The world is being flooded with new terms in coverage of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Here's a glossary in case you're not up on the latest medical and testing jargon. We start with the nomenclature of the virus. Words are listed in thematic groupings (transmission and testing, for example).
Coronavirus: A category of viruses that can cause fever, breathing difficulties, pneumonia and diarrhea. Seven coronaviruses are known to infect humans, including four that can cause the common cold. Some are potentially fatal. The name comes from the Latin word "corona," which means crown. Under a microscope, these viruses are characterized by circles with spikes ending in little blobs.
Researchers have identified hundreds of coronaviruses in animals, such as camels, pigs, cats and bats, that are usually not transmissible to humans. In rare instances, a coronavirus mutates and can pass from animals to humans and then spread among people, as was the case with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in the early 2000s and now with the COVID-19 pandemic.
SARS-COV-2 aka "novel coronavirus": The name for the virus that has spread rapidly around the world, causing infections in millions of people. The numeral "2" is meant to distinguish this coronavirus from the virus that caused the SARS epidemic.
COVID-19: The name of the disease that can be caused by SARS-COV-2. It stands for "coronavirus disease 2019," as doctors in Wuhan, China, first discovered patients ill with the disease in late 2019. The disease can present with a wide range of effects that researchers are still working to uncover. The evolving list of symptoms is broad, including: fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, headaches, chills, muscle pain, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and loss of taste or smell. Not every patient displays the full range of symptoms.
Epidemic: A sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease in a particular geographic area beyond the number health officials typically expect. An increase in a relatively small geographic area or among a small group of people may be called an "outbreak." The difference between an outbreak, an epidemic and a pandemic is subjective and depends on the opinions of scientists and health officials.
Pandemic: "An epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people," according to A Dictionary of Epidemiology. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, describing it as "the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus."
Transmission: How a virus gets from one individual to the next. In the case of SARS-COV-2, researchers think the virus is primarily spread via the respiratory route, through close contact with an infected person, whose virus-laden droplets are expelled from the nose or mouth and find their way into the eyes, noses and mouths of others. Other possible routes of transmission, currently under investigation, include touching virus-contaminated surfaces and then introducing those germs to one's eyes, nose or mouth; or breathing in clouds of tiny "aerosolized" virus particles that may be traveling on air currents.
Aerosolized virus particles: Smaller than droplets, these particles can be expelled by an infected individual. They hang in the air longer than larger droplets, which tend to fall due to gravity. But their role in transmission of COVID-19 is not yet clear.
Rate of transmission (RT): The average number of people each coronavirus carrier goes on to infect officially called the "effective reproductive number." If each subsequent generation of new infections decreases (if RT <1), the virus eventually disappears. An area's transmission rate depends on local policies and how people behave. "We can think of transmission risk with a simple phrase: time, space, people, place," Dr. William Miller, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University, told NPR. The more time a person spends in close spatial proximity to infected people, the higher the likelihood that the virus will spread. Interacting with more people raises the risk, and indoor places are riskier than the outdoors. RT can decrease in areas where many people acquire immunity to the virus, because the virus then runs out of new people to infect. (A related term, R0 pronounced "r nought" is the average rate of transmission in a population where no one has previously been affected.)
Superspreading event: When a person infected with a pathogen passes it on to an unusually high number of people. With COVID-19, large case clusters have resulted from business conferences, choir practices, funerals, family gatherings and cruises, among other settings. Virologists who researched superspreading events during the MERS outbreak say there are several possible reasons why these events emerge. Sometimes the virus may mutate to become more contagious. Or some people just exhale more virus from their lungs.
Viral shedding: When an infected person releases viral particles from their bodies, which may or may not be contagious depending on the stage of infection. This can happen through activities like breathing, speaking, singing, sneezing and coughing. For SARS-COV-2, researchers are measuring the length of time an infected person sheds virus by testing swab samples from infected people over time. An early study found that COVID-19 patients shed the virus for an average of 20 days. People also appear to shed the highest amounts of virus around the time symptoms first appear.
Fomite: An object covered with virus particles, possibly because someone recently sneezed or coughed respiratory droplets onto it. A countertop or a phone could become fomites if contaminated and serve as a potential source for "indirect" transmission if a person touches the virus-covered surface and then introduces the virus to their eyes, nose or mouth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes this as a "possible" route of coronavirus transmission but maintains that close contact between people is thought to be responsible for most new infections.
Asymptomatic: A person who is asymptomatic is infected with SARS-COV-2 but never develops any symptoms of the infection. Researchers are working to determine how many people who get infected fit into this category current estimates fall "anywhere between 6% and 41%," a World Health Organization official said June 9. "Asymptomatic" is sometimes used to describe anyone who shows no symptoms at the time of testing positive for the virus but some of these individuals may actually be "presymptomatic" and will develop symptoms over the next few days.
Asymptomatic/presymptomatic spread: When an infected person who has no symptoms of the disease transmits the novel coronavirus to someone else. It's not clear how frequently people with no symptoms are spreading the virus, but researchers have documented spread from both asymptomatic and presymptomatic cases. That is the main reason many health departments recommend mask-wearing in shared spaces to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, particularly from people who may not know they have it.
Herd immunity: The idea that if enough people in one place develop immunity to the virus, through exposure or vaccination, then the virus doesn't have any new people to spread to so it burns itself out. For COVID-19, the percentage of people who'd need immunity to slow the spread of the virus is estimated at 50 to 60%.
Comorbidity: A medical condition that increases a person's risk of becoming very sick if they develop COVID-19. These conditions include chronic kidney disease, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), obesity, serious heart conditions and type 2 diabetes. Other conditions that may up someone's risk of severe COVID-19 disease include asthma, hypertension, compromised immune systems, smoking and type 1 diabetes.
Testing: A procedure to determine if the individual is, or has recently been, infected with a disease. The most common diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus involves taking a swab sample from someone's nose or throat and analyzing it for telltale signs of SARS-COV-2 viral RNA. Other tests look for proteins from the virus, or for antibodies in blood samples. For more information, check out NPR's testing primer.
Positive testing rate: The percentage of people tested who are confirmed to have the coronavirus. For SARS-COV-2, WHO officials say a positive testing rate of 10% or less may indicate that a community is conducting enough testing to find most cases.
Antibodies: Proteins produced by a person's immune system to fight an infection. In the case of the novel coronavirus, antibodies typically take about 1-3 weeks after infection to develop in measurable amounts. Antibodies may linger in the body after infection to provide ongoing protection against an invading pathogen. Public health officials are testing people's blood samples for antibodies against the novel coronavirus to see if they have been infected in the recent past. This will help researchers understand how widely the coronavirus has spread and gauge how many cases are asymptomatic.
Pool sampling: A testing strategy where samples from different people are combined into a larger batch that is tested for the presence of the coronavirus. If a batch tests positive, the samples would be retested individually to determine which ones contain the virus. The expectation is that, by testing several samples in one batch, more samples could be processed more quickly, and testing resources would be conserved. The FDA says pool sampling is most effective in populations where many negative results are expected, such as people with no symptoms of infection.
Peak: The day, or stretch of days, with the highest number of cases or deaths reported in a given period, as seen in a day-by-day breakdown (also called an epidemic curve). It generally indicates the "worst" point in an epidemic after the peak, case numbers subside. For more, see NPR's primer on "When will each state peak?"
Rolling average: The number of new confirmed cases or deaths, averaged over a couple of days. The duration is the researcher's choice different analysts have chosen to average the numbers of cases and deaths over 3, 5 and 7 days. The rolling average is a statistical analysis that smooths out day-to-day variations (such as a spike in cases due to changes in how they're reported) and helps spot longer trends. Also called "moving average."
Second wave: A fresh crop of coronavirus infections in an area where public health officials had brought virus transmission down to low levels. For instance, Hokkaido, Japan experienced double-digit increases in case numbers in April after reopening schools and allowing public gatherings. U.S. health officials have warned of a possible second wave of infections in the fall even as the country continues to battle its first wave.
Incubation period: The time from exposure to a pathogen to the time symptoms develop. The incubation period helps determine how long a person should be quarantined to prevent the spread of infection. For SARS-COV-2, the median incubation period is thought to be around 5 days. Most people who develop symptoms of COVID-19 will do so within 12 days which is why public health officials recommend a two-week quarantine for anyone who thinks they've been exposed to the novel coronavirus.
Isolation: Physically separating people who are known to be sick from those who are healthy. Hospitals commonly put patients who are sick in isolation to prevent the spread of disease.
Quarantine: The separation or restriction of movement of individuals who appear to be healthy but may have been exposed to an infectious disease to see if they become sick. The length of the quarantine depends on the incubation period for the disease. During the Ebola outbreak, for example, it was 21 days. For COVID-19, the recommended period is 14 days.
Contact tracing: Finding and notifying people who may have come into contact with a person infected with a disease so they can take measures to prevent the disease from possibly spreading. For the novel coronavirus, the CDC defines a close contact as somebody who has spent at least 15 minutes within 6 feet of a person with a confirmed or probable case of the coronavirus.
Social distancing: Staying a certain distance from other people in indoor and outdoor settings to lower one's chances of spreading or receiving virus-laden respiratory droplets the CDC suggests six feet. Widespread social distancing has been credited with reducing virus transmission in multiple countries. Also referred to as "physical distancing."
Zoonosis: Any disease that spreads from animals to people. The animals can range from tiny ticks to lumbering cattle. COVID-19 is considered a zoonotic disease it is thought to have originated in Chinese horseshoe bats and spread to humans, possibly with a stop in a different animal in-between.
Other helpful primers from NPR: Death Rate
Abraar Karan, a physician at Harvard Medical School, was a source for this glossary.
Ohio's COVID-19 cases are rising, but not nearly as high as other states ABC6OnYourSide.com
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Despite the rapid expansion of our testing capacity, demand for testing has been growing faster, Quest said in a statement last week warning of such a possibility. The company then said that orders for COVID-19 testing had grown by 50 percent in three weeks.
This is very bad, Michael Mina, an epidemiology professor at Harvard, told us. Rapid test-turnaround times are the only way to control the coronavirus without forcing every potentially contagious personeveryone whos had contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19into quarantine, he said: Our modeling efforts more or less show that if you dont get results back in a day or so, outbreaks really cant be stopped without isolating and quarantining all contacts preemptively.
Quest is not the only firm to report growing problems. We hit the wall three weeks ago, Jon Cohen, the executive chairman of BioReference Laboratories, a lab-services company that is testing patients for the virus in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, told us. At that point, most laboratories were already running at capacity, as far as I can tell.
In mid-June, four changes hit all at once, Cohen said. Large companies began to test their employees en masse, hospitals started to test every patient who needed an elective procedure, and nursing homes started regularly testing their employees and some residents. The American public also seemed to seek out voluntary tests in greater numbers this month. The surge in testing overwhelmed both his testing companys capacity and its equipment suppliers, he said.
We not only hit capacity, but any ability to increase our capacity became limited by the supply side, he said. The vendors, the suppliers cant keep up.
Read: America is giving up on the pandemic
LabCorp, another major testing company, also recognized the surging demand for tests in a statement this weekend. We are doing everything we can to continue delivering results in a timely manner while continually increasing testing capacity, it said.
Unlike in the first days of the pandemic, when COVID-19 testing kits themselves were in short supply, now the problem lies with the equipment needed to get test results. The hardest-hit new areas do not have enough machines to process samples, leading to a growing backlog of tests, lab directors told us. Some are also running out of the chemical reagent that must react with a testing specimen.
Labs in the U.S. use several different types of viral-testing machines to diagnose COVID-19, and each type has its own supply-chain issues and processing challenges, Lauren Sauer, an emergency-medicine professor at Johns Hopkins, told us by text message. With so many platforms in use, she said, resolving bottlenecks and shortages nationwide is especially hard.
What is currently happening [on testing] is so pocketed and disconnected, she said.
Here is our updated timeline on the global hunt for coronavirus vaccine:
China reports a cluster of cases of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, leading to the identification of a new coronavirus.
A week and a half after China reports a new form of pneumonia, scientists map the genome sequence of what is later identified as COVID-19, a key first step on the road to finding a vaccine.
The coronavirus sequenced genome is published, which marks the start of international efforts to study a vaccine.
The US National Institutes of Health begins trial of an "investigational" vaccine on 45 healthy adults, aged 18 to 55, after promising results in animal models.
The trial is funded by the US National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, Moderna Inc, and it is set to last six weeks.
The vaccine is officially named mRNA-1273.
France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research says "clinical trials to test the BCG vaccine's efficacy against COVID-19 are underway or about to start in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Australia."
Nature.com says that "the global COVID-19 vaccine R&D landscape includes 115 vaccine candidates, 73 of which currently at exploratory or preclinical stages".
Among the most advanced candidates to have moved into clinical development are vaccines tested by Inovio, Moderna, CanSino Biologicals and the Shenzhen Geno-Immune Medical Institute.
The EU funding is earmarked to support German biopharmaceutical company CureVac in developing a vaccine.
The British-French duo, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi announce clinical trials for the second half of 2020, hoping to make - if these trials are successful - the vaccine widely available by the second half of 2021.
Germany's BioNTech and American partner Pfizer are given the green light from the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, the German authority for the certification of vaccines, to begin testing a variety of experimental vaccines on 200 healthy volunteers, aged between 18 and 55.
Tests of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 drug begin on 1,112 people divided into two groups (half of them receiving a vaccine and the other half a placebo), with the aim to stimulate their immune system to attack the virus.
The drug was created by using a chimpanzee virus which was genetically engineered to carry coronavirus.
The UK government is funding the trial with a 51 million contribution.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the drug is reported to have an 80 per cent success rate.
The French pharma giant, Sanofi causes a political firestorm by saying it would give the United States priority access to a vaccine as it was the first country to fund the research.
French Secretary of State for Economy and Finance Agnes Pannier-Runacher says it is "unacceptable," while prime minister Edouard Philippe summons Sanofi's CEO for reassurance over the vaccine's distribution.
Over 10,000 adults and children are taking part in phase two of their clinical trial, ten times more than the first phase which began in April.
This phase will study whether different age groups react differently to the vaccine.
A third phase is set to check whether the vaccine protects people from catching coronavirus by studying a large group of over-18s.
Pharma giant AstraZeneca says it has struck a deal with Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and France for the supply of up to 400 million doses of the vaccine the University of Oxford is trialling.
If it proves successful, delivery will begin by the end of 2020.
The British-Swedish company had already signed similar agreements with Britain, the US, the Norway-headquartered Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the international vaccine alliance Gavi.
An agreement had also been reached with the Serum Institute of India for 1 billion doses.
Three hundred healthy people participate in Imperial College's study by receiving two doses of a potential vaccine.
Droplets of liquid carry genetic material into the patient's bloodstream replicating part of the virus inside the body and forcing the immune system to learn how to fight it.
If the test shows a promising response, larger trials will take place later in the year with around 6,000 healthy volunteers.
The study is being financed with around 46 million from the UK government plus another 5.5 million coming from philanthropic donations.
A successful treatment is discovered. It's not a vaccine, but it works.
The University of Oxford finds that low-cost synthetic steroid dexamethasone reduces COVID-19 deaths by up to a third after it tested it on 2,100 people with severe respiratory complications caused by coronavirus.
The UK government says it will start using it on patients immediately and that it has already stockpiled 200,000 courses of the drug.
By June 16, out of 13 candidates, the vaccine at the most advanced phase of trialling is the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca's ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 drug, with studies underway to determine "its efficacy, safety and immunogenicity."
The country working on the highest number of vaccines in a clinical phase by this point is China, followed by US, UK and Germany.
More treatments are being identified. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommends the anti-viral drug remdesivir be authorised to treat patients with COVID-19 in the European Union.
Touted by Donald Trump and other health officials as a promising treatment, the drug will be tested on adults and adolescents from 12 years of age with pneumonia who require oxygen.
The EU Commission President said over 6 billion were raised in the campaign launched with activist organisation Global Citizen "Global Goal: Unite For Our Future". It brought the total rallied by EU institutions to over 16 billion.
The 113 million agreement signed with AstraZeneca gives Brazil the right to produce an initial quantity of 30 million doses in December and January, when the vaccine is still in the testing phase.
If the vaccine passes the clinical trials, Brazil will then be able to produce an additional 70 million doses at an estimated cost of 2.05 each.
The agreement includes the rights to access the vaccine technology and the manufacturing process.
The drug, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is being tested in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.
The US has bought up virtually all the stocks for the next three months of one of the two drugs proven to work against Covid-19, leaving none for the UK, Europe or most of the rest of the world.
Experts and campaigners are alarmed both by the US unilateral action on remdesivir and the wider implications, for instance in the event of a vaccine becoming available. The Trump administration has already shown that it is prepared to outbid and outmanoeuvre all other countries to secure the medical supplies it needs for the US.
Theyve got access to most of the drug supply [of remdesivir], so theres nothing for Europe, said Dr Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University.
Remdesivir, the first drug approved by licensing authorities in the US to treat Covid-19, is made by Gilead and has been shown to help people recover faster from the disease. The first 140,000 doses, supplied to drug trials around the world, have been used up. The Trump administration has now bought more than 500,000 doses, which is all of Gileads production for July and 90% of August and September.
President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorised therapeutic for Covid-19, said the US health and human services secretary, Alex Azar. To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it. The Trump administration is doing everything in our power to learn more about life-saving therapeutics for Covid-19 and secure access to these options for the American people.
The drug, which was invented for Ebola but failed to work, is under patent to Gilead, which means no other company in wealthy countries can make it. The cost is around $3,200 per treatment of six doses, according to the US government statement.
The deal was announced as it became clear that the pandemic in the US is spiralling out of control. Anthony Fauci, the countrys leading public health expert and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Senate the US was sliding backwards.
We are going in the wrong direction, said Fauci. Last week the US saw a new daily record of 40,000 new coronavirus cases in one day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, he said. He could not provide an estimated death toll, but said: It is going to be very disturbing, I guarantee you that.
The US has recorded more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of Covid-19. Some states lifted restrictions only to have to clamp down again. On Monday, the governor of Arizona ordered bars, cinemas, gyms and water parks to shut down for a month, weeks after they reopened. Texas, Florida and California, all seeing rises in cases, have also reimposed restrictions.
Buying up the worlds supply of remdesivir is not just a reaction to the increasing spread and death toll. The US has taken an America first attitude throughout the global pandemic.
In May, French manufacturer Sanofi said the US would get first access to its Covid vaccine if it works. Its CEO, Paul Hudson, was quoted as saying: The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because its invested in taking the risk, and, he added, the US expected that if weve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first. Later it backtracked under pressure from the French government.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau warned there could be unintended negative consequences if the US continued to outbid its allies. We know it is in both of our interests to work collaboratively and cooperatively to keep our citizens safe, he said. The Trump administration has also invoked the Defense Production Act to block some medical goods made in the US from being sent abroad.
Nothing looks likely to prevent the US cornering the market in remdesivir, however. This is the first major approved drug, and where is the mechanism for access? said Dr Hill. Once again were at the back of the queue.
The drug has been watched eagerly for the last five months, said Hill, yet there was no mechanism to ensure a supply outside the US. Imagine this was a vaccine, he said. That would be a firestorm. But perhaps this is a taste of things to come.
Remdesivir would get people out of hospital more quickly, reducing the burden on the NHS, and might improve survival, said Hill, although that has not yet been shown in trials, as it has with the other successful treatment, the steroid dexamethasone. There has been no attempt to buy up the worlds stocks of dexamethasone because there is no need the drug is 60 years old, cheap and easily available everywhere.
Hill said there was a way for the UK to secure supplies of this and other drugs during the pandemic, through what is known as a compulsory licence, which overrides the intellectual property rights of the company. That would allow the UK government to buy from generic companies in Bangladesh or India, where Gileads patent is not recognised.
The UK has always upheld patents, backing the argument of pharma companies that they need their 20-year monopoly to recoup the money they put into research and development. But other countries have shown an interest in compulsory licensing. It is a question of what countries are prepared to do if this becomes a problem, said Hill.
SALT LAKE CITY Utahs ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases doesnt appear to be slowing down as the state reported 553 new positive cases on Tuesday.
A higher-than-average number of new test results were reported 6,848, with a positive rate of 8.1%.
Now 22,217 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Utah since the pandemic began out of 340,753 tests, a positive rate of 6.5%, according to the Utah Department of Health.
Four more deaths were also reported Tuesday. Health officials identified them as a Salt Lake County woman between ages of 65-84; a Washington County man between 18-44; a Weber County woman between 45-64; and a San Juan County man between 51-65.
All four were hospitalized when they died. They bring the states death toll to 172.
The rising cases and increase in hospitalizations prompted state officials to continue urging Utahns to wear face masks. Salt Lake County and Summit County remain the only areas in the state with mask mandates.
COVID-19 cases threaten our economy and our ability to ensure hospital care to people who need it. Everyone should wear a mask to protect those around you, practice physical distancing, stay home if theyre sick, and wash their hands regularly, the Utah COVID-19 Community Task Force, which has been making recommendations to state leaders in the pandemic, said Monday afternoon on Twitter.
A systemwide face mask requirement will go into effect Wednesday on all Utah Transit Authority trains, buses and other public spaces. Masks will soon become available on transit vehicles to those who dont have them, UTA officials said in a statement. They are now available for pickup at UTA Customer Service locations, or riders can also call customer service at 801-743-3882 and request a mask by mail.
Just under 12,400 people have recovered from the novel coronavirus in Utah after passing the three-week point since their diagnoses.
Due to the spike in cases, TestUtah added a new testing location Tuesday at Kearns Oquirrh Park for underserved communities, officials said.
In Utah, 27 more people required hospitalization for the disease since Mondays report. Current hospitalizations with the novel coronavirus now stand at 205 83 of whom are in intensive care units. ICUs throughout the state are 62.4% full, but non-ICU use has risen more than 10% within the past three days.
Now, 65.3% of non-ICU hospital beds are in use compared to 53.6% on Saturday.
Of the states nearly 1,300 ventilators, 184 are being used by COVID-19 patients and others.
Eleven of the new hospitalizations Tuesday occurred in Salt Lake County; eight in Utah County; five in southwest Utah; and one each in the Bear River health district, San Juan County, Summit County and the Weber-Morgan health district.
As more people get back into the office after Utah loosened its restrictions in mid-May, workplace outbreaks have drastically risen. On June 15, outbreaks of the novel coronavirus at 226 workplaces accounted for 1,776 cases and 10 deaths.
Now, 296 workplaces have seen spread of the disease leading to 2,324 cases. The number of deaths linked to workplaces still stands at 10. The median age of patients who contracted COVID-19 at work is 39.
Meanwhile, 518 residents and 454 health care workers at long-term care facilities have tested positive for the coronavirus. Nineteen facilities have active cases, most of which are in Salt Lake and Utah counties.
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Gov. Jay Inslee today issued a newproclamationin response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Inslee also announced the extension of the Tribal Fuel Tax Refund Restrictionsproclamation.
A June 26letterfrom the Legislature extends proclamation20-56, regarding the use of fuel tax refund monies, until July 1.
Tribal Fuel Tax Refund Restrictions Extension-20-56.1
The original proclamationwaivedand suspended any and all provisions in agreements between the governor of the State of Washington and an Indian Tribe or Tribes restricting the use of fuel tax refund monies to highway- or transportation-related purposes. It went into effect on May 28 and expired June 27. It was extended by the Legislature until July 1.The Governor has requested further extension.
Read the full proclamationhere.
Gov. Inslee also issued a new proclamation related to annual updates for Transportation Improvement Plans.
Annual Updates to Transportation Improvement Plans-20-61
This proclamation waives and suspends a statute thatprevents, hinders or delays necessary action by requiring annual updates to Transportation Improvement Plans by July 1 of each year. It goes into effect today, June 30, and expires on July 30, 2020.
Read the full proclamationhere.
Public and constituent inquiries | 360.902.4111Press inquiries | 360.902.4136
This is a bad sign for the COVID-19 reopening plan in Western Washington. On Tuesday, Snohomish County executive Dave Somers said that the area was in danger of reversing its reopening course in the midst of a recent spike in cases of the novel coronavirus, if things didnt improve soon.
Currently, Snohomish like King County is in phase two of Washingtons Safe Start reopening plan, which allows restaurants to open at 50 percent capacity indoors and outdoors. However, with a recent rise in cases (42 new cases per 100,000 people, versus the phase two benchmark of 25 per 100,000), the county may need to go back to phase one, said Somers. If that were the case, all dining rooms that recently reopened must close again, with restaurants and bars only allowed to serve takeout and delivery.
A week or so ago, I would have thought it was a remote possibility. I dont feel that way anymore, said Somers. I think going back to phase one is clearly one of the options that could be in front of us, watching what happens around the country with places that have opened up too soon, and theyre seeing huge spikes. If we see that sort of thing here, and were really stressing our hospital capacity, I can see the possibility of a call to go back to phase one.
If Snohomish did end up reversing its trajectory on reopening, it would be the first county in Washington to do so, and would not augur well for Seattle. A rise in King County COVID-19 cases have alarmed local officials, with a recent increase of 60 percent week over week. King County friends, this is getting serious, Jeffrey Duchin, Health Officer for Public HealthSeattle and King County, wrote on Twitter Monday night. Cases rising, holiday coming, & the risk is higher than its been in months. Critical to avoid crowds, minimize close contacts, use a face mask.
Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee reacted to the recent increased spread of the novel coronavirus in the state by making face masks mandatory. According to the new rule, people must wear face coverings in public indoors, as well as outdoors if six feet of social distancing cant be maintained. Inslee also said that he would pause any counties looking to move to phase four of the states reopening plan, which would essentially mean no restrictions.
At this point, no state officials have mentioned plans to bump any county in Washington back to a more restrictive phase that each one is under. But across the country, where COVID-19 cases have spiked in states and cities that reopened early, lawmakers have issued mandates for bars and restaurants to close again.
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The head of the World Health Organization is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic is actually speeding up and he criticized governments that have failed to establish reliable contact tracing to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Speaking at a briefing in Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over.
Although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up, he said.
He said the solution is the same as it has been since the early days of the pandemic: Test, trace, isolate and quarantine.
If any country is saying contact tracing is difficult, it is a lame excuse, he said.
According to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 10 million confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide since the virus was first identified in China late last year, with more than a half-million deaths. The U.S. alone accounts for more than one-quarter of all confirmed cases, with nearly 126,000 deaths.
[The] lack of national unity and lack of global solidarity and the divided world is actually helping the virus to spread, Tedros said. [The] worst is yet to come.
Im sorry to say that, but with this kind of environment and conditions we fear the worst, he said.
The head of WHOs emergencies program, Mike Ryan, said there had been tremendous work toward a coronavirus vaccine but said theres no guarantee of success.
In the U.S., a spike in coronavirus infections has been driven in part by people unwilling to heed public health guidelines to wear masks and continue social distancing.
Currently, the U.S. leads the world in both coronavirus infections and COVID-19 deaths. Brazil ranks second in the number of infections, followed by Russia, India and the United Kingdom.
President Trump has been highly critical of the WHO, accusing it of helping China cover up the extent of the pandemic within its borders. Earlier this month, the president announced that the U.S. was terminating its decades-long relationship with the WHO and would withdraw vital U.S. funding.
