the Alabama Health Department for comment. The state has reported about 39,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 1,000 deaths.
TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR)reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 2, 2020, there have been 177,287 totalconfirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 3,006 total cases and 93 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 (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (15/0), Berkeley (441/18), Boone(21/0), Braxton (3/0), Brooke (8/1), Cabell (128/6), Calhoun (2/0), Clay(10/0), Fayette (66/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (15/1), Greenbrier (61/0),Hampshire (42/0), Hancock (20/3), Hardy (43/1), Harrison (65/0), Jackson(143/0), Jefferson (228/5), Kanawha (318/9), Lewis (18/1), Lincoln (8/0), Logan(25/0), Marion (58/3), Marshall (40/1), Mason (19/0), McDowell (6/0), Mercer(45/0), Mineral (55/2), Mingo (20/3), Monongalia (166/14), Monroe (12/1),Morgan (19/1), Nicholas (10/1), Ohio (97/1), Pendleton (12/1), Pleasants (4/1),Pocahontas (26/1), Preston (64/15), Putnam (58/1), Raleigh (53/1), Randolph(161/1), Ritchie (2/0), Roane (11/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor (15/1), Tucker(6/0), Tyler (4/0), Upshur (20/1), Wayne (111/1), Wetzel (10/0), Wirt (4/0),Wood (92/8), 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 Berkeley County in this report.
Please visit thedashboard at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.
A study of coronavirus infections that covered almost everyone in the quarantined north Italian town of V found that 40% of cases showed no symptoms - suggesting that asymptomatic cases are important in the spread of the pandemic.
The study, led by a scientist at Italys Padua University and Imperial College London, also produced evidence that mass testing combined with case isolation and community lockdowns can stop local outbreaks swiftly.
Image: REUTERS/Marzio Toniolo REFILE - CORRECTING INFORMATION - RC211H9KA5RC
Despite silent and widespread transmission, the disease can be controlled, said Andrea Crisanti, a professor at Padua and Imperial who co-led the work. Testing of all citizens, whether or not they have symptoms, provides a way to ... prevent outbreaks getting out of hand.
Crisanti has become something of a celebrity in Italy for advocating widespread testing well before it became official World Health Organization guidance.
V, which has a population of nearly 3,200, was immediately put into quarantine for 14 days after suffering Italys first COVID-19 death, on Feb. 21.
During that fortnight, researchers tested most of the population for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
A analysis of the results, published in the journal Nature on Monday, showed that at the start of quarantine, 2.6% of Vos population - or 73 people - were positive. After two weeks, only 29 people were positive.
At both times, around 40% of positive cases showed no symptoms. But because all of the coronavirus cases found - whether symptomatic or not - were quarantined, the researchers said, this helped slow the spread of the disease, effectively suppressing it in a few weeks.
Crisanti said the success of Vos mass testing also guided wider public health policy in the wider Veneto Region, where it had a tremendous impact on the course of the epidemic there compared to other regions.
More than 80 percent of the current cases are linked to the city of Hebron, which began to shut down on Wednesday evening.
Mr. Milhim said that the five-day lockdown could be extended and called on Palestinians to follow social distancing guidelines and wear masks, warning that there would be consequences for those who did not comply.
Reporting was contributed by Rachel Abrams, Livia Albeck-Ripka, Aliza Aufrichtig, Julie Bosman, Benedict Carey, Ben Casselman, Stephen Castle, Emily Cochrane, Michael Cooper, Jill Cowan, Steven Erlanger, Richard Fausset, Luis Ferr-Sadurn, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Thomas Fuller, Jenny Gross, Jack Healy, Makiko Inoue, Annie Karni, Isabella Kwai, Ernesto Londoo, Patricia Mazzei, Mark Mazzetti, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Jesse McKinley, Sarah Mervosh, Anna Momigliano, Monika Pronczuk, Adam Rasgon, Motoko Rich, Amanda Rosa, Nelson D. Schwartz, Dionne Searcey, Ed Shanahan, Eliza Shapiro, Mitch Smith, Jim Tankersley, Sabrina Tavernise, Hisako Ueno, David Waldstein, Caryn A. Wilson, Edward Wong, Sameer Yasir and Karen Zraick.
Efforts to fully reopen the U.S. economy are faltering as 19 states pause or reverse plans to ease restrictions on business as new cases spike across the country. Despite the surge of infections, Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC the White House wants to press ahead with reopening after job numbers came in better than expected. Pence defended the administration's position on masks, saying there's no need for a national mandate. Nearly half of all states have implemented mask mandates in one form or another, including Texas.
This is CNBC's live blog covering all the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks.
The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Travelers wearing protective masks use kiosks to check-in at the American Airlines Group Inc. counter at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, July 1, 2020.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
6:20 p.m. ET The Trump administration said airline passengers and crews should wear masks throughout their journeys but stopped short of mandating them or requiring social distancing on board, a contentious issue now between carriers.
The guidelines, issued jointly by the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, said airlines and airports should require face coverings, saying they are particularly necessary any time social distancing cannot be maintained."
The officials said airlines and airports should advise travelers "when it may not be possible to meet social distancing expectations" and stress the importance of wearing a mask and keeping hands clean during those times.
The recommendations come as U.S. airlines' policies on leaving some seats unsold to space passengers out on flightshave divergedin recent weeks. The Trump administration also said airlines should collect passenger contact data to assist with disease-tracing efforts. Leslie Josephs
Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci wears a face mask while he waits to testifiy before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump Administration's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 23, 2020.
Kevin Dietsch | Pool via Reuters
5:48 p.m. ET The coronavirus appears to have mutated in a way that might help it spread more easily, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
All viruses mutate, but most mutations will not meaningfully change the behavior of the pathogen, its ability to spread or the disease it causes in humans.
"The data is showing there's a single mutation that makes the virus be able to replicate better and maybe have high viral loads," Fauci said in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association's Dr. Howard Bauchner. "We don't have a connection to whether an individual does worse with this or not; it just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible."Will Feuer
5:04 p.m. ET Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring all residents to wear a face-covering in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive coronavirus cases.
The decision was made because the percent of total tests coming back positive and the hospitalization rate both increased too much, Abbott said.
"Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19," Abbott said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization both recommend that people wear them as a way to slow the spread of the virus.Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
4:49 p.m. ET The number of U.S. active-duty military personnel infected with the coronavirus has spiked in the past three weeks, a revelation that comes as the Pentagon lifts travel restrictions in 48 states.
As of Thursday, the Pentagon has reported a total of 18,071 cases. Of those 12,521 are active-duty military, 2,644 are civilians, 1,740 are dependents and 1,166 are contractors. These figures include 8,683 recoveries and 38 deaths across the entire department. Amanda Macias
An employee sweeps inside a closed bar in Austin, Texas, June 26, 2020.
Sergio Flores | AFP | Getty Images
3:54 p.m. ET Six states are closing thousands of bars again ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. But bar owners aren't happy with the rollbacks.
"The stop and start costs thousands of dollars for every business," said David Kaplan, co-owner of Death & Co, a cocktail lounge with locations in Los Angeles, Denver and New York.
The Texas Bar and Nightclub Association is suing the state over Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to close bars for the second time in three months. Others, like Todd Quigley, owner of Craft and Growler, a Dallas-based craft beer bar, take issue with how states are treating bars and restaurants differently.Amelia Lucas
3:46 p.m. ET White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association that "we're in an unprecedented pandemic" and officials can't "balance lives against the economy."
"You have people who think in one direction and those who think in the other" when it comes to the decision to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic safely", Fauci said.
Every state in the U.S. has reopened parts of their economies in recent weeks. Some, including Texas and Florida, have had to walk back those plans as cases spiked and outbreaks flared up across America.
"You don't want to balance lives against the economy," he said. "So let's get public health to help us to get the economy open as opposed to two opposing forces."Noah Higgins-Dunn
With Minnie, Mickey and friends, Walt Disney World President Josh D'Amaro waves to guests gathered on Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom in the final minutes before the park closed, Sunday night, March 15, 2020, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Joe Burbank | Orlando Sentinel | Getty Images
3:38 p.m. ET Walt Disney World has suspended its fall college program, according to an email to prospective participants obtained by WDW News Today.
The program has been suspended until further notice, WDW News reports, because the park is still in the early stages of reopening and many of the Disney housing complex buildings remain closed. Eligibility requirements for the program will be amended so those who applied after having recently graduated can still apply when the program re-starts, according to the report.
The announcement comes after Disney canceled internships and June-start college program members in April, according to WDW News Today.Alex Harring
3:35 p.m. ET Amazon is pushing back its annual Prime Day sale event until at least early October. The company gave third-party sellers a placeholder date of the week of October 5, according to an email obtained by CNBC and first reported by Business Insider.The email cautions that "exact Prime Day dates have not been announced."
An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: "We have not made any announcements regarding Prime Day."
Amazon has delayed its annual shopping event several times in recent months due to coronavirus-related constraints. The company previously targeted September as the potential timing for Prime Day, but the company now faces new coronavirus outbreaks across the country, which could threaten to upend its logistics operations again.Annie Palmer
3:02 p.m. Despite June's better-than-expected payrolls numbers, employment may never return to pre-Covid levels in a handful of sub-industries.
The long-term, nationwide pivot toward e-commerce had already put pressure on apparel retail employment, and economists say the coronavirus could act as a catalyst for employers to cut labor costs permanently.
Other sectors, such as leisure and hospitality, are posting more robust rebound in payrolls numbers. Bars and restaurants employed 12.3 million Americans in February 2020, only to see that figure collapse to 6.2 million in April. It's since rebounded 47% off that low and for June rose to 9.2 million jobs.
Couriers and message carriers are among a rare group that have actually seen a net gain in employment since January. Thomas Franck
2:48 p.m. Children diagnosed with Covid-19 pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or PMIS, may develop new neurological symptoms without any of the respiratory issues commonly associated with the virus, accordingtoa study published Wednesdayin JAMA Neurology.
After examining 27 pediatric patients with coronavirus PMIS between March 1 and May 8, researchers found that four experienced new neurological symptoms. They included impairedbrain function, headaches, brainstem and cerebellar issues, muscle weakness and reduced reflexes.
All four patients required admission to the intensive care unit for treatment.
Although the study is small, researchers say the results show that Covid-19 can also cause neurological damage in children - not just adults - without any of the respiratory symptoms that have become a clear indicator of the virus. Scientists emphasized that since respiratory symptoms were uncommon among PMIS patients, clinicians should suspect Covid-19 in children who show new neurological problems without any other symptoms.Jasmine Kim
Herman Cain
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
2:41 p.m. ET Former presidential candidate and onetime possible Fed board nominee Herman Cain was hospitalized after being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Cain, 74, was told Monday that he had tested positive for the disease, according to a statement posted to his official Twitter account.
By Wednesday, he "had developed symptoms serious enough that he required hospitalization," the statement said.
Cain was at President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month, and was photographed sitting in close proximity with other attendees, none of whom appeared to be wearing masks.
The Trump campaign said Cain did not meet with the president. Kevin Breuninger
People wearing masks walk past a "Real New Yorkers Can Handle It" sign near Union Square amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 16, 2020 in New York City.
Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images
2:22 p.m. ET Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing alerts at the top of their feeds that encourage masks or face coverings when in public.
It's the latest move on Facebook's end to use its platform to try and slow the spread of Covid-19.
After the WHO declared Covid-19 a global health emergency in January, Facebook started removing misinformation about the outbreak from its platforms.
The company in April began warning users if they have liked, reacted or commented on harmful coronavirus posts that the company has found to be misinformation and removed.Jessica Bursztynsky
1:52 p.m. ET Shares of Moderna fell as much as 9.4% on a report the company's late-stage trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine will be delayed.
Moderna, which is working withtheNational Institutes of Health, was expected to begin a phase 3 trial with 30,000 participants for its vaccine candidate later this month, pending the results from its mid-stage trial.
However, the companyis pushing back the expected start date, according to health-care publication STAT News.
Moderna'sexperimental vaccine contains genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA. It becamethe first candidate to enter a phase 1 human trial in March.Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
12:45 p.m. ET Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. are mandating people wear masks in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The regulations vary from state to state, with some governments requiring people to wear masks in all public spaces while other states require masks only in certain circumstances.
Here's a list:
Vice President Mike Pence, in an interview with CNBC, reiterated the Trump administration's position that a national mandate for people to wear masks is not necessary, even though coronavirus cases are surging.Spencer Kimball
12:23 p.m. ET National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said it's possible Americans will be allowed to attend sporting events in time for the fall football season.
Sports fans and players across the world have been frustrated by canceled games as public health officials urge event-based businesses to temporarily close as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread across the globe. Collins, speaking with a Senate committee, said rapid coronavirus testing, which can produce results in under an hour, will make sporting events feasible.
"We want to see Americans have a chance to have some normal experiences of enjoying life," he told lawmakers. "I do believe this should be possible.Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.
12:20 p.m. ET Holding in-person classes this fall is safer for Cornell University students than conducting an all-virtual semester, President Martha Pollack told CNBC.
Pollack, appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box," cited university research that found almost 50% of Cornell students intend to return to Ithaca, New York, where its campus is located, no matter how classes are held.
"If we are having residential instruction, we can mandate testing, and tracing and isolation, on a very aggressive regular basis," Pollack said. "We will be much less able to do that with students who are online and just happen to be living in Ithaca, as opposed to Chicago or Atlanta or wherever."
Cornell's plan which includes robust testing that will cost between $3 to 5 million may not work for every college, Pollack stressed. "I want to be clear, it's safer for our students at Cornell. We did the study with regard to the conditions in Ithaca." Kevin Stankiewicz
12:08 p.m. ET Employees at Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), an Amazon Air subcontractor, say they continue to face an unsafe work environment during the pandemic.
WFS workers say managers aren't enforcing mask requirements, and say hand sanitizer and soap are in short supply at facilities. At one WFS facility in Phoenix, safety concerns became so severe that a worker filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) last month.
WFS is one of several companies that maintains lucrative contracts with Amazon Air. Workers load and unload cargo from Amazon planes at airports across the country, but they're not considered Amazon employees. As a result, some WFS workers say it feels like Amazon turns "a blind eye" to working conditions there, especially amid the coronavirus crisis.
As Amazon was hit with a surge of coronavirus-related demand in March, WFS workers were on the frontlines, handling the Prime packages ordered by millions of Americans who were cloistered inside their homes. Demand has stabilized but the workers now face a new round of coronavirus outbreaks around the country. WFS workers say they feel just as vulnerable as the beginning of the pandemic, since they still lack the basic protections to be able to do their job safely.Annie Palmer
An employee wearing rubber gloves and a mask greets patrons at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant on April 27, 2020 in Franklin, Tennessee.
Jason Kempin | Getty Images
11:49 a.m. ET Nashville will move back to phase two of its reopening process, with restaurants and bars reverting to phase one, beginning Friday, NewsChannel 5 Nashville reported.
Restaurants will go back to half capacity, down from 75%, while bars must now close for the next two weeks. Retail and commercial businesses can still operate at 75% capacity, while "high touch" businesses like beauty salons and gyms can remain open at half capacity.
Mayor John Cooper said in his weekly Covid-19 update that the city will remain in the phase for "at least a few weeks," with no timeline given, according to NewsChannel 5 Nashville.Alex Harring
11:35a.m. ETAmerican Airlines warned employees that it expects it has 20,000 more employees than it needs for its reduced fall schedule and painted a weak picture of travel demand.
The Fort Worth-based carrier, which had 133,700 at the end of 2019, is urging employees to take voluntary options like buyouts, to avoid involuntary cuts once restrictions set by federal aid expire on Oct. 1. The carrier reached a deal for $4.75 billion in a separate federal loan, the Treasury Department said.
While booking trends have improved, American told staff that demand remains far below last year's levels. For example, it flew 4.2 million people in June, up from just 965,000 passengers in April.
"But to be clear, even with traffic trending upward, the absolute numbers behind these improvements are quite somber: The customer count for the same period last year was between 17 and 19 million each month," CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a staff note. They said cash receipts topped $1 billion in June up from $11 million in April, but that it brought in an average of $4.2 billion a month over that period last year. Leslie Josephs
Dr. Scott Gottlieb
Cameron Costa | CNBC
10:49 a.m. ET The U.S. coronavirus outbreak will come to an end by January "one way or the other," thanks to a vaccine or because enough people will have already been infected and have some immunity to it, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC.
"Either we'll get to a vaccine or we'll just have spread enough it's just going to stop spreading efficiently, so we have a short period of time to get through,"Gottlieb said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We should do everything we can to preserve what we want of our way of life over that time period to just get through it."
Gottlieb's hopes for an effective vaccine or for the U.S. population to achieve so-called herd immunity to curb the outbreak both depend on what scientists learn about the role of antibodies. Unfortunately, there's still no clear evidence that antibodies give people any protection against being reinfected.Will Feuer
10:35 a.m. ET Vice President Mike Pence said the White House does not need to impose a national mask mandate requiring that all American citizens wear a face covering to protect against the coronavirus.
"There are some areas of the country, large areas of the country, where we have very low number of cases at all," Pence said in on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "It's not a one-size-all approach whether it be on testing or on supplies and on mitigation efforts. What we want to do is empower governors and local officials to give the guidance to the people in those communities that are most appropriate to those circumstances."
Pence's comments echoed President Donald Trump's sentiments. "I don't know if you need mandatory," Trump said when asked whether he'd support a national mask mandate.Yelena Dzhanova
9:35 a.m. ET Stocks opened higher as investors cheered a bigger-than-expected rise in jobs during June as the economy tries to recover from the coronavirus shutdown, CNBC's Fred Imbert andThomas Franck reported.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 355 points higher, or 1.4%. The Nasdaq Composite hit a record high, climbing more than 1%. The S&P 500 gained 1.3%.Melodie Warner
Passengers, wearing protective face masks, walk through the international arrivals hall after arriving at Terminal 2 at London Heathrow Airport in London, U.K., on Monday, June 8, 2020.
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
8:51 a.m. ET Britain will ease quarantine requirements for travelers from specific areas, Reuters reported Thursday.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that self-isolation requirements will be scaled back for people arriving from certain countries or territories. More details are expected to come this week, according to the spokesperson.
The update comes as other nations and U.S. states impose stricter travel restrictions amid flaring outbreaks.Alex Harring
So much for Ohio flattening the coronavirus curve.
Gov. Mike DeWine moved aggressively to slow the spread of the virus by shutting down the economy and issuing stay-at-home orders, but COVID-19 numbers have been climbing again after DeWine started reopening the state.
There have been 9,779 new cases just in the last two weeks, a 73 percent jump over the number for the two weeks before, according to the latest NBC News tally. And on Tuesday, there were 13 more deaths reported and 1,076 new cases.
In total, 2,876 people have died from the coronavirus in Ohio out of 52,865 reported cases since the start of the pandemic, the NBC News figures show.
"People are letting their guard down," DeWine said Thursday. "The progress the state has made is in danger of being reversed."
"We're in a crisis stage in Ohio and this can go one way or the other," the governor added.
Dr. Stephen Blatt, medical director for Infectious Disease at TriHealth Hospitals in Cincinnati, agreed and noted that young people are increasingly the ones getting infected.
I dont think we reopened too soon, our numbers were very good, Blatt told NBC News. The problem is that people are not wearing masks. You go out and everywhere you look theyre not wearing masks.
Ohio is hardly the only state that has seen a big jump in numbers. Arizona, Florida and Texas in particular have reported an explosion of new cases. And nationally, there have been more than 2.7 million reported cases and nearly 130,000 deaths, the latest NBC News figures show.
In other developments:
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DeWine received bipartisan praise for moving decisively to secure his state well before President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on March 13. Both he and Dr. Amy Acton, the states former health director, were lionized for leading the state through the crisis.
While Gov. Tom Wolf in neighboring Pennsylvania has issued a mandate which requires people to don a mask whenever they leave their homes, DeWine said "that's not our intent."
But during a news conference to announce guidelines for reopening Ohio's schools in the fall, DeWine said "Im not ruling out additional orders."
"Remember, we wear masks to protect each other, often because people are sick, but show no symptoms," the governor said. "Masks can be especially useful and are strongly recommended at any grade level during periods of increased risk and when physical distancing is difficult."
While DeWine is a Republican, its not clear a mask-wearing directive would fly in a state where the GOP holds a majority in the legislature and in which conservative lawmakers resisted the governors moves to curb coronavirus by closing down the state.
Ohio State Rep. Tavia Galonski, a Democrat, said she wishes DeWine would try.
Sure, there would be people who would complain, but those same people had an Ohio that we all could be proud of before DeWine turned tail and ran, Galonski told NBC News. I believe Ohioans would have responded quite well to an authoritative figure they could trust telling them to put on a mask.
Blatt said he knows masks will be a hard sell with some in Ohio.
Im sure the governor is wrestling with that, he said. If there was some way to mandating mask use, that would be helpful.
Acton stepped down in June after Ohio Republicans tried to curb her powers and protesters besieged her home demanding an end to the states stay-at-home measures. The governor said Acton would continue serving as his chief health adviser.
Not long after, the number of coronavirus cases began rising again in Ohio.
Asked whether there could be a connection between Actons departure and the increased cases, Blatt said no. She was a calming influence, the doctor said of Acton.
Ohio appeared to be on a different trajectory on May 1 when DeWine began lifting the states stay-at-home rules and a month later the numbers continued to be flat.
"We're not seeing any significant increase or reestablishment of a wave or a peak in Ohio and thats great," Mark Cameron, an infectious disease researcher and professor in the school of medicine at Case Western Reserve University, told the Cincinnati Enquirer in a story published June 16. "What that could mean is that people are still generally following the guidelines."
Thats clearly no longer the case, said Blatt.
Most of the new cases are young people and I think they just got sick of not going out and seeing their friends, Blatt said. I think they saw that things were getting better and just said, OK, lets go out. We have to get the message out that this is not over and its not going to be over for a while.
The drive to get people to wear masks has, of late, been driven by Republicans like the Texas governor who had previously been following the lead of Trump, who has rarely worn one in public.
Trump, in an interview Wednesday, said hes all for masks but does not think they should be mandatory for people in public places. Pence echoed that Thursday, saying "I don't think there's a need for a national mandate."
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican and a Trump ally, used similar language Thursday in a Fox News interview.
Look, you should wear a mask, you should social distance, Scott said. But should governments mandate these things? No.
But Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has been criticized for responding too slowly to the crisis and for reopening too soon, reported 6,563 new coronavirus cases Wednesday and 145 deaths, according to the NBC News tally.
There have been 76,278 new cases reported in Florida in the last two weeks alone, according to NBC News figures, forcing DeSantis to shut down the bars to slow the spread of the virus.
They would be quarantined and monitored closely, and if they became ill would receive the best known treatment possibly the antiviral drug remdesivir, or convalescent plasma from people who had recovered from the illness. But so far, remdesivirs benefits have been described as modest, and studies of convalescent plasma are still underway. The steroid dexamethasone lowered the death rate in one study, but is recommended only for those who become severely ill.
The article by Dr. Eyals group struck a chord with Josh Morrison, 34. Eight years ago, he donated a kidney to a stranger, and now runs an advocacy group for kidney donors. The opportunity to save someone elses life meant a great deal to him, and he sees challenge trials as a chance to do it again.
If it could lead to a speedier creation of a vaccine for the disease Covid-19, we are willing without reservation to have doctors infect us with the novel coronavirus, he and Sophie Rose, 22, a graduate student in epidemiology, wrote in The Washington Post.
Mr. Morrison, who had a brief career as a corporate lawyer, has begun organizing others who are interested in volunteering into a group called 1DaySooner. So far, about 30,000 people from 140 countries have signed up online saying they might participate in a challenge trial. Donations of $700,000 have enabled him to hire three full-time staff members.
There are significant risks in childbirth and kidney donation, Mr. Morrison said in an interview. No one should take them lightly but they are things we allow people to consent to. I hope for an effective treatment by the time a trial would be conducted, but if not, I do think it would be reasonable to go forward with challenge trials.
His hope is that an established research center will conduct the trials. Much of his efforts have gone toward finding a company to produce batches of the virus for use in the studies.
Our goal is not to manage the manufacturing process or trial process ourselves, he said. Our goal is to make the preconditions, so that if challenge trials would be useful, theyre available.
A nurse protests Chile's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The country now has the highest per capita infection rate of any major country 13,000 cases for every 1 million people. Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images hide caption
A nurse protests Chile's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The country now has the highest per capita infection rate of any major country 13,000 cases for every 1 million people.
Chile looked as if it were well prepared to deal with the new coronavirus.
It's a rich country classified as high income by the World Bank. Life expectancy is roughly 80 years better than the United States'. It has a solid, modern health care system, and when the outbreak began spreading, officials made sure they had plenty of ventilators and intensive care beds at the ready.
But the virus exploited the cracks in Chilean society. The country now has the highest per capita infection rate of any major country 13,000 cases for every 1 million people. That's more than 10 times the rate in neighboring Argentina and twice the rate in Brazil.
Like many well-to-do countries, Chile saw its first cases of COVID-19 among its elite people who'd recently traveled to Europe and the United States. That was in April. The government quickly rolled out a plan to provide testing and treatment. Health officials quarantined hard-hit neighborhoods. Residents had to apply for a pass online before they could go out of their homes even to buy groceries. In late April, things were going so well that Chile was starting to talk about reopening.
"And then May started bringing more cases and more cases. Currently we have, in my opinion, more cases than we are able to handle," says Thomas Leisewitz, a physician in Santiago. Leisewitz is a professor at Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile and heads up strategic development at Red de Salud UC Christus, a nonprofit Catholic health care network.
Since May, the number of cases has been rising steadily, with the country recording at one time 5,000 to 6,000 new cases a day in June. The virus spread out of the affluent parts of Santiago to low-income neighborhoods where many residents don't have the luxury of being able to work from home.
And the high numbers are not just a reflection of an efficient testing infrastructure. Chile's per capita testing rate is lower than most European nations' and almost half the rate in the United States.
So how did this particular virus come to spread incredibly rapidly in wealthy, well-prepared Chile?
Andrea Insunza, a journalist in Santiago, says the reason is something unrelated to the virus itself. That something is social inequity.
"In Chile, there are two countries," says Insunza, who runs the center for investigative journalism at Universidad Diego Portales. "There's a country for people like me. I have a good education. I have a good salary, and all my social security is privatized."
By this she means she has access to high-quality private hospitals and clinics.
But there's another Chile.
"And that Chile is poor and you depend on the public health [system]," says Insunza.
Last October, violent street protests erupted in Santiago over a fare hike on the subway of 30 pesos, or less than 5 U.S. cents.
The protests became about far more than the price of a subway ride. Chile is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America, according to the World Bank. The elite, the top 10%, controls more than half the country's wealth. And while extreme poverty has been driven down significantly over the last decade, the social unrest in October centered on the frustrations of lower- and middle-class Chileans who view their economic opportunities as unfairly limited.
Insunza says part of the frustration is driven by the elite often not even seeming to recognize their privileged lifestyles.
"Santiago, it's a very segregated place," Insunza says. "You can actually live your whole life and don't see poverty. Never."
Chile's initial plan to deal with the coronavirus outbreak which at first affected mainly the elite in Santiago failed to recognize that the affluent have maids, gardeners and cooks who might also get infected.
The country's response went well in those early weeks. Case numbers were holding steady. The fatality rate was low.
Then the virus started spreading in lower-income neighborhoods and quickly got out of control.
"One thing that's interesting about Chile is that it probably has more state capacity in a technical way than any place in Latin America," says James Robinson, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of Why Nations Fail. He has written extensively about Latin America and, in particular, Chile.
"It's good at raising taxes and building roads and infrastructure," he says. "And there's not much corruption and things like that, but it's also a very polarized place."
Robinson says large segments of the public don't trust the state. They are wary of cooperating with government, which may be part of what has hindered Chile's response to the coronavirus outbreak.
In June, the health minister stepped down over his handling of the crisis and discrepancies over the case numbers he reported domestically, which were lower than the counts given to the World Health Organization.
President Sebastin Piera caused an uproar last week when he attended the funeral of his uncle along with more than 30 other people, while the government's coronavirus rules allow only 20 people at funerals.
Despite the government offering cash support and food to people who've lost work because of the lockdowns, Robinson says many Chileans feel that the system is stacked against them. And that's impeding the country's ability to tackle this virus.
"There's a real problem with the social contract in Chile," he says. "And the way they tried to manage this thing just seems to have sort of exacerbated a lot of those problems."
Chile has now extended lockdowns to more areas and put in tougher limits on movement to try to rein in the surging outbreak. In Santiago, residents who are not deemed essential workers are only being allowed to leave their houses twice a week, including trips for grocery shopping.
The regional office of the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, predicts that cases will continue to rise in Chile at least into the middle of July.
Patients and their families should realize that fluctuations in progress are normal.
There are going to be days where everythings going right with your lungs, but your joints are feeling so achy that you cant get up and do your pulmonary rehab and you have a few setbacks, Dr. Putrino said. Or your pulmonary care is going OK, but your cognitive fog is causing you to have anxiety and causing you to spiral, so you need to drop everything and work with your neuropsychologist intensively.
It really does feel like one step forward, two steps back, he added, and thats OK.
For many people, the lungs are likely to recover, often within months. But other problems can linger and some people may never make a full recovery, experts say.
One benchmark is a 2011 New England Journal of Medicine study of 109 patients in Canada who had been treated for acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, the kind of lung failure that afflicts many Covid-19 patients. Five years later, most had regained normal or near-normal lung function but still struggled with persistent physical and emotional issues.
On one crucial test how far patients could walk in six minutes their median distance was about 477 yards, only three-quarters of the distance researchers had predicted. The patients ranged in age from 35 to 57, and while younger patients had a greater rate of physical recovery than older patients, neither group returned to normal predicted levels of physical function at five years, the authors wrote.
The patients in the study had ARDS from a variety of causes, including pneumonia, sepsis, pancreatitis or burns. They had a median stay of 49 days in the hospital, including 26 days in the I.C.U. and 24 days on a ventilator.
Research led by Dr. Needham of Johns Hopkins found that patients have prolonged muscle weakness that lasts months or longer and that muscle weakness is not just limited to their arms and legs its also their breathing muscles, he said.
Another study by Dr. Needham and his colleagues found that about two-thirds of ARDS patients had significant fatigue a year later.
July 1, 2020
About four-in-ten U.S. adults say it has become more common for people to express racist views toward Asians since the pandemic began
By Neil G. Ruiz, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Christine Tamir
A couple in face masks walk in a New York City street during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Maria KhrenovaTASS via Getty Images)
How we did this
Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans personal experiences with racial and ethnic discrimination since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, as well as opinions about whether racist views toward different groups have become more common. For this analysis, we surveyed 9,654 U.S. adults from June 4-10, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.
See here to read more about the questions used for this report and the reports methodology.
The coronavirus outbreak continues to have far-reaching health and economic consequences for the American public. But for many, especially Black and Asian Americans, the effects extend beyond medical and financial concerns. About four-in-ten Black and Asian adults say people have acted as if they were uncomfortable around them because of their race or ethnicity since the beginning of the outbreak, and similar shares say they worry that other people might be suspicious of them if they wear a mask when out in public, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Black and Asian Americans are also more likely than their white and Hispanic counterparts to say they have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity, but Asian adults are the most likely to say this has happened to them since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. About three-in-ten Asian adults (31%) say they have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity since the outbreak began, compared with 21% of Black adults, 15% of Hispanic adults and 8% of white adults. This aligns with some reports of incidents of discrimination against Asian Americans since the virus outbreak first emerged in China and then started spreading in the United States.
At the same time, about half of Black Americans (51%) say they have heard expressions of support because of their race or ethnicity since the coronavirus outbreak; about three-in-ten Hispanic (29%) and Asian (28%) adults say the same. The survey was conducted during a time when demonstrations continued across the country to protest the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed while in Minneapolis police custody.
Beyond the personal experiences of various groups, about four-in-ten U.S. adults (39%) say it is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about people who are Asian than it was before the coronavirus outbreak, while 30% say it has become more common for people to express these views toward people who are Black. Smaller shares say that, compared with before the outbreak, it is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about people who are Hispanic (19%) or white (14%). Asian Americans, who account for 6% of the U.S. population, are the fastest growing major racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Hispanics make up 18% of the population overall, while Black Americans are 12%.
A majority of Asian adults (58%) say it is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about people who are Asian than it was before the coronavirus outbreak; roughly four-in-ten white, Black and Hispanic adults say this is more common now. A sizable share of Black adults (45%) also say it is more common for people to express racist views about Black people than before the outbreak, more than the shares of white, Hispanic and Asian adults who say the same.
These are among the findings of a Pew Research Center survey of 9,654 U.S. adults conducted from June 4-10, 2020, using the Centers American Trends Panel.
A note about the Asian sample
This survey includes a total sample size of 278 Asian Americans. The sample includes English-speaking Asian Americans only and, therefore, may not be representative of the overall Asian American population (74% of our weighted Asian American sample was born in another country, compared with 77% of the Asian American adult population overall). Despite this limitation, it is important to report the views of Asian Americans on the topics in this study. As always, Asian Americans responses are incorporated into the general population figures throughout this report. Because of the relatively small sample size and a reduction in precision due to weighting, we are not able to analyze Asian American respondents by demographic categories, such as gender, age or education. For more, see Polling methods are changing, but reporting the views of Asian Americans remains a challenge.
About four-in-ten Asian (39%) and Black (38%) adults and 27% of Hispanic adults say someone has acted uncomfortable around them because of their race or ethnicity since the coronavirus outbreak. Only 13% of white adults say this has happened to them.
When asked about other negative situations they may have experienced because of their race or ethnicity since the pandemic, Asian and Black adults are more likely than Hispanic and white adults to say that they have been the subject of slurs or jokes or feared someone might threaten or physically attack them because of their race or ethnicity.
Asian Americans are more likely than any other group to say they have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity since the coronavirus outbreak: 31% say this has happened to them, compared with 21% of Black adults, 15% of Hispanic adults and 8% of white adults. About a quarter (26%) of Asian Americans and 20% of Black Americans say they feared someone might threaten or physically attack them, more than the shares of white and Hispanic Americans.
Black adults younger than 50 are more likely than older Black adults to say they have had each of these experiences. For example, 44% of Black adults in the younger age group say people have acted as if they were uncomfortable around them since the pandemic began, compared with 30% of Black adults ages 50 and older. About three-in-ten Black adults under 50 (28%) say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them (vs. 9% of older Black adults) and 25% say they have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity since the coronavirus outbreak (vs. 15%).
Black men (49%) are more likely than Black women (31%) to say someone acted as if they were uncomfortable around them. Black men are also more likely to say they have feared being threatened or physically attacked because of their race or ethnicity (27% vs. 15% of Black women).
The survey also asked about expressions of support since the coronavirus outbreak. About half of Black adults (51%) say someone has expressed support for them because of their race or ethnicity during this period, more than any other racial group. In particular, younger Black adults say they received this support (55% vs. 44% among those ages 50 and older). This survey was conducted at a time when Americans were following news coverage of George Floyds killing while in custody of Minneapolis police nearly as closely as they were following news related to COVID-19.
About four-in-ten Black Americans (42%) and 36% of Asian Americans say they worry a great deal or a fair amount that other people might be suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity if they wear a mask or face covering when in stores or other businesses. About a quarter of Hispanic adults (23%) and just 5% of white adults say they worry about this.
Despite these concerns, majorities of Black (69%) and Asian (80%) adults as well as white (62%) and Hispanic (74%) adults say theyve worn a mask or a face covering all or most of the time in the past month when out in stores or other businesses.
Black men and women are about equally likely to say they worry that other people might be suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity if they wear a mask or a face covering in stores or other businesses. About four-in-ten in each group say they worry at least a fair amount, with 21% of Black men and 16% of Black women saying they worry a great deal (this 5 percentage point difference is not statistically significant).
Concern among Black adults varies considerably by age. About half of Black Americans younger than 50 (51%) say they worry about people being suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity if they wear a mask or face covering; 30% of Black adults ages 50 and older say the same.
A majority of Asian Americans (58%) and 45% of Black Americans say that it is more common for people to express racist views toward their group since the coronavirus outbreak. Smaller shares of Hispanic (21%) and white (18%) Americans say the same about people expressing racist views toward people who are Hispanic or white, respectively.
Age and education are linked to differing perceptions of whether racist views toward Asians are now more common. About half of younger adults ages 18 to 29 (51%) say that racist views about Asian people are more common now since the coronavirus outbreak, compared with about four-in-ten or fewer among those in older age groups. Those with college degrees or more (47%) also are more likely than those with some college or less education (35%) to say the same.
Democrats and those who lean Democratic (52%) are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners (25%) to say that it is more common for people to express racist views about Asian Americans since the coronavirus outbreak. This partisan gap is narrower when it comes to views about whether it is now more common for people to express racist views about people who are Black (33% of Democrats vs. 27% of Republicans say this) or Hispanic (18% vs. 8%). Meanwhile, Republicans (23%) are more likely than Democrats (16%) to say that it is more common for people to express racially insensitive views about white people.
Terminology
References to white, Black and Asian adults include only those who report being only one race and are not Hispanic. Hispanics are of any race.
All references to party affiliation include those who lean toward that party. Republicans include those who identify as Republicans and independents who say they lean toward the Republican Party. Democrats include those who identify as Democrats and independents who say they lean toward the Democratic Party.
References to college graduates or people with a college degree comprise those with a bachelors degree or more. Some college includes those with an associate degree and those who attended college but did not obtain a degree.
