Pooling accounts for about one-third of the samples that are processed at Poplar, Mr. Sweeney said, adding that percentage is going to get much higher.

But in many other regions, experts are having trouble clearing the hurdles to benefit from pooling in part because needs differ so vastly from institution to institution, and even from test to test.

Theres been a lot of concerns about all the challenges, said Dr. Bobbi Pritt, director of the clinical parasitology laboratory at Mayo Clinic, which processes tens of thousands of coronavirus tests each week, but has yet to roll out pooling.

Experts disagree, for instance, on the cutoff at which pooling stops being useful. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions coronavirus test, which is used by most public health laboratories in the United States, stipulates that pooling shouldnt be used when positivity rates exceed 10 percent. But at Mayo Clinic, wed have to start to question it once prevalence goes above 2 percent, definitely above 5 percent, Dr. Pritt said.

And prevalence isnt the only factor at play. The more individual samples grouped, the more efficient the process gets. But at some point, poolings perks hit an inflection point: A positive specimen can only get diluted so much before the coronavirus becomes undetectable. That means pooling will miss some people who harbor very low amounts of the virus.

Updated August 17, 2020

Are we going to cause harm if we miss them? I think thats still a difficult question to answer, Dr. Liesman said. These people may be less likely to pass the virus to others, and may be at lower risk of getting severely ill. But thats no guarantee. Some might simply be early on in their infection.

Pooling can also be onerous for lab technicians many of whom have been working grueling hours for months on end. Though simple in theory, batching samples is tedious and time-consuming, as researchers carefully transfer precise amounts of liquid from one tube to another hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times over.

Originally posted here:

Why Pooled Testing for the Coronavirus Isn't Working - The New York Times

The wedding guests attended a reception on August 7 at Big Moose Inn in Millinocket, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The Big Moose Inn is a 37 acre property that includes a restaurant, cabins and campgrounds near Baxter State Park. The Inn has hosted weddings since the 1970s and can accommodate 100 guests in their Fredericka's Restaurant, according to their website.

"Right now, we do not know if the outbreak originated at the Big Moose Inn or whether there may have been additional sites of transmission at other points during the gathering," Dr. Nirav Shah, Maine CDC director, said during a news conference on Tuesday.

He added that the reception was a connecting point for the group and the agency is still investigating the outbreak.

"What we know right now is that the reception that occurred there on August 7 was a connecting point and that there may have been other sources of transmission in addition to the reception at Big Moose Inn," Dr. Shah said.

CNN reached out to Big Moose Inn for comment and did not receive a response.

On Monday, Maine CDC announced the wedding reception had approximately 65 guests. In total, 24 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in connection with the event, according to the agency. They added that 18 of those cases were individuals who attended the reception and six others who had close contact with reception attendees.

The agency is conducting contact tracing for guests, staff and people who might have had close contact with individuals with confirmed cases. They encourage anyone who attended the event and has symptoms to contact their health care provider.

"What I think is really important about this situation is that it is another reminder that Covid-19 exist everywhere in Maine and it can spread really quickly when large groups of people gather," Dr. Shah said.

"I ask everyone to remember this situation as you attended social gatherings of your own," Dr. Shah said. "Things like wearing a face covering and maintaining physical distancing is as important today as any time in the outbreak investigation."

CNN's Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

Read more from the original source:

Coronavirus outbreak linked to wedding reception in Maine - CNN

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney among those in attendance

CHARLESTON, WV Prior to his regularly scheduled COVID-19 press briefing today, Gov. Jim Justice hosted Dr. Deborah Birx, Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, at the West Virginia Capitol to discuss efforts being made to combat the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopen the state.

Dr. Birx, you see her on TV all the time, she is amazing, Gov. Justice said. She has incredible energy and unbelievable knowledge. She's traveled all across the country. The great work that shes doing and her dedication to West Virginia and this nation is amazing. And I can very proudly say that she was tickled to death with the things were doing in West Virginia.

In an interview with members of the media following a roundtable with state leaders at the Culture Center, Dr. Birx praised West Virginia for executing an effective virus response.

We really wanted to hear how West Virginia got it right and continues to get it right, Dr. Birx said. I think what Ive been convinced is its really a partnership and teamwork, coming together to create self-sufficiency through innovation, and its really been translating to every West Virginian, putting them first and then communicating how important every West Virginian is to each other.

Dr. Birx specifically commended Gov. Justice and state leaders for developing what she called a remarkable plan to safely reopen schools across the state. The plan uses a scientific metric to evaluate the safety level in each county and a color-coded map system to let parents, students, teachers, and faculty know what precautions will be taken to ensure the safety of their communities.

Were going to put it in our governors report next week and Im worried that West Virginia is going to get a call from another 49 governors, Dr. Birx said. To really lay out the metrics of where every county is, making that visible to every single parent, and linking that to school choice and then very clear guidances of what to do depending on what your category is.

I was very excited to talk about this and take this to other governors, Dr. Birx continued. I think the reason why I like it is its practical, its something that every county and every state can do, its understandable, and most importantly, its implementable. And thats really what I got from this visit, is this attention to detail but not detail for the having of detail but detail that translates into better service for West Virginians.

West Virginia represents exactly what we want to see across the country a common sense approach based on the data, local data, that people use to keep themselves safe and that they understand, Dr. Birx said.

Gov. Justice and Dr. Birx were joined by U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Congressman Alex Mooney for a discussion at the Governor's Mansion and the follow-up roundtable at the Culture Center.

Among those also in attendance for the discussions with Dr. Birx were West Virginia Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh, DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, State Health Officer Dr. Ayne Amjad, State Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch, West Virginia National Guard Adjutant General Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, and several of the states leading experts in medicine, education, business and more.

After the conclusion of the discussions with Dr. Birx, Sen. Capito and Rep. Mooney joined Gov. Justice for his latest COVID-19 press briefing.

Weve had an incredible experience this morning by hearing Dr. Birx, who is a terrific health leader at the COVID Task Force with the Vice President, Sen. Capito said. Weve all seen her on TV, but I can tell you theres nothing like seeing her in person and seeing how inspirational she is and the message that shes led in this country. She said shes thrilled to be coming to West Virginia because its a green state, she hasnt been able to see too many green states and she wanted to know what was the key to our relative success, and I think she came away with a couple things: the Governors leadership, constant communication.

Thank you, Governor, and your team for your leadership in this important time, Rep. Mooney said. We should all be encouraged that West Virginians from across our state are supporting, protecting, and standing by one another during this unprecedented time.

Dr. Birx also praised the Governor's indoor face covering requirement, the state's expansive collection of COVID-19 data, the state's commitment to full testing residents and staff at every nursing home in West Virginia, the Governor'sCOVID-19 Advisory Commission on African AmericanDisparities, and the development of innovative products like reusable masks and sanitization equipment.

WEST VIRGINIA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS AGAIN; REMAINS BELOW NATIONAL AVERAGE Also during his briefing Wednesday, Gov. Justice announced that West Virginia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 9.9% for the month of July.

The national unemployment rate for July was 10.2%.

Since April, when state unemployment levels reached 15.9%, more than 47,000 jobs have been recovered across West Virginia.

Before the pandemic, West Virginia had historic economic growth that led to a 4.7% unemployment rate statewide.

GOVERNOR ADDS SELF-EMPLOYED, SOLE PROPRIETORS TO THOSE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE SMALL BUSINESS GRANTS Also on Wednesday, Gov. Justice announced that he is opening up hisWest Virginia CARES Act Small Business Grant Programto sole proprietorships and self-employed individuals in West Virginia.

Any sole proprietor or self-employed person, in operation on or before March 1, 2020, is now able to apply for up to $2,000 in grant funding.

Meanwhile, any West Virginia-based small businesswith 1-35 employees, in existence on or before March 1, 2020 is still able to apply for up to $5,000 in grant funding. Over 2,300 of these applications have been submitted to date, with more than $9.5 millionbeing awarded so far.

Businesses planning to apply must first be registered as a vendor with the State to be eligible. Guidelines for the grants and instructions on how to apply are available atGrants.wv.gov.

The application will remain open until Sept. 30, 2020.

MON COUNTY BARS TO REOPEN ON AUG. 31 Gov. Justice also announced that, after one final extension to countywide bar closure in Monongalia County, these facilities will be able to open at the end of this month, provided that they adhere to a list of additional safety guidelines.

On Wednesday, Gov. Justiceissuedan executive order, extending the closure of all bars in Mon County for an additional 11 days.

The extension was requested by West Virginia University and the Monongalia County Commission, with WVU students returning to campus in Morgantown this week.

The new order extends the countywide bar closure until Monday, Aug. 31, 2020, at 12:01 a.m. Gov. Justice pledged that this will stand as the reopening date, barring amajor uptick in case numbers or another unforeseen circumstance and provided that all safety guidelines are properly followed.

We're not going to have dance floors, we're not going to have live entertainment, and we're going to have to expand the ability to go outdoors, Gov. Justice said.

Click here to view the safety guidelines that will be required for the reopening of bars in Monongalia County.

The countywide bar closure was originally established underExecutive Order 52-20, first extended underExecutive Order 55-20, further extended underExecutive Order 58-20, and extended again under Executive Order 60-20.

The order keeps all Monongalia County bars closed for the on-premises consumption of food or drinks or occupancy by the general public. However, customers are still permitted to pick up food or drinks to be taken away.

The order maintains that patrons are allowed to be seated, for dining, at tables and bar tops within "bar areas" of restaurants, hotels, and other similar facilities, subject to the same limitations that are in place for restaurants.

FUNDING BEING SENT TO VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTS Also on Wednesday, Gov. Justice announced that the $4.19 million that he pledged to support West Virginia'svolunteer fire departments is now ready for distribution.

Each of the state's 419 VFDs will receive $10,000.

Our firefighters have all meant so much to us during this pandemic, but especially the ones who do so on a voluntary basis, Gov. Justice said. I love being able to get this money out because, at the end of the day, this is going to help us save more lives.

GOV. JUSTICE DIRECTS WORKFORCE WEST VIRGINIA TO APPLY FOR LOST WAGE ASSISTANCE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUNDS Additionally Wednesday, Gov. Justicedirected WorkForce West Virginia to apply for the Lost Wages Assistance Payments grant through the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).

As I have said, we cannot let our people that are sitting out there with no job not knowing how in the world theyre going to pay rent, or keep from being evicted, or making their car payment, or putting food on the table just sit out there and wilt on the vine, Gov. Justice said. "We've got to get some money flowing to help West Virginians in need."

Upon approval by FEMA, this grant will allow WorkForce West Virginia to provide an additional $400 per week in assistance payment to those receiving Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits due to COVID-related impacts. FEMA disaster relief funds will cover $300 of the new weekly payment and the other $100 will come from West Virginias allocation of the federal CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund. Lost Wage Assistance was established after Congress did not reauthorize the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which provided an extra $600 payment to eligible UI claimants.

Click here to read more

COVID-19 CASE NUMBERS UPDATE Additionally Wednesday, Gov. Justice reported modest improvement once again in some of West Virginia's COVID-19 case numbers, announcing that the number of active cases and COVID-19-related hospitalizations continue to trend down.

Meanwhile, West Virginias statewide rate of COVID-19 transmission also known as Rt is currently tied for the 8th-best such rate in the country,dropping to 0.90 today. If a given statesRt value is above 1.0, it means the virus will spread quickly, while values under 1.0 mean infections are slowing. West VirginiasRt has remained under 1.0 every day since July 6, 2020; the same day that the Governor instituted hisStatewide Indoor Face Covering Requirement.

Click here to view the latest COVID-19 data

UPDATE ON CHURCHES, LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES Also Wednesday, Gov. Justice announced that church-related outbreaks remain active in three counties across West Virginia: Cabell, Taylor, and Wood counties. These outbreaks account for about 44 total cases combined.

The Governor added that there are now 26 outbreaks in long-term care facilities across the state, with extra attention being paid toGrant Rehab and Care Center in Grant County,Cedar Ridge Center in Kanawha County,Trinity Healthcare in Logan County,Princeton Healthcare Center in Mercer County,Pine Lodge Nursing Home in Raleigh County, andRosewood Nursing Home in Taylor County.

When it comes to our nursing homes, all of our people have been unbelievable, from the staff, to the National Guard, to the DHHR running to the fire and doing testing, Gov. Justice said. But Ill say again, weve just got to be super careful about going out of state and bringing this stuff back to these vulnerable populations.

FREE COVID-19 TESTING Gov. Justice also updated the schedule of upcomingfree community COVID-19 testingevents taking place over the next several weeks at various dates and times in multiple counties across the state.

The effort is part of a plan to provide free optional testing to all residents in several counties that are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 transmission. It targets residents who have struggled to be seen by a physician or do not have insurance to pay for testing. However, other residents, including those who are asymptomatic are welcome to be tested.

Here is the original post:

COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice hosts Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, to discuss West Virginia virus response - West...

The West Virginia Department of Health andHuman Resources (DHHR) reportsas of 10:00 a.m., on August 19, 2020, there have been 369,546 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 8,801 total cases and 166 deaths.

DHHRhas confirmed the deaths of a 72-year old female fromCabell County and a 69-year old female from Kanawha County. Each deathreported is a solemn reminder of the seriousness of this disease, said Bill J.Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. We send our sympathy to these families andurge all West Virginians to continue following the guidelines to protect eachother.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (33), Berkeley (748), Boone(124), Braxton (10), Brooke (79), Cabell (478), Calhoun (7), Clay (18),Doddridge (6), Fayette (178), Gilmer (18), Grant (131), Greenbrier (95),Hampshire (90), Hancock (115), Hardy (64), Harrison (247), Jackson (172),Jefferson (309), Kanawha (1,122), Lewis (28), Lincoln (111), Logan (380),Marion (203), Marshall (131), Mason (77), McDowell (67), Mercer (245), Mineral(128), Mingo (204), Monongalia (1,003), Monroe (22), Morgan (33), Nicholas(40), Ohio (284), Pendleton (47), Pleasants (14), Pocahontas (42), Preston(131), Putnam (228), Raleigh (310), Randolph (218), Ritchie (3), Roane (20),Summers (19), Taylor (86), Tucker (11), Tyler (15), Upshur (40), Wayne (221),Webster (7), Wetzel (45), Wirt (7), Wood (290), Wyoming (47).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the localhealth department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain countymay not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual inquestion may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Greenbrier,Jefferson, Mineral, and Ohio counties inthis report.

Thedashboard located at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov has been updated to include theschool alert system, a 7-day trend and a cumulative summary among many otherfeatures.

Read the original post:

COVID-19 Daily Update 8-19-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Masks have been found to be one of the most effective tools at blunting the transmission of the coronavirus, but not all face-coverings are created equal.

Researchers at Duke University recently ignited a debate over bandannas and neck gaiters earlier this month when they published findings on the effectiveness of 14 different face coverings at filtering respiratory droplets and found significant differences in performance.

The study, which was published in the journal Science Advances, found that fitted N95 respirators performed the best, followed by surgical masks and cotton masks that had a layer of synthetic material between two layers of cotton. (The US is still experiencing shortages of N95 respirators, so experts say those should be reserved for frontline healthcare workers.)

Neck gaiters performed the worst at suppressing the respiratory droplets that could infect others, followed by bandannas. But not everyone thinks this is a finding we should live by. The New York Times even exhorted its readers to save the gaiters!

For [the neck gaiter], we actually saw what seemed to be an increase in the particle numbers, said Martin Fischer, one of the reports authors, on a press call. We attribute that to the mesh fabric actually dispersing some of those droplets. He said more, smaller particles could linger in the air longer than large droplets that might be expelled without a mask.

But a subsequent report by researchers at Virginia Tech found that gaiters provided similar protection to other cloth masks recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that a doubled-over gaiter provided more protection than a single-layer one.

It is possible that the composition of the gaiters used in the studies played a role. Wrapped around this whole [debate] is the issue of the fabrics that havent been well tested, said Eric Westman, one of the Duke study authors. Duke researchers used a gaiter made of a polyester-spandex blend, while the Virginia Tech study used one 100% polyester gaiter and another that was similar in composition to the Duke gaiter.

So which masks are most effective at preventing the spread of droplets? Its hard to precisely know right now.

But Fischer, of the Duke study, suggested this general rule: If you have two masks and one of them is really easy to see through and easy to breathe through and another one [is] not, its probably a good bet that the thicker one will perform better.

Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at George Mason University and the University of Arizona, recommended using surgical masks or three-layered cotton ones for the time being. I dont think we should take either study to mean we cant wear certain masks, but rather that for those with concerning findings, perhaps avoid them until we have additional research, she said .

Meanwhile an earlier study published in July in the journal Thorax found that double-layer cloth face coverings performed significantly better at reducing the droplet spread caused by coughing and sneezing than single-layer cloth masks, but noted that single-layer face coverings are still better than no face covering. In that study, surgical masks also outperformed cloth masks.

The general consensus worldwide is that masks work, and everyone should wear a mask, said Westman.

See the article here:

Masks blunt the spread of coronavirus but not all are created equal - The Guardian

Another 25 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Wednesday.

Wednesdays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,234. Of those, 3,799 have been confirmed positive, while 435 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Tuesdays cumulative total to 4,209, up from 4,196. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

No new deaths were reported Wednesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 127. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 403 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, nine people are currently hospitalized, with two in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, 13 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,662. That means there are 445 active and probable cases in the state, which is up from 432 on Monday.

Heres the latest on the coronavirus and its impact on Maine.

Portland Public Schools officials have pitched a comprehensive plan to return to classrooms on Sept. 14, after the Maine Department of Education and Center for Disease Control and Prevention cleared them to do so. But about 15 percent of district employees have asked for a waiver from returning to their school buildings, citing heightened risks from the coronavirus and childcare conflicts among their concerns. Schools officials have contracted with Falmouth-based KMA Human Resources Consulting, a private firm, to help determine which Portland teachers may work remotely and which ones should return to the classroom this fall. Nick Schroeder, BDN

Health care advocates in Maine are waiting to see if a deadlocked Congress will boost a federal Medicaid funding match provision as the state prepares across-the-board spending cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Caitlin Andrews, BDN

Building supply, online and automobile sales all rose by double digits in June, although other parts of Maines economy still are down significantly compared to last year, new tax data from Maine Revenue Services showed. Lori Valigra, BDN

The Maine Principals Association expects to make its recommendation regarding the high school fall sports season on Aug. 27. The recommendation to be presented to the MPAs Interscholastic Management Committee might include going forward with all fall sports cross country, field hockey, football, golf, soccer and volleyball. It also might recommend a partial slate of sports during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or having no high school sports at all when students return to classes. Ernie Clark, BDN

On Tuesday, the day after state health officials confirmed a coronavirus outbreak of at least two dozen cases connected to an Aug. 7 wedding reception in Millinocket, some residents of the Katahdin region were shocked that their area had been hit by such a large virus outbreak while others believed it was simply a matter of time before the virus hit. Eesha Pendharkar, BDN

As of Wednesday evening, the coronavirus has sickened 5,516,639 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 172,667 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

Read the rest here:

August 19 evening update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine - Bangor Daily News

President George W. Bush delivered words of comfort and encouragement at the packed National Cathedral in Washington, where four former US presidents as well as political and religious leaders gathered on a gray cloudy morning that gave way to bright sunshine.

"Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time," Bush said. "But goodness, remembrance and love have no end. The Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn."

For days mourners poured into houses of worship. Church bells tolled. The dead were remembered at candlelight vigils across the country.

Nearly two decades later, in the midst of another national tragedy that has the US surpassing 170,000 deaths from Covid-19, there have been few signs of collective mourning among Americans.

Hospitals and nursing homes shut its doors and placed Covid-19 patients in isolation. Priests administered last rites over the phone. Helpless families said farewells the same way. Funerals were canceled, postponed or held online. Mass gatherings were prohibited.

"Without a way to gather with others to mark a loss, to acknowledge the loss, we are left with an intensified sense of isolation and also, often, a heightened sense of self reproach, anxiety, and what used to be called melancholy," says Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence."

"Gathering gives people a way to acknowledge the loss, to test the reality of the loss with others, to bring back the memory of the person in the context of the living, and to affirm the possibility of living on. But to deal with loss in utter isolation, or to have loss sanitized through curves and graphs, leaves us without the means we need to affirm life in the wake of loss."

'An enormous sadness'

"The marshaling of the war metaphor ... is consistent in an attempt to rally the American people to unify but to unify around very specific things," said Micki McElya, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of "The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery."

"And that has been largely not marking death, marking tragedy or marking the horror of the ongoing lack of a meaningful response or any attempt to remedy the mistakes of earlier aspects of the response, but to really focus on, 'This is what Americans do." And to kind of appeal to patriotism and nationalism, frankly, in order to encourage people to rally and feel united in shopping and in the economy, in the things that the administration is choosing to push forward."

Still, focusing solely on Washington's response to the pandemic would be letting the American public broadly off the hook, McElya said.

"We need to really consider this and talk about this as a collective national failure," she said. "One certainly encouraged by our leadership. But people have to submit or commit to that narrative, and so many have, and that's an enormous sadness."

Protests as a public act of mourning

"Our tendency to honor the deceased is also related to who is lost," he said.

"And when those figures who die are celebrities, when they are young people, children and so on, when they are heroic figures -- think of the death of the first responders from collapsed World Trade Center in New York -- it's easy to valorize, to validate and collectively mourn such losses."

That the deaths of members of disenfranchised and marginalized communities do not generate the same "upwelling of compassion and concern" as that of a child or first responder "requires us to seriously scrutinize our values," Neimeyer said.

Butler said the victims of the pandemic have come to be recognized in the ongoing national protests over the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans.

"I think Black Lives Matter is in some ways about mourning," she said. "They were mourning those lives, standing for the value of those lives, publicly gathering in sorrow and in rage... I think that is a public act of mourning at the same time that it is a public act of protest."

The pandemic is 'a rolling thunder'

Americans have also navigated profoundly unsettling times in recent months -- the loss of jobs and everyday routines, social isolation and the disappearance of support networks.

"At some level, we are grieving much that we cannot even easily name, and for which there are no rituals of support," Neimeyer said. "There's no High Mass offered for your loss of security, or there's no ritual by which we bury or inter a career or a job that we lost."

The trauma is compounded by the fact that no end to the pandemic appears in sight.

"It's not that we have suffered these losses and are now trying to take stock of them," Neimeyer said. "We continue to suffer them. It's a rolling thunder. It's not a storm that has passed through. We're in the thick of it."

Butler said the statistical curves and graphs counting the dead inform people about "what is an acceptable level of illness and death in order to reopen the economy."

"We are thus asked to accept that death is necessary, to agree to 'an acceptable level of death' and business and universities that reopen in the midst of a surge are also reckoning on how much death is acceptable," she said.

"It leads us to accept deaths that are preventable ... and it makes us cold, if not cruel, in the face of calculated levels of acceptable death. So, in my mind, it is the absence of collective mourning, forms of gathering, and acknowledgment in conjunction with this calculation of acceptable death that leaves us without a sense of the value of life."

Excerpt from:

Few signs of collective mourning as the US tops 170,000 coronavirus deaths - CNN

Robert N. Golden and Joseph E. Kerschner Published 6:00 a.m. CT Aug. 19, 2020

You do not have to be a doctor to understand the terrible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Wisconsin, new COVID-19 infections continue to rise. The virus has killed more than 1,000 Wisconsinites almost 225 in the past 30 days alone. Similar trends are occurring nationwide.

Our country needs a new path forward in the battle against the virus. The states two medical schools the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin are heading up this fight by launching innovative COVID-19 clinical trials, developing rapid diagnostic testing, studying the complexities of this virusand increasing our capacity to offer telehealth and virtual visits. Our physicians, nurses and other health care professionals are working tirelessly.

But these frontline fighters need support from everyone to limit the spread of this virus.

The Association of American Medical Collegesrecently released a road map to reset the nations approach to the pandemic. It proposes evidence-based steps for immediate action.

Wisconsins medical schools support this plan. COVID-19 has not been contained by the current patchwork approach. To win the war against this virus, we desperately need an organized plan of attack particularly for supplies, testingand standards.

Combating COVID-19 requires robust and intact supply chains. Shortages in laboratory equipment, personal protective equipmentand other vital medical supplies (which our institutions and others throughout Wisconsin have already encountered) leave everyone vulnerable. We have conserved PPE and developed creative approaches to obtain and make new PPE, but its not enough.

The AAMC plan urges the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act or other means to increase domestic production of such supplies. So no facility is caught short, the government should set thresholds and develop regional warehouses and stockpiles, with attention to greatest-need areas.

To fight effectively, we need to know where the enemy is. That requires testing. We embrace AAMCs recommendation for enhanced COVID-19 daily testing to identify flare-ups. This will require federal coordination of testing and supply levels. We need a central web portal for records so we can react swiftly to shortages in testing supplies. We also need rapid delivery of test results. This is critical. Since COVID-19 spread often occurs before an infected person shows symptoms, three things are essential: readily available testing, rapid reporting of resultsand contact tracing when an individual is positive.

We need consistent tactics to battle this virus. We support national standards for face coverings. Our nation needs uniform criteria for stay-at-home orders, reopening businessesand in-person instruction at K-12 schools. We support the AAMCs guidance for face coverings. While there are horrible disparities among certain populations, and some location-specific challenges, the biology of the virus does not vary from city to city or state to state. National standards will allow all communities to make informed decisions.

These steps must be taken immediately. The road map also charts a longer-term path forward to help minimize or prevent the next pandemic, because a lasting peace in this war requires planning.

We encourage the people of Wisconsin to support this road map, which provides a clear path away from the ravages of COVID-19 and toward a safe, healthy state.

Robert N. Golden, MD, is dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Joseph E. Kerschner, MD is dean of theMedical College of Wisconsin School of Medicine.

Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2020/08/19/safe-healthy-path-forward-ravages-coronavirus/5596170002/

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Opinion: There is a safe, healthy path forward from the ravages of the coronavirus - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It's the latest development in the effort to use a 19th century treatment to help 21st century patients.

The contract with the DoD's Joint Acquisition Task Force is to develop a new convalescent blood plasma process that makes more serum-derived products, and faster.

President Donald Trump and US health leaders have done a full court press to encourage people who survived Covid-19 to donate plasma to help those who are sick.

Two weeks ago, on a tour of the Red Cross, Trump implored people to volunteer to donate plasma "as soon as you can."

"We have a lot of people that would heal, would get better. As soon as you can, please," Trump said.

A Victorian solution to a modern problem?

Since the Victorian era, doctors have used this treatment to fight severe cases of the flu. The treatment has also shown success with two other deadly coronaviruses - MERS and SARS. Yet it will take studies to prove that it works to treat Covid-19. Absent other treatments, doctors have opted to use the treatment as it was still being studied.

Doctors try the old treatment

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit New York City hard in March, doctors desperate to save patients weren't sure what might help. Plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients showed some early promise. For professionals used to relying on scientific evidence and established facts, there was -- and still is -- little to work with.

"We probably changed what we were doing on a daily basis."

To see what worked, Bouvier and team did a retrospective analysis on data collected from 39 patients.

Even in that small group, convalescent plasma stood out.

"We don't have definitive answers yet, but we are on the way to getting definitive answers and, I would say, that the evidence, while imperfect, is promising," Bouvier said.

Convalescent plasma, Woodcock said, is an option that can be "feasible fairly quickly." Woodcock, said it's a treatment the government is trying to accelerate, even before the government knows if it works.

Early results in China

Early on, a handful of small studies in China looked promising.

Trying the treatment in the US

Among 25 hospitalized patients with Covid-19, seven days after the convalescent plasma treatment, nine showed some improvement and seven were discharged from the hospital. By day 14, 19 had improved and 11 were discharged. There were no safety issues.

Still, it's not clear if the treatment was the reason these patients improved; the study results would need to be reproduced in a larger group of patients.

First 'maybe,' then 'possibly,' now 'probably'

Dr. Arturo Casadevall, one of the researchers, called convalescent plasma the "good news story" of the pandemic.

"When we first started this effort if you had asked 'do you think it's going to work?' I would have said 'maybe,'" Casadevall said. "Since then I progressed to 'possibly,' and now, I am at 'probably.'"

Casadevall wants more research to prove it works.

"To really be certain you need to complete the randomized clinical trials," Casadevall said. "But the good thing has been that there have been multiple reports that have been encouraging, including my clinical trials from Wuhan that had to be stopped prematurely."

That trial was stopped when the flood of patients slowed to a trickle and there weren't enough patients to test the therapy.

The challenges

The number of cases can also impact how much of the therapy is available. Unlike with a monoclonal antibody therapies that can be made in the lab, this treatment relies on volunteers.

"It is a limited resource," Woodcock said Monday. That's why there has been a concerted push to get more donors. Even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been enlisted to urge people to donate.

Typically, one donor's plasma can treat two or three people and the original donor can come back and donate again within a couple of weeks.

But there are only so many donors, Woodcock said, and scientists are starting to think there is only a month-long window in which people have enough antibodies in their blood to help someone else fight the disease. But again, they need more research to know for sure.

But there was no placebo group. Without that comparison, it's hard to know if the treatment made the difference.

The treatment be a difficult one to get right. Monoclonal antibody treatments, by contrast, are made by scientists in the lab. They pick the antibody that works best in the lab to neutralize the virus and reproduce it in the lab. Such Covid-19 antibody therapies are in clinical trials now, too.

With convalescent plasma, patients get all the antibodies in that plasma, not just those carefully engineered to fight the virus. Every donor's plasma is a little bit different and some may have more antibodies that protect against the virus better than others.

"Convalescent plasma, I think we need to have more caution about that," Dr. Anthony Fauci said recently. "You want to make sure you do it right."

The push

Woodcock, who said the US government is trying to accelerate these plasma drives, thinks there may be an additional benefit to convalescent plasma that goes beyond treating someone's symptoms.

"I think people feel very helpless in the face of this," Woodcock said. "This is something that everyone can contribute who's been infected."

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Researchers hope this old-fashioned treatment will work for coronavirus - CNN

Coronavirus cases are already surfacing in K-12 schools that have reopened, but the federal government is not tracking these outbreaks, and some states are not publicly reporting them, making it more difficult to determine how the virus is spreading, experts say.

Scores of students and staff members have been quarantined because of potential COVID-19 exposure in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Indiana, among other states.

But there is no official national tally of school-linked COVID-19 cases, and some states are not reporting how many outbreaks have occurred or how many students and staff members have been infected. Instead, they are leaving it up to local officials to decide which information to make public and which information to share more narrowly with affected students and families. Researchers say the absence of a comprehensive accounting is hampering efforts to identify which safety practices can best prevent cases in schools from spreading.

Without good data that tracks cases over time and shows how one case turns into many cases there's just no way to answer that question, said Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University and co-founder of COVID Explained, a team of researchers studying the pandemic. In January, we'll be in the same position that we are in now, and kids still won't be in school.

At least nine states including Alabama, California and Pennsylvania are tracking school-linked coronavirus cases and outbreaks, but wont make this data public, according to an NBC News tally of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Many of these states cited privacy concerns for withholding the data. Some claimed that coronavirus data on schools was not critical to protecting the broader public, and said their policies might change in the future if there was a clear public health reason for providing such information.

At least 15 other states have begun publishing data on school-based outbreaks, or have committed to doing so, according to the NBC News survey. Seven states said they were still deliberating their plans, and the remainder did not respond to a request for comment.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Even among the states that have committed to sharing data, there are major gaps and inconsistencies in reporting policies. Each state sets its own definition for an outbreak usually a certain number of cases linked to a single site. Most said they would not specify the district or school that was affected, citing privacy concerns. And only a handful of states said they would report the actual numbers of infected students and staff.

A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the agency was not tracking school-based COVID-19 cases, and the Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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Beyond the researchers concerns, educators and parents are worried about whether theyll be told about positive cases that could threaten their safety not only at their schools, but in neighboring areas as well. School administrators fear the lack of comprehensive data could feed unnecessary panic by making it hard to determine whether a news story about an individual school outbreak is an outlier or a sign of impending danger.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called on all states to gather and release this data, since the federal government is not doing so.

The Trump administration has shamefully tried to keep America in the dark on COVID-19, so it's doubly important for states to ignore the political bluster and commit to delivering the truth about the virus' spread, Weingarten said in a statement in response to NBC News findings. While some school districts are doing their best to inform teachers, families and children, we're hoping states get with the program and deliver the transparency they deserve as schools gradually begin to reopen their doors."

In the absence of comprehensive state or federal data, some researchers are stepping in to gather information themselves.

Oster, the Brown University economist, is working with the School Superintendents Association, which represents school officials, to develop a dashboard that collects the latest information directly from individual districts to help inform administrators and academics. It would include not just the number of positive cases in schools, but also the size of the student body, how many students and staff are in quarantine at a given moment, and changes in cases over time.

The goal is to track infections, and also to discern quickly which regions and schools are faring better at preventing and containing outbreaks and whether their safety procedures were responsible for the difference. Such information could also help parents decide whether to send their children to school or keep them at home for remote learning, Oster said.

The only evidence thats really going to be informative is what happens when we open schools, she said. Whether its the right decision or not, once schools are open it would be a shame not to use that as an opportunity to learn how to do this.

Other institutions are also trying to fill in gaps with their own reporting. The Indianapolis Star launched a searchable database of positive cases at schools after the state government started the school year without making the information public. (Indianas Health Department said it is working on a public dashboard for school-linked cases, but did not provide a timeline or details on what data would be included.)

One Kansas teacher even created a Google spreadsheet for educators and parents to track news reports of cases and quarantines in schools.

While other countries have reopened schools sooner and more widely than the U.S., they also have not comprehensively tracked cases and outbreaks among children, which makes it harder to offer guidance to schools in the U.S., said Annette C. Anderson, an assistant professor and deputy director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools at Johns Hopkins University. International studies of COVID-19 spread in classrooms have been limited in scope, typically in countries where the pandemic has been less prevalent than in the U.S.

Were only beginning to start understanding the transmission of COVID in children, Anderson said. Its important for us to have a great assemblance of data.

According to Anderson, researchers have run into trouble in finding data on children that uses consistent standards. A recent American Academy of Pediatrics study of childhood infections noted that states often define children differently in their tracking, with some listing everyone under age 14, for example, and others placing the cutoff as high as 20.

This lack of granular information can matter a lot, because one question scientists urgently hope to resolve is the degree to which younger and older children are affected differently by the virus.

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Without a more thorough snapshot of cases around the country, researchers say its hard to know what to make of individual outbreaks. In northern Alabama, local media reported four coronavirus cases in Morgan Countys school system last week, prompting 25 students and staff members to be quarantined.

A spokeswoman for Morgan County Schools said she could not provide further details about where the cases occurred, or whether it was students or teachers who were infected. Both the county and state health departments declined to release further information.

The Alabama Department of Public Health and its local county health departments do not disclose information related to notifiable disease investigations as a matter of policy and privacy, Dr. Karen Landers, assistant state health officer for the Alabama department of health, said in an email.

By comparison, Georgias Cherokee County is providing regular updates on the number of staff members and students who have tested positive and the name of their school, as well as the number in quarantine because of potential exposure. The countys schools have 120 active coronavirus cases among students and staff, according to the latest report released Friday, and more than 1,100 have been quarantined since the countys schools reopened on Aug. 3.

But the school district stressed that such reporting was voluntary. Its worth noting that this level of public reporting is not required in any way, but is keeping with our longstanding commitment to transparency, Barbara Jacoby, a spokeswoman for Cherokee County School District, wrote in an email.

Danny Carlson, director of policy and advocacy at the National Association of Elementary School Principals, said hes heard from principals who want to see national data to get a sense of whether outbreaks like the one in Cherokee County are anomalies.

Its really hard otherwise, because take the Georgia example is that noise? Is it a one-off thing? Is it because of mask requirements? Carlson said. I think people are confused they want to know if this is a trend or not.

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Coronavirus is spreading in schools, but the federal government isn't keeping count - NBC News

A study by researchers in South Korea last month suggested that children between the ages of 10 and 19 spread the coronavirus more frequently than adults a widely reported finding that influenced the debate about the risks of reopening schools.

But additional data from the research team now calls that conclusion into question; its not clear who was infecting whom. The incident underscores the need to consider the preponderance of evidence, rather than any single study, when making decisions about childrens health or education, scientists said.

Some of the household members who appeared in the initial report to have been infected by older children in fact were exposed to the virus at the same time as the children. All of them may have been infected by contacts they shared.

The disclosure does not negate the overall message of that study, experts said: Children under age 10 do not spread the virus as much as adults do, and the ability to transmit seems to increase with age.

The most important point of the paper is that it clarifies the care with which we need to interpret individual studies, particularly of transmission of a virus where we know the dynamics are complex, said Dr. Alasdair Munro, clinical research fellow in pediatric infectious diseases at University Hospital Southampton in Britain.

The earlier study was not intended to demonstrate transmission from children to adults, only to describe contact tracing efforts in South Korea, said Dr. Young June Choe, assistant professor of social and preventive medicine at Hallym University College of Medicine and an author of both studies.

Most studies of childrens transmissibility have been observational and have not directly followed infected children as they spread the virus. The few studies to have done so are not directly comparable their methods, the policies regarding prevention, and the transmission levels in communities all vary widely.

Many studies have grouped together children of widely varying ages. Yet a 10-year-old is likely to be very different from a 20-year-old in terms of infection risk and transmission, as well as in type and level of social activity, Dr. Munro said.

The first study from South Korea did try to document transmission from children directly, but it grouped them in 10-year ranges. Tracing the contacts of 29 children aged 9 or younger, it found that the children were about half as likely as adults to spread the virus to others, consistent with other research.

But Dr. Choe and his colleagues reported an odd finding in the group of 124 children aged 10 to 19: They appeared significantly more likely than adults to spread the coronavirus. Experts told The Times at the time that the finding was likely to be a fluke.

The group of older children was not the same in both studies, but many appeared in both reports, Dr. Choe said. In the latest study, the researchers found only one undebatable case of transmission among older children, from a 16-year old girl, who had returned from Britain, to her 14-year-old sister.

The remaining 40 infected contacts of the older children could all be explained by a shared exposure.

The children with confirmed infections were isolated in hospitals or community treatment centers, and caregivers who had contact with them were required to wear masks, gloves, a full body suit and goggles. The low rate of transmission from older children observed here may not represent what happens in the real world.

The new report does suggest that older children are at least unlikely to transmit more than adults, said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, as had been originally claimed.

Theres no biological explanation for that, she said. It didnt make any sense to me. Over all, Dr. Dean added, Were not seeing a lot of real transmission from children.

But that may be because most studies have been too small to adequately distinguish between age groups, and because children have been kept at home, away from potential exposures.

Even if the risk of transmission from children is lower, they usually have contact with a great number of other people more so than the average adult. When schools reopen, these increased exposures create more opportunities to transmit the virus, which may counterbalance their lower propensity to transmit the virus.

Updated Aug. 19, 2020

The latest on how schools are navigating the pandemic.

Dr. Dean and other experts cautioned against interpreting the scientific evidence so far as saying that children under age 10 simply cannot spread the coronavirus.

But its not true to say that they do not transmit, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. You hear people say this, and its wrong.

All available evidence so far makes it clear that older children, particularly those closest to adulthood, may spread the virus as much as adults, he added.

Its indisputable that the highest risk of becoming infected and being detected as being infected is in older age groups, Dr. Hanage said. I think you have to be really careful before you decide to open high schools.

Conversations about reopening schools are complicated because so much depends on the level of community transmission and on socioeconomic factors, he and other experts said.

Schools can fuel the influenza viruss spread to a disproportionate degree, compared with restaurants, bars or places of worship. Children may drive those outbreaks, so closing schools during flu outbreaks makes sense, Dr. Hanage said.

But with the coronavirus, Dr. Hanage said, closing schools is not expected to provide more bang for the buck than closing other parts of society. Instead of reopening bars and restaurants along with schools, he said, schools should be prioritized, while bars and restaurants should be closed in order to reduce community transmission and make school reopenings possible.

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Older Children and the Coronavirus: A New Wrinkle in the Debate - The New York Times

County health authorities across Texas are still sorting through a backlog of previously unreported coronavirus test results, shaking some local officials confidence in the numbers and leaving them to wonder whether they missed chances to slow the illness.

A statewide data dump led to giant daily case counts in some North Texas counties over the weekend, including Dallas County, where officials had to contend with more than 7,600 previously unknown positive cases in four days the majority of them backlogged from June and July.

Because local health officials didnt know about the cases until now, contact tracing hasnt been done on them. That could have serious implications, said Dr. Matt Richardson, Denton Countys director of public health.

We missed that opportunity because of the late report, which just allows the pandemic to grow, he said. Thats why we have a pandemic. Weve missed opportunities for containment and unfortunately that was out of our control.

Richardson said the county was uncomfortable with statewide data on tests and said it was frustrating that some inherent flaws with the states database are being exacerbated by the delays.

That just renders it less valuable, he said, adding that the data are still useful because they show what happened and provide demographic information.

The backlogged cases came to light after the state upgraded its reporting system Aug. 1 to better handle the high volume of daily test results.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the state health department took in fewer than 2,000 lab test results a day for a long list of conditions including measles, meningitis and some STDs. But as COVID-19 testing expanded and the state had to track positive and negative results the tracking system couldn't keep up, said Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services.

After the upgrade, which allowed the state to process more than 100,000 test results a day, the state cleared the backlog in the first week of August, Anton said.

But once those results were processed, the state spotted coding problems with test results the commercial Quest Diagnostics labs reported that prevented the state from importing its data.

That led to a backlog of 354,000 tests from Quest, Anton said.

Quest Diagnostics told KTVT-TV (Channel 11) that the state had changed servers without letting it know, so it didnt realize its results werent being received.

Coding issues also led to problems getting data from CHRISTUS Meditech, a lab for several hospitals, which had a backlog of about 95,000 test results, and then a backlog of about 59,000 test results from Walgreens pharmacies, Anton said.

By Sunday, each of the backlogs was resolved and test results were available to counties, she said. Now, the case sorting is in the hands of county health officials, who will have to determine whether the results are for cases they previously knew about or whether they are new, Anton said.

The perspective you need to have is that with COVID, there are hundreds of labs reporting now that were not previously reporting to public health, she said. For instance, Walgreens is not typically testing for infectious diseases, but for COVID, theyre doing testing. So they had a longer road ... to get set up to process the tests and then to have a report and then to get them into a format where they could send it to us.

The backlogs didn't cause delays in notifying patients of their test results.

However, they could breed skepticism in the numbers for people who already doubts about them, said Timothy Bray, director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research at UT Dallas. And for people, including business owners and school leaders, who rely on local daily case counts among other data to make decisions about operating safely, they may feel theyre flying blind, Bray said.

Collin County officials havent specified how many of their cases were part of the backlog, but after reporting more than 1,100 cases Friday and none Sunday, officials warned residents they had no confidence in the states data in a message posted on the countys dashboard Tuesday.

The Commissioners Court is 100% certain that the COVID-19 data being reported for Collin County is inaccurate, Collin County Judge Chris Hill wrote on Facebook.

Anton, the State Health Services Department spokeswoman, said that since Collin County chose to have the state take over its case management in June, the state has been providing the most complete data available each day.

As with all COVID-19 data, it is subject to change as more information comes in, she said.

Gov. Greg Abbott stood by the states data in an interview Wednesday with KXAS-TV (NBC 5).

We used a very robust system team that came in, that corrected all of the data metrics and now we have good accurate information flow, he said. There may be still another day or two while that information is leveled out. But by the time this week ends, we should have pretty accurate data.

He also stressed that the backlog issue affected only test result data.

The most important and accurate information that exists is the information about the people who are hospitalized because of COVID-19. That information has never been questioned, the governor told KXAS. That information is both the most accurate, and the most important information that we have.

In Dallas County, officials indicated that most of the more than 7,600 previously unknown cases came from tests done in July.

In Tarrant County, health officials said many of the 1,487 cases it reported Saturday were part of the backlog.

Within the last five days, Denton County received more than 7,000 previously unreported test results, and 893 were positive. Some of the lab results were performed a few days ago, but some come from May and June, officials said.

Richardson, Denton Countys public health director, said the county is investigating the backlogged cases to see whether there are duplicates and having contact tracers verify them.

He said the backlogged cases will be added to new daily case counts after theyre investigated and designated as active or recovered cases.

Candy Blair, Collin Countys public health director, said officials noticed the problem when they saw a sudden spike in the data last week. They reported 1,175 new cases Aug. 14 nearly 10 times the daily average in cases.

Public health directors in the region asked the state about the problem, and thats when they learned about the backlog, she said.

Now she wants to make sure people understand that cases havent spiked suddenly.

You dont want them to panic, she said. Thats the last thing we want to do is to look like our numbers have quadrupled or are 10 times the amount that they normally are.

Officials in other counties also expressed a need for calm.

People need to be patient and understanding, Tarrant County public health director Vinny Taneja said at Tuesdays county commissioners court. We are worried that what we dont know might come back and bite us, and [the backlog is] a prime example of things that have gone on and we had no idea that this was an issue.

Diana Cervantes, an infectious disease epidemiologist and an assistant professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, said public health authorities have to put their emphasis on stopping transmission of the disease.

"That's your one goal; you want to focus on that," she said.

So health departments may make investigating new cases a priority over tracing old ones. Cervantes said that when departments have to sift through backlogged cases, theyre trying to determine whether any might be people in high-transmission settings and whether theres a chance to prevent an infectious person from spreading the virus.

"You need to be able to figure out is it even possible at this point to intervene?" she said.

Bray, the director of UT Dallas Institute for Urban Policy Research, said the backlog is a matter of critical public health and public policy concern, but it shouldnt change peoples behaviors in response to the pandemic.

We need to get to the bottom of it, he said. We need to make sure it doesnt happen again, but it doesnt reduce the need to be vigilant in public health and public safety measures.

And despite the unexpected jump in case counts, experts still see encouraging trends in the virus spread.

Dallas County has seen a significant drop in confirmed cases recently, in spite of the backlog, County Judge Clay Jenkins said Tuesday.

He also has noted less demand for tests in recent weeks.

It is quite understandable at this point that people would have concerns about computer programs, coding errors, contractors who did not mail things timely and other human errors around testing and reporting, Jenkins said in a written statement. However, the underlying science and the medical recommendations to you and the public are sound.

Dr. Philip Huang, the countys public health director, reported Tuesday that emergency-room visits have leveled off since their peak in June. The rate of positive tests from hospitals, though still high at 14%, also has declined recently.

He said people need to continue good public health practices.

We need to keep the physical distancing, washing of hands, staying home when you can, Huang said. All of these things are important, and they are showing to work. So just everyone needs to be vigilant. Dont let up.

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Here's what's behind all those backlogged coronavirus cases across Texas - The Dallas Morning News