Coronavirus News (146)

Second U.S. Virus Wave Emerges With Texas Hitting Record  Texas on Wednesday reported 2,504 new coronavirus cases, the highest one-day total since the pandemic emerged. A month into its reopening, Florida this week reported 8,553 new cases -- the most of any seven-day period. California’s hospitalizations are at their highest since May 13 and have risen in nine of the past 10 days. ..........  In Georgia, where hair salons, tattoo parlors and gyms have been operating for a month and a half, case numbers have plateaued, flummoxing experts. ...........  Arizona “sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of a major problem” ........  “Within Phoenix, we’ve been more relaxed than I’ve seen in some of the other parts of the country,” White said, with some people disregarding advice to wear masks and maintain six feet of distance from others. “People are coming together in environments where social distancing is challenging.” ...........  Mobile-phone data show activity by residents is rebounding toward pre-Covid levels ........  That could reflect a perception that the virus wasn’t “ever a big threat” .........  “go to Venice and see the crowds, and you’ll understand why I have concerns.” ............ Experts are steeling for autumn, when changes in weather and back-to-school plans could have damaging repercussions.  

Fauci Says Covid Pandemic His ‘Worst Nightmare,’ Far From Over  The infection won’t “burn itself out with mere public health measures,” he said. “We’re going to need a vaccine for the entire world, billions and billions of doses.” ...........  Moderna Inc.’s final-stage trial is expected to start in July, followed by a test of Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC’s shot in August. Johnson & Johnson said in a statement that it has accelerated its schedule, with the first human trial now set to begin in the second half of July, instead of the previous schedule for starting trials in September. The trial will include 1,045 healthy adults and will be conducted in the U.S. and Belgium. ..............  public health officials believe it may be possible to start vaccinating larger groups of people, including health-care workers, by early next year. ...........  More than 130 vaccines are in development against the coronavirus

Delhi Overwhelmed by Covid-19 Cases After City Eases Lockdown  India’s capital of 16 million people is set to be the latest city overwhelmed by Covid-19, and the worst may be yet to come. .......... bodies are piling up in hospital morgues and crematoriums. ........  Delhi is now expecting infections to soar to 550,000 by the end of July ........ India is in a precarious position, with its financial capital Mumbai and now its political capital wracked by the epidemic. It has dangerous implications for the country’s vast hinterland, where the medical infrastructure struggles to cope with basics like childbirth and fevers even in normal times. .............  “In these big cities there is at least some infrastructure and you are seeing some data. We will never get accurate data for the rest of the country” ..........  “It’s a very bleak picture. There seems to be no comprehension of the dangers that lie ahead.” ...........  “We are only testing 10% of those who are infected -- only the most severely infected and hospitalized people are being tested,” he said. “The medical infrastructure was already broken. Now we want to cross the pandemic on this sinking ship.” ..........   “There were at least 35 people at the testing center while we were there,” said the 65-year-old, who teaches commerce at Delhi University. “I am positive that anyone who came there definitely went home infected. There was zero social distancing.” ..............   Delhi had 29,943 infections as of Tuesday, a jump of more than 30% in just a week, while India is adding as many as 10,000 infections daily, of which Delhi accounts for more than 10%. India has so far reported 267,652 infections, the fifth highest tally in the world, just behind the U.K. ............  the government had changed protocols to make it difficult for citizens to get tested. ...........  “The message from the government is clear,” said Bhatti. “Protect yourself if you can. The government has washed its hands off the crisis.”

Yesterday I walked around my neighborhood for a bit. Just within my immediate vicinity I saw multiple places entirely ignoring social distancing and mask requirements. It was like everyone in them thought everything was back to normal. If much of the US is the same, we're boned. https://t.co/QLCT8I3XEV

— Scott Santens🧢🤠 (@scottsantens) June 11, 2020

T 3559 - जो काम अब तक दूसरों पे छोड़ दिया करते थे , उन कामों को अब ख़ुद करके पता चल रहा है की , दूसरे कितना काम करते थे । 🙏

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) June 10, 2020

Study suggests that routine face mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID19 spread to an R of less than 1.0. Other studies have generated similar estimates. More widespread masking with higher quality masks could help mitigate a second wave. https://t.co/tIqQJfXNV8

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) June 10, 2020

Trump announces rallies in states where new infections are surging  .......   OECD predicts global economy will contract by 6 to 7.6 percent this year, depending on virus’s trajectory ..........  Pro golf is back, but without fans or fist bumps, ‘It’s going to be a little weird’ ..........    Federal Reserve predicts slow recovery with unemployment at 9.3 percent by end of 2020 ............  Ohio lawmaker criticized after asking if ‘colored population’ more at risk of covid-19 because of hygiene ...........   Arkansas loosens restrictions even as coronavirus cases spike .........  States wrestle with how to expand coronavirus testing, with little guidance from Trump administration .........   Coronavirus vaccine developers are chasing outbreaks before there aren’t enough infected people to test LONDON — The top teams rushing to develop coronavirus vaccines are alerting governments, health officials and shareholders that they may have a big problem: The outbreaks in their countries may be getting too small to quickly determine whether vaccines work. ..............  Mnuchin loosens restrictions on small-business loans to ease forgiveness, but borrowers to remain secret ..........   Brazil’s favelas, neglected by the government, organize their own coronavirus fight ...... Da Silva is one of 400 new “street presidents” in Paraisopolis, responsible for helping her neighbors in Sao Paulo’s largest slum secure food, aid and health care. ...........  The program, created as cases in Latin America’s largest country began to explode, is one of many solutions the people of Brazil’s low-income favelas have found to bypass a divided government response to a worsening health crisis. Community leaders in some of the country’s hardest-hit neighborhoods are hiring their own ambulances, creating unemployment funds and even building independent databases to track cases and deaths. ...........    Arizona tells hospitals to activate emergency plans amid another record high average of new cases ...........  Starbucks lost $3 billion in latest quarter but says ‘most difficult period is now behind us’ ...........  E.U. accuses China of targeting its societies with pandemic disinformation ............  E.U. headquarters in Brussels and European capitals have been struggling to navigate the tension between the United States and China, two rivals that are increasingly at odds with each other on a variety of security and diplomatic issues, including the pandemic response. ..........  “We are clearly mentioning Russia and China,” she said. “If we have evidence, we should not shy away from naming and shaming.” ........ AMC plans to have almost all its movie theaters open by July ..........  GOP expects to move its convention to Jacksonville after dispute with North Carolina over pandemic safeguards ........ Asylum applications in the E.U. dropped almost 86 percent between February and April ............  WHO urges Pakistan to return to lockdown as new infections explode .........   “Pakistan has been ranked among the top 10 countries around the globe in reporting the highest number of new cases.” ...........  So far, 113,702 cases have been reported in Pakistan, but the number is probably much higher, as a quarter of those tested are found to be positive. ........  The letter recommended an intermittent, two-week-on, two-week-off lockdown to stem the tide of new infections. ............. the government was pursuing a “holistic strategy” in combating the virus and must consider the livelihoods of the two-thirds of the population that depend on daily incomes. The easing of restrictions has been accompanied by compulsory mask wearing and other procedures in public areas to prevent the spread of infection. ........ Air travel ‘highly correlated’ with spread of coronavirus, report claims ..........  “The flow of air passengers across and within country borders has been a major contributor of the spread of the virus.” ............  Merkel, Macron and other E.U. leaders call for better pandemic response mechanism ........ Feds should not force price limits on drugmakers, Fauci tells biotech executives ........   Because the virus meets the four key conditions — it is new, easily transmissible, carried through the respiratory system and poses a serious risk of mortality — it has become the “worst nightmare” for the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Other recent outbreaks he has worked on, including Ebola, HIV and SARS, were more finite and had a degree of containment that made it easier to stop the spread.................  “This took about a month to go around the world,” he said of the coronavirus. “When is it going to end? We’re still at the beginning of it.” .......  The unexpected gift of stay-at-home orders: Time for kids to sleep and think and just be ........ our family found itself at home, together, with far fewer reasons to look at a clock or calendar reminder. ........  I wonder if we might be able to hold on to one thing that we’ve found in abundance during this quarantine: Time. Time for my kids to sleep, get bored, take walks, tinker with crafts and sit on the foot of my bed and talk. ........  Coronavirus hospitalizations rise sharply in several states following Memorial Day 

Coronavirus News (145)

‘I have never felt so helpless’: Front-line workers confront loss Doctors, nurses and first responders grapple with the enormity of what they’ve witnessed during the pandemic’s first wave .......    As he stood in his spacesuit of protective gear, holding his phone in front of the woman’s face so her daughter might see her one last time, Ayoub was indignant that this is what death had become during the coronavirus pandemic. ...........  Doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians are supposed to be the superheroes of the pandemic. They are immortalized in graffiti, songs belted out from balcony windows and tributes erected from Times Square to the Eiffel Tower. But despite the accolades, many confide that the past months have left them feeling lost, alone, unable to sleep. They second-guess their decisions, experience panic attacks, worry constantly about their patients, their families and themselves, and feel tremendous anxiety about how and when this might end. .............   The unfathomable loss of more than 100,000 Americans within a matter of weeks — many in isolation, without family or friends — has inflicted a level of trauma few anticipated when they signed up for these jobs. ...............   She quoted her as describing a scene “like Armageddon” and saying, “We can’t keep up.” .........  Ayoub said he was not surprised when a quarter of his classmates in the residency program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai revealed in a survey they had thought about suicide. .........  “A lot of people were angry at the whole situation and the system,” he added. “How it all happened. How we weren’t prepared. The lack of support.” ..........  Counselors seeing health-care workers describe symptoms of burnout, PTSD and “moral injury” — the effect of hundreds of decisions made each day on the fly and amid the chaos, creating conflict between deeply held beliefs and options considered inadequate or downright wrong. ...........  struggled with helping her elderly patients sick with covid-19 decide whether to stay home and die surrounded by family — or go to the hospital where they would get treatment but still possibly die, in that case, almost certainly alone ...............  In some medical centers, the ratio of deaths to discharges was as high as 9 to 1 among the critically ill on ventilators. ......... Nurses placed empty white shoes in front of the White House to protest lost colleagues who they contend became ill and died as a result of inadequate protective equipment. ..... Ten nurses were suspended at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., after they refused to enter a coronavirus patient’s room without N95 masks. ............   colleagues lived in cars, stayed at hotels or sent family members to live with relatives to avoid infecting loved ones. ......  A study of 1,257 doctors and nurses in China during that country’s coronavirus peak found that half reported depression, 45 percent anxiety and 34 percent insomnia. Another, looking at 1,400 health-care workers in Italy and published in JAMA Network Open, found half showed signs of post-traumatic stress, a quarter depression and 20 percent anxiety. In both China and Italy, young women were most likely to be affected. ............  the mental, emotional and physical burdens borne by health-care workers have been overwhelming. Witnessing the pain and death of so many other human beings, Hinrichsen said, reminds you of your own suffering and pain and brings home the reality that you, too, will die. .................  “It’s something that is hard to take straight on,” he said. “Like looking at the sun. You know it’s there and glance at it. But you don’t stare at it for hours at a time, day after day. That’s what working during the virus has been like for some.” ............  H e heard about one funeral home where police found dozens of decomposing bodies in a trailer, and he was furious..........  “PTSD is no joke.” .........   Looking out his window one day, seeing blue skies and feeling the sun, he could think only of crowds at the park, less than six feet apart, respiratory secretions flying. “This weekend is gorgeous,” he said. “It’s going to be horrible.” .........  “Certain moments trigger something that makes me really sad,” Holsbeke said. “I can be at home and be totally fine, and at bedtime, all of a sudden, sobs and anxiety kick in.” ........  had been screening patients for the coronavirus when he found out he had become infected. About a week after his diagnosis, Plaza was so short of breath he had trouble finishing sentences. .........  In one particularly brutal 10-day period, Audrey Chun lost seven patients — some of whom she had treated for decades. As a doctor in the geriatrics department of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, she was used to death, but this was different. ...........   “Everything was happening so quickly,” he said. “Everyone was dying so quickly. We had to go from one death to another and the next. I was imagining it happening to my family and being in a situation like that.” .........  He  thought of the 50-something woman who had so many people who loved her but who died alone. .......  “In the back of my mind I kept thinking it’s all coming back — and probably worse than the first time.”