The scary thing finally happened: someone caught the coronavirus twice and got sicker the second time around. A 25-year-old man in Nevada got COVID-19 in March, got better in April, and got sick again in May. He had worse symptoms on the second bout, bad enough that he had to be hospitalized.

Three other cases of confirmed reinfection were also reported this week: one in Hong Kong (the first documented case) and two in Europe. These dont necessarily make me any more worried about our vaccine prospects, though, and they dont mean the pandemic will go on forever. We have four documented cases of reinfection. But thats out of the 24 million cases of this disease so far, and rare shit happens. Most experts expected that wed see at least a few.

For months, there have been occasional, anecdotal reports of people testing positive for COVID-19 twice. None of those were proven to be reinfections. For most of those people, the second test probably picked up residual, dead virus that was still floating around in peoples noses and throats after their first infection.

In these reinfection cases, though, researchers actually analyzed the virus from the first time the people got sick and compared it to the virus from the second time they got sick. In each case, the two viruses had slightly different genetic sequences, showing that the second positive tests werent just leftover virus.

Heres the other important thing: in the Hong Kong case, the second infection caused no symptoms at all. That means his immune system probably recognized the virus from the first infection and kept it in check. We dont know why that didnt happen for the man in Nevada. He wasnt tested for antibodies the first time he got sick, so its possible that he just didnt make any. Thats the more encouraging option. The other possibility is that he had antibodies, but they made the infection worse (it happens with other viruses, like dengue).

Case studies only answer one question: can you catch COVID-19 twice? But thats about all they do. Mostly, they raise questions rather than answer them. How common is reinfection? How infectious are people if they get sick a second time? Are people who dont generate many antibodies the first time they contract the virus the only people who can catch it again?

The pandemic feels like its gone on for 1 million years, but in a more real way, the coronavirus has only existed in the human population for about nine months. Scientists have learned so much, so fast, but theres still a long way to go. The human immune system is weird and confusing, and its squaring off against a new, never-before-seen virus. Its going to take time to understand whats happening.

Oh, and the other thing this is a reminder that even if youve already had COVID-19, you still need to be careful.

Heres what else happened this week.

Biogen conference likely led to 20,000 COVID-19 cases in Boston area, researchers say

In February, before we knew the extent of COVID-19 in the US, 175 biotech executives gathered for a conference in Boston. At that meeting, the virus spread from attendee to attendee and the outbreak eventually led to tens of thousands of cases all around the world, according to one analysis. The study shows that even a small gathering can have wide-ranging, devastating ripple effects on the course of the pandemic. (Jonathan Saltzman / The Boston Globe)

Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to Covid-19

Months into the pandemic, scientists still arent sure what happens to our immune systems after we recover from COVID-19. Most researchers think people will have some protection against the virus, but they still dont know what that protection will look like. Stat News broke down some of the possibilities. (Helen Branswell / Stat News)

FDA authorizes Abbotts fast $5 COVID-19 test

The Food and Drug Administration authorized a $5, 15-minute COVID-19 test that works like a pregnancy test: a nasal swab gets inserted into the bottom of a test card and a colored line appears if the sample is positive for the coronavirus. Its a big step forward, experts say. (Nicole Wetsman / The Verge)

Moderna Says Covid-19 Vaccine Shows Signs of Working in Older Adults

The drug company ran a small study testing their COVID-19 vaccine candidate in people over the age of 56, and it found they produced the same types of immune response that younger people did. This doesnt mean that theyre protected from infection with the coronavirus we still need data from much bigger trials to prove that. But it is a promising sign: older peoples immune systems are weaker than younger peoples, and vaccines sometimes dont work as well for them. (Peter Loftus / The Wall Street Journal)

What if the First Coronavirus Vaccines Arent the Best?

While companies like Moderna and Pfizer are racing to collect data on their COVID-19 vaccine candidates by the end of the year, dozens of other companies are moving at a slower pace. Theyre building their vaccines using different types of technology than the ones at the head of the pack, and some researchers think they may have more staying power. The first vaccines may not be the most effective, Ted Ross, the director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia, told The New York Times. (Carl Zimmer / The New York Times)

What happened in Room 10?

Reporter Katie Engelhart investigated the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, the first virus hotspot in the United States. Something clearly went wrong but who was to blame?

Later, the story of the Life Care outbreak would be flattened by the ubiquitous metaphors of pandemic. People would say that COVID-19 hit like a bomb, or an earthquake, or a tidal wave. They would say it spread like wildfire. But inside the facility, it felt more like a spectral haunting. A nurse named Chelsey Earnest said that fighting COVID was like chasing the devil.

(Katie Engelhart / California Sunday)

Were Living The News: Student Journalists Are Owning The College Reopening Story

On college campuses around the country, student journalists are tirelessly documenting reopening plans and COVID-19 outbreaks. It takes a toll. We are scared because not only is this news that were writing about for other people to hear, were also hearing about it ourselves for the first time usually when were writing about it, Brandon Standley, managing editor at UNCs The Daily Tar Heel, told NPR.

(Elissa Nadworny and Lauren Migaki / NPR)

More than numbers

To the more than 24,775,245 people worldwide who have tested positive, may your road to recovery be smooth.

To the families and friends of the 837,908 people who have died worldwide 181,779 of those in the US your loved ones are not forgotten.

Stay safe, everyone.

Originally posted here:

A case of coronavirus reinfection shows the complexities of the pandemic - The Verge

Since the discovery of the virus that causes COVID-19, the daily news cycle has become swamped with updates about how the pathogen spreads, what the bug does to the body and what solutions might finally bring an end to the pandemic.

But staying up-to-date on all the latest coronavirus news can be a challenge. To help keep you informed, we at Live Science have compiled a short list of standout news stories from the week these are the ones that really caught our attention.

Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history

Researchers reported the first confirmed case of COVID-19 reinfection in a man in Hong Kong. The news initially came out on Aug. 24 in a press release from the University of Hong Kong, and the formal study was published Aug. 25 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. But don't panic an expert called the case "a textbook example of how immunity should work."

The 33-year-old was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 and had mild symptoms at the time, including a cough and fever. The man was released from the hospital on April 14 after testing negative for the virus twice, but he tested positive again during an airport screening on Aug. 15. The virus that infected the man the second time around carried several genetic differences to the first one, suggesting that the man had been infected by a new variant of the virus that subtly mutated through time, as all viruses do. But the man showed no symptoms of illness the second time, hinting that his body retained some immunity against the pathogen.

"While this is a good example of how primary infection can prevent disease from subsequent infection, more studies are needed to understand the range of outcomes from reinfection," Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology and molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the Yale School of Medicine, wrote on Twitter.

Since this news came out, two more cases of reinfection have been confirmed in Europe, and one in the U.S., The New York Times reported. Like the Hong Kong case, the two European cases showed milder or no symptoms during the second infection; however, the U.S. patient developed severe symptoms and scientists are investigating several theories as to why. We don't yet know how commonly reinfection occurs, how often people develop severe symptoms the second time around or what these trends mean for vaccine development that information will only come from further research.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) abruptly changed its COVID-19 testing guidance, stating that those who have come in contact with an infected person don't necessarily need a test if they are not in a high-risk group or showing symptoms of the disease.

Prior to the change, the CDC recommended that all close contacts of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 also be tested, given that we know the virus can spread before people show symptoms, and that testing close contacts helps keep outbreaks in check. The Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Dr. Brett Giroir told CNN that the new guidelines are intended to encourage tests to be used "appropriately," and not to reduce the number of tests given overall. But public health officials say the guidance directly conflicts with scientific evidence.

"These testing recommendations make no scientific sense, unless there are plans to demand isolation of all known contacts of COVID-19," said Krys Johnson, an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Temple University in Pennsylvania. Especially as schools and universities reopen, the U.S. should be testing more asymptomatic people for the virus, not fewer, she said.

In response to outcry from public health officials, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield clarified the new guidance on Aug. 27, saying "testing may be considered for all close contacts of confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients," but should be prioritized for symptomatic people, people with risk factors for severe infection and people at high risk of exposure. However, at the time of this verbal statement, the official guidance on the CDC website remained unchanged.

Last week, we highlighted news that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would not authorize the use of blood plasma to treat COVID-19 patients without more data from clinical trials. This week, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the treatment without any additional data in hand.

Emergency use authorization allows doctors to administer an unapproved medical treatment "when there are no adequate, approved and available alternatives," and patients don't need to be enrolled in a clinical trial to receive the therapy, according to the FDA website. But infectious disease experts and public health officials argue that convalescent plasma therapy which uses antibody-rich plasma from people who have recovered from a disease has not earned this seal of approval.

To demonstrate that plasma helps COVID-19 patients recover, scientists must conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs), wherein participants randomly receive either plasma or the standard of care; outcomes can then be compared between the two groups without bias. RCTs of plasma have proven difficult to organize, given that the supply of eligible plasma and number of people sick with COVID-19 varies from region to region.

With many RCTs for plasma still underway, the authorization of the treatment could make recruiting patients for these trials even more difficult. While patients in an RCT randomly receive either plasma or the standard of care, patients treated under the emergency authorization would not be subject to this randomization; the guarantee of plasma outside of an RCT could make participating in the trials a hard sell.

If RCTs do get derailed, it will be harder to collect solid evidence that plasma therapy works.

Originally published on Live Science.

Read the rest here:

Coronavirus news of the week (VIDEO) - Live Science

A woman spits into a tube so that her saliva can be tested for the presence of the novel coronavirus.

By Robert F. ServiceAug. 24, 2020 , 5:00 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

First, a technician pushes a pencil-length swab to the very back of your nasal passages. Then you pay $100 or more, and wait days for an answer. But faster, cheaper, more pleasant ways to test for the novel coronavirus are coming online. This month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two tests that sample saliva instead of nasal fluid, and more innovations are likely after FDA relaxed rules to allow new tests to be adopted more quickly. One candidate was announced last week: an experimental test, potentially faster and cheaper, that analyzes saliva in a new way.

There is real promise here, says Anne Wyllie, a microbiologist at Yale University who helped develop one of the new tests authorized this month. Takanori Teshima, chief of laboratory medicine at Hokkaido University, who also reported successful results testing saliva, agrees. It will have a big impact worldwide.

When SARS-CoV-2, the respiratory virus that causes COVID-19, emerged in December 2019, researchers scrambled to develop tests to detect the virus. Initially, they turned to a long-trusted technique for diagnosing respiratory infections: looking for viral genetic material in mucosal fluid, thought to be the best hunting ground for a respiratory virus, collected from deep in a patients nasal passages. Thats where the 15-centimeter swab comes in. The swab goes into a plastic tube with a chemical mixture that stabilizes the virus during transport to a diagnostics lab. There, technicians extract its genetic material and load it into a machine to carry out the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies snippets of genetic material unique to the virus.

The procedure accurately identifies infections about 95% of the time. But the test is uncomfortable and, because collecting the swab requires close contact with patients, it puts medical personnel at risk of contracting the virus. Nobody wants to do that job, Teshima says.

Testing saliva for SARS-CoV-2 was no sure thing. Studies with other respiratory diseases showed saliva tests identified only about 90% of people for whom swab tests indicated an infection. But the appeal of an easier and safer test for the new coronavirus led researchers to try. People being tested simply drool into a bar-coded plastic tube, seal it, and drop it in a pouch thats shipped to a lab for PCR analysis. Because the procedure directly tests the fluid responsible for transmitting the virus between people, it may give a better indication of who is most contagious, says Paul Hergenrother, a chemist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), who led his universitys saliva test development.

As early as 12 February, researchers in Hong Kong and China reported inClinical Infectious Diseasesthat they couldidentify SARS-CoV-2 from salivain 11 of 12 patients whose swabs showed virus. Since then, groups in the United States, Singapore, and Japan have confirmed and further simplified the procedures, cutting out costly steps such as adding specialized reagents to stabilize the virus during transport and extract the genetic material.

In May, Wyllie and Yale colleagues teamed up with the National Basketball Association, which provided $500,000 to develop Yales saliva test; the test is now used for frequently testing players. On 4 August, the Yale team posted a preprint on medRxiv that said its saliva testagreed with swab results 94% of the time, at a cost of as little as $1.29 per sample, roughly 1/100 as much as commercial swab-based tests. On 15 August, FDA granted emergency approval for the SalivaDirect test, so that other FDA-approved labs can use the protocol. Last week, the agency extended approval to the UIUC test given its similarity to the Yale test. UIUC is now using its saliva test to test all 60,000 students, faculty, and staff twice a week, so they can isolate infected individuals as quickly as possible. Testing saliva makes sense scientifically, and it makes sense logistically, Hergenrother says.

Anew saliva test for RNA viruses, such as Zika and SARS-CoV-2, was reported last week inScience Advancesby researchers at the University at Albany. It could be even faster and cheaper because it does not need expensive lab equipment such as PCR machines. Rather than amplifying RNA to identify the virus, the approach uses snippets of DNA that bind to short, unique sections of RNA and change them from linear strands to loops. That alters how the RNA behaves in a common lab procedure known as gel electrophoresis, making it easy to detect. This is innovative, Wyllie says.

A relaxation of FDA rules announced last week could lead to still more variants. The new rules allow approved clinical labs to use tests they have developed without any additional approval step. In a tweet, Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard Universitys T.H. Chan School of Public Health, called FDAs decision Huge news!! because it would encourage labs to develop novel tests. It may also help speed development ofrapid tests that look for viral proteinsrather than genetic materialan efficient way to screen large numbers of asymptomatic people.

We dont need one test to be the end all and be all, Wyllie says. We just want options.

Originally posted here:

New drool-based tests are replacing the dreaded coronavirus nasal swab - Science Magazine

OLIVIA, MINN. Tom Revier said he knew his cattle operation was in for a jolt when the Chinese government cordoned off the city of Wuhan because of the coronavirus.

That scared the heck out of me, he said. First time that I can recall a large city being quarantined.

This year has forced his farm, Revier Cattle Co., Minnesotas largest beef cattle operation, to shift how it raises animals and sells meat.

The farm near the central Minnesota city of Olivia is unusual in that it bypasses the commodity beef market to sell its own brand directly to customers.

About 50% of pre-COVID sales were to restaurants and food service. The business that was lost because of restaurant shutdowns had to be made up at the grocery store.

The biggest story for us was the transition from food service or restaurants to retail, said Revier, the fifth-generation owner of the farm. That was a big shift for us.

When he first heard about the trouble in China, Revier called ranchers raising his cattle out west to tell them to keep the animals longer than usual. By March, restaurants were shutting down across the country, beef prices had fallen by about a third, and his farm was running about half-full as his animals kept grazing in the Dakotas and eastern Montana.

The Revier model of raising cows in a specific way for a unique brand of beef is one strategy for weathering the vagaries of cattle farming. But amid a pandemic that has reshaped the way Americans get their food, it has been tested. And its an option thats only available to big farms.

Were about as small as you can be to do what weve done, Revier said.

Reviers great-great-grandfather started the farm in 1867 and it was a classic diversified, small operation cows, turkeys, hogs.

Now Revier can raise about 10,000 Black Angus cattle in Olivia at any one time. Compared to feedlots in Kansas, Texas and other states to the west, the operation is small. Its massive for Minnesota, though.

Revier, who pushed the Black Angus angle at his family farm, tried to start his own brand of beef called Medallion.

When I first did Medallion I didnt want to put my name on a box, Revier said. What I did back then was really vertical. We tried to do it all ourselves. We did the delivery, the selling, from the packing plant to distribution and sales. We learned that what were really good at is farming and producing cattle. Thats what we do best.

Having scrapped the brand, Revier still wanted to brand his beef to get a better price, and when he met a former Cargill executive named Paul Hillen, he found a kindred spirit.

Hillen, who was also a veteran of Procter & Gamble, was working in private equity at the time and brought distribution and marketing experience to the Revier farm.

The beef was the high-quality, sustainable beef Revier advertises now, but it was sold into the commodity beef market.

He was selling his cattle to other packing plants, but they were kind of trading off of his story, Hillen said.

Revier put his name on the box in November 2017. They now send the cattle to a packinghouse in Aberdeen, S.D., where the meat is cut into wholesale ribs, shipped under the Revier brand and sold through regional distributors.

We started working with packers without cattle, packing our cattle and beef, and using distribution and supply chain pieces that already existed, Revier said. We didnt need to own delivery trucks.

By the time COVID-19 hit, Revier was selling meat in 21 states, 300 grocery stores, and more than 2,500 restaurants. Last fall, they started selling to Cub Foods, where some beef in the service case is from Revier, and they launched Revier ground beef at Cub in the spring.

Some workers at the Aberdeen packinghouse contracted COVID-19 and the operation had to reduce production. But unlike hog farmers, cattle producers can leave the animals grazing and take them to slaughter at a later time. Revier got back to full capacity in early May.

Revier and Hillen stress the consistency of their meat. Cows get different diets in different parts of the country, so the meat at the grocery store can taste different on different days.

Revier cows always eat the same diet ground corn and corn bran and distillers grains in all different shades of brown and yellow.

In Minnesota, some of the biggest farms the Riverview and Lewiston dairies, for instance come under the most criticism from environmental groups. But their scale does allow them to do things smaller farmers cant.

The manure from the pens and barns gets flushed into a treatment plant that separates the liquid from the solid. They get fertilizer and fuel for methane from the liquid while the fluffy solid is used for bedding for other livestock.

Like the owners of the Riverview dairies not too far away, Revier wants to convert methane into clean natural gas. For now, the raw gas is flared from pits covered in black tarps.

The cows are big but timid, shying away from visitors, even Hillen and Revier.

Their pens are clean and the concrete is grooved so they cant slip as easily. Keeping the cows calm reduces stress and makes the meat more tender, Revier said.

The hope right now is that customers will notice the difference and keep paying a little extra for their beef.

People want to know where their food comes from or at least I think they do, Revier said. How its raised, where it comes from.

Go here to see the original:

How Minnesota's biggest beef producer is weathering the coronavirus - Minneapolis Star Tribune

COLUMBUS, OHIO (AP)

The coronavirus has upended everyday life in ways big and small. What happens when those disruptions overlap with voting? Thousands of state and local election officials across the U.S are sharing ideas and making accommodations to try to ensure that voters and polling places are safe amid an unprecedented pandemic.

Some are finding ways to expand access to voter registration and ballot request forms. Others are testing new products, installing special equipment or scouting outdoor voting locations.

Here are virus-related obstacles voters could face during this unprecedented presidential election year along with some of the solutions being tried:

CLOSURES AND CURTAILED HOURS

What if you need a voter registration form or absentee ballot application and all the normal go-to places are closed or open by appointment only? Its a problem nationwide.

The most recent American Library Association survey found that 62% of U.S. libraries, which are sources for voting documents, were fully closed while another 26% were offering only curbside service. Likewise, the vast majority of state motor vehicle departments the largest source of voter registrations nationally and of the voter IDs needed in some states are operating on limited hours, at reduced capacity or by appointment only, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Appointments in New Mexico, as just one example, are being scheduled two months out.

Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, said 40 states have online voter registration, a particular benefit during the pandemic. The commission has beefed up its website, http://www.vote.gov, with links to register in all 50 states. Among states, Ohio has earned points for its creativity. Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose struck partnerships with grocers and newspapers to distribute absentee ballot applications this spring, and hes tapped breweries to promote voter registration in the fall: Beer drinking and democracy go together, he said of the program, noting the pivotal role of pubs in Colonial America.

POLLING PLACE CONTAMINATION

Perhaps the most pressing worry of most voters is how polling places will be kept virus-free. A CDC study conducted after Wisconsins primary, the first in-person election after states began issuing stay-at-home orders, found 37 of the states new COVID-19 cases in the days after the election were among voters, a warning to other states.

As an example of how seriously theyre responding, California issued 50 pages of instructions to its election boards last month calling for site-specific virus prevention plans and extensive training. Thats on top ofCDC-recommended guidelinesthat include social distancing, wearing masks and frequent hand-washing.

In Maine, single-use pens have replaced the usual I Voted stickers for marking the occasion Nov. 3. South Carolina has piloted ear swabs for touchscreen voting, while Indiana and Louisiana are among states offering latex finger coverings. Voters might see Plexiglas shields at some check-in tables, and poll workers dressed head-to-toe in protective gear. Voting machines and poll books will be sanitized on a regular schedule throughout the day.

Public-private partnerships also are taking shape. Anheuser-Busch, the beer maker, is distributing 8 million ounces of hand sanitizer in coordination with the National Association of State Election Directors and others. Sanitizer is expected to be placed liberally around polling places. In Ohio, manufacturer RB Sigma has donated more than 450,000 surgical masks for use by poll workers and voters.

SICK OR QUARANTINED VOTERS

What if you plan to vote in person but receive a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, and its too late to request a mail-in ballot? Or perhaps youve traveled out-of-state and gotten held up by a virus-related travel restriction.

Planning ahead to vote early or by mail is still the best way to avoid getting tripped up by a virus diagnosis, quarantine or travel restriction ahead of Election Day, experts agree. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said his state is working to open more early voting locations to accommodate such concerns.

Dealing with voters who are sick is nothing new. In Alaska, for example, anyone unable to vote in person because of age, illness or a disability can appoint a personal representative to pick up and deliver their ballot. Many states provide similar options for emergencies though often not right up until Election Day. If you simply have no choice, election officials say to show up at your polling place, and you will be accommodated. Separate voting stations, far from the rest, are being set up where possible to accommodate those who know or suspect theyre infected with the virus and decide to self-report.

Ari Schaffer, a spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said State Farm Arena in Atlanta is large enough to have a separate voting station for those who have a positive COVID-19 test, though not all polling locations will be.

In Iowa, curbside voting already available to voters with disabilities was expanded to other vulnerable voters during the primary. Polling locations also were consolidated in some cases into larger venues, such as school gymnasiums, auditoriums and stadiums, to allow for social distancing.

WHAT ABOUT UNMASKED VOTERS?

What if you, or a fellow voter, choose not to wear a mask, as election and health officials are pretty much universally recommending?

States are mostly stopping short of requiring masks on Election Day because voting is a protected right. The most common scenario envisioned is that voters who decline to wear a mask will be offered one. If they refuse it, theyll be directed to a voting station away from other voters, where possible. In some locations, no other voters would be allowed inside until the person has voted.

All the virus-related precautions states are pursuing will likely increase the average time its expected to take to cast a ballot. Thats yet another reason to heed the advice state and local elections officials are giving most often this year: Make a plan to vote and prepare early.

See original here:

Coronavirus worries force election officials to get creative - Wink News

A week passed, then another, and Mr. Loaiza still did not know if the aid had arrived. On June 23, the landlord texted him. Jhon, u said u were vacating the home last weekend. Is the home vacant now?

Mr. Loaiza felt emptied out and powerless; impotent, he told me. He began to lose sleep, and the stress snaked through his body like poison. Mr. Loaiza thought seriously about killing himself. He had never before entertained that obliterating thought, but the sheer hopelessness of the situation was suffocating. Marshals that carry out evictions are full of suicide stories: the early morning rap on the door followed by a single gunshot from inside the apartment, the blunt sound of giving up. From 2005 to 2010, years when housing costs were soaring across the country, suicides attributed to eviction and foreclosure doubled.

Mr. Loaiza pushed through it, the pull to sleep, to bury himself, and with the rent assistance seemingly stalled, he began calling friends in San Antonio, asking if they would consider taking his family in. No one had room. Finally, friends in Florida offered two rooms in their home and storage space in their garage. Mr. Loaiza and Ms. Bedoya began packing and scrubbing the apartment, hoping to receive their security deposit back. To afford the U-Haul, Mr. Loaiza jumped at the first job opportunity he found, joining a construction crew working inside a large building.

Jhon, Is the home now vacant? Mr. Acosta again texted on July 1. It was. At dawn, the family had begun their trek east. Mr. Loaiza drove the U-Haul, while Ms. Bedoya and the girls followed in the family car. A few hours in, Mr. Loaiza began to feel sick, feverish. It got so bad that Ms. Bedoya took to keeping her husband on the phone to make sure he was lucid.

A legal aid lawyer from St. Marys volunteered to represent Mr. Loaiza and Ms. Bedoyas case in their absence. The day before the eviction court hearing, the lawyer called the Neighborhood and Housing Services Department to inquire about the familys stalled rental assistance payment. She learned that $3,000 had in fact been issued to the landlord, and that he had cashed the check weeks earlier, on June 19, days before he texted Jhon about vacating the house. (Mr. Acosta did not consent to an interview, despite multiple requests, but he did tell me by text that the tenant vacated the home in order to find work elsewhere. The court records will show that. Mr. Loaiza told me that he moved because he felt forced from his home and that he had never told Mr. Acosta that he was moving for job opportunities.)

All this pain the stress so crippling that suicide begins to appear as relief, the severing of church and school ties, friendships; uprooting a family from community and work it wasnt for $3,190. If it was for anything, it was for $190. The lawyer tried calling Mr. Loaiza, over and over, but she couldnt reach him. By that time, he was already in Florida, lying in a hospital bed with Covid-19.

Rent its the greediest of bills. For many families, it grows every year, arbitrarily, almost magically, not because of any home improvements; just because. Demand, they say, when they hand you a new lease with a stiff rent hike. Or costs are rising. What they mean is: Because I can. And unlike defaulting on other bills, missing a rent payment can result in immediate and devastating consequences, casting families into poverty and homelessness. If you cant afford enough food, you can usually qualify for food stamps. If you miss a mortgage payment, you typically have 120 days before your bank can initiate the foreclosure process. But if you cant pay your rent, you can lose your home in a matter of weeks. During the first half of July, landlords collected 37 percent of total rent from families living in Class C properties typically older stock, home to low- and moderate-income workers compared with 80 percent during the first three months of the year.

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When the Threat of Eviction Meets the Threat of Coronavirus - The New York Times

A fishing vessel that left Seattle in May returned with an unexpected catch: the first direct evidence in humans that antibodies to the coronavirus can thwart infection.

More than a hundred crew members aboard the American Dynasty were stricken by the infection over 18 days at sea. But three sailors who initially carried antibodies remained virus-free, according to a new report.

Although the study is small, it addresses one of the most important questions in the pandemic: whether the immune response to one bout with the virus protects against reinfection.

Knowing the answer to this question is critical for vaccine design and epidemiology, tweeted Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and one of the studys authors.

The study was posted online last week and has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Still, the finding set off optimistic chatter among scientists, who have been relying on monkey studies for evidence of antibodies potency.

I thought it was very exciting good enough news that I was telling my family about it, said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University who was not involved in the work.

Several research teams have reported that an encounter with the virus triggers a robust immune response in most people, including in those who may have been only mildly ill. And the vaccine candidates now in trials also seem to elicit strong neutralizing antibodies, the kind that can block the virus.

But the amount of those antibodies needed to prevent the virus from returning is unclear. Scientists measure neutralizing antibodies in titers, an indication of their concentration in the blood.

The three sailors who remained protected from the virus had widely varying titers; two had only moderate quantities, a finding the researchers said was reassuring.

People have been so worried about the titers, and the titers going down, Dr. Alexander Greninger, a virologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said.

The results indicate even moderate titers prevented reinfection in a situation in which exposure to the virus was high, he said: These are attainable titers, right? Hopefully, itll be helpful to see, and makes make me very optimistic about the vaccines.

The American Dynasty carried 113 men and nine women. All crew members had been tested for both virus and antibodies as part of a routine screening before setting sail. (The researchers did not have access to the results from two members.)

The trawler returned to shore after 18 days at sea when a crew member became ill enough to need hospitalization. The sailors were tested for the presence of virus and antibodies again and for up to 50 days after their return.

The three sailors confirmed to have neutralizing antibodies did not test positive for the virus during the course of the study; 103 of the remaining 117 became infected.

These numbers may be small, but theyre highly significant, Dr. Greninger said.

A lot of people, when they see this are like, Oh come on, it could be due to random chance, he said. In fact, the likelihood that the results are just chance is extremely low, he added.

Updated August 17, 2020

Other experts agreed. Just looking at the numbers, it becomes clear that its unlikely that all of these three people were protected by chance, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Dr. Krammer and his colleagues are tracking antibody levels in people who have recovered from the coronavirus once to see at what point they might be vulnerable to reinfection. The team began with people in New York, but the virus is circulating at such low levels in the city now that Dr. Krammer and his colleagues have had to expand the study to other locations.

Data from vaccine trials also will identify the antibody titers required to disarm the virus. But in the meantime, this is the first evidence in humans, Dr. Krammer said. It made my weekend.

The study raised other questions. Based on the Abbott Architect assay, six of the 120 people tested before the boats departure had antibodies to the virus indicating prior exposure.

But when the researchers reanalyzed those samples using more sophisticated tests, only three of the six were confirmed to have antibodies, suggesting that three test results were false positives.

The Abbott test is advertised as returning fewer than one false positive for every 100 samples. Thats a little concerning that the Abbott may be a little less specific than we thought, Dr. Tal said.

The researchers also looked at antibodies in the blood, as most teams do. But those levels may not be the same as those in the nose or in saliva, the two major entry points for infection, Dr. Tal added.

Were looking in the wrong place, she said. If we want to look at protection from reinfection, we need to be looking in the nose.

Read more:

This Trawlers Haul: Evidence That Antibodies Block the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Michael Lauer, deputy director for extramural researchat the National Institutes of Health

By Meredith WadmanAug. 19, 2020 , 10:55 AM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

The National Institutes of Health is requiring a small nonprofit research organization to take unusualand perhaps impossiblesteps to end a controversial suspension of an NIH grant related to bat coronavirus research in China. NIHs conditions for reinstating the funding to the EcoHealth Alliance are outrageous, former NIH Director Harold Varmus told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an article published today that first reported the agencys demands.

The controversy began in April, after President Donald Trump complained about NIHs grant to the EcoHealth Alliance because it involved researchers at Chinas Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Conservative commentators, Trump, and Trump administration officials have asserted, without evidence, that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 escaped from WIV. Shortly after Trumps complaint, NIH abruptly canceled the grant, stating that its goal of studying bat coronavirus spillovers into humans did not align with agency priorities. NIHs move drew extensive criticism from the scientific community.

Last month, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer sent the EcoHealth Alliance a letter stating the agency was reinstating the grant, but also instantly suspending it again pending the completion of certain actions. (ScienceInsider has now independently reviewed a copy of the 8 July letter.)Among the conditions included:

NIH declined interview requests for Lauer and agency Director Francis Collins, saying in a statement: NIH does not discuss internal deliberations on specific grants.

The EcoHealth Alliance said in a statement that NIHs letter cynically reinstates and instantly suspends the EcoHealth Alliances funding, then attempts to impose impossible and irrelevant conditions that will effectively block us from continuing this critical work.

Varmus, one of 77 Nobel laureates who wrote to current NIH Director Francis Collins in May demanding that he review the grants initial cancellation, told WSJ that NIHs list of conditions for reinstating the funding is outrageous, especially when a grant has already been carefully evaluated by peer review and addresses one of the most important problems in the world right nowhow viruses from animals spill over to human beings.

Peter Daszak, the EcoHealth Alliances president, called out Collins in an interview with ScienceInsider today, saying: It undermines biomedical science to give in to politics. I think thats a failure. And I think that Dr. Collins fell at the first hurdle. When challenged by the White House to cancel this grant he just gave in.

Jeremy Berg, who directed NIHs National Institute ofGeneral Medical Sciences from 2003 to 2011, notes that Collins is a political appointee who serves at the presidents pleasure. (Berg was also editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals until 2019.) He says: The question for anybody in [such] a leadership position is: Is there a line that you are not willing to cross? And that you think it would be more appropriate to stand on principle and resign rather than to give in? In my view, that line has been crossed with this.

With reporting by Kai Kupferschmidt.

*Update, 19 August,5:10 p.m.: This story has been updated to include additional material from NIHs 8 Julyletter to the EcoHealth Alliance,a statement from NIH,and comments from Jeremy Berg and Peter Daszak.

Read the original:

NIH imposes 'outrageous' conditions on resuming coronavirus grant targeted by Trump - Science Magazine

You can work from home without feeling so isolated. Here are some great ways to stay connected with your team. USA TODAY

Florida, one of the hardest hit states from the coronavirus, just registered its 10,000th death due to COVID-19.

It came after the state recorded 174 new deaths Wednesday, giving it a total that's fifth highest among states around the country. It has recorded more than 584,000 cases of COVID-19 so far.

The virus, meanwhile, continues to play havoc with colleges' attempts to reopen classes.

A day after officials at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decided to pivot to online classes afterat least four clusters of outbreaks in student living spaces, North Carolina State University reported its firstcluster of positive cases in off-campus housing.Also Tuesday, the University of Notre Dame said it was movingto online classes for two weeks in hopes that infections won't surge.

And sports fans who thought they could get a break from the coronavirus fallout can't catch a break: new NFL rules will keep mascots and cheerleaders -- as well as sideline reporters -- off the field.

Some significant developments:

Today's numbers:The U.S. has 5.4million confirmed infections and more than 171,000 deaths. Worldwide, there have been more than 781,000deaths and 22.1 million cases, according toJohn Hopkins University data.

What we're reading:Wearing a mask inpublic restrooms should be mandatory during thepandemic, researchers say, because there'sincreasing evidence that flushingtoilets and now urinals can release inhalable coronavirus particles into the air.

This file will be updated throughout the day. For updates in your inbox,subscribe to the Daily Briefing.

Tourists visiting The Strip could befueling the pandemic,according to a ProPublica investigation. An analysis of smartphone data during four days,a Friday to Monday in mid-July,revealed how most of theU.S.is connected to Las Vegas a likely hot spot of COVID-19 spread.

During that time frame, about 26,000 devices were identified on The Strip, according to data mined by the companiesX-ModeandTectonix. Some of those smartphones thentraveled to every state on the mainland except Maine.

Heres a look at where those devices ended up during thosesame four days, according to Propublica:

The cellphone analysis highlights a reason the virus keeps spreading and shows how travel to Las Vegas could be fueling the pandemic, according to health officials.

Ed Komenda, Reno Gazette Journal

Just 48 hours after saying a COVID-19 outbreak on campuswouldn't affect plans to play football this fall, the University of North Carolina has suspended all athletic activities through at least Thursday afternoon. In addition, all recreational facilities on the Chapel Hill campus willbe closed to students, coaches and staff.

"After consulting with our health experts and University leadership, we are taking this action to protect our students, coaches and staff,''UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham said. "We want to make sure we continue to do everything we can to ensure that that our teams, campus and community remain healthy.''

The school welcomed students back to campus for in-person classes last week, butafter at least four clusters of COVID-19 outbreaks,university officials reversed course and moved all classes online.

Steve Gardner

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp defended his administrations handling of the coronavirus pandemic in fiery remarks Wednesday after a report from the White House coronavirus task force said Georgia led the nation last week in new cases per capita.

The White House report, dated Aug. 16, recommends several steps to curb the virus that Kemp has declined to take, including closing bars and issuing mask mandates in counties with 50 or more active cases.

Kemp was among the first governors to ease earlier restrictions this spring, and while infections declined for weeks afterwards, they began to rise in June and peaked in late July.

First reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the report says Georgias small gains are fragile and statewide progress will require continued, expanded, and stronger mitigation efforts, including in all open schools.

Kemp insisted Wednesday that other markers hes watching paint a different picture.

Associated Press

Puerto Ricos governor announced Wednesday that she will place the U.S. territory on a 24-hour lockdown every Sunday as part of stricter measures to fight a spike in coronavirus cases.

Gyms, theaters and bars will remain closed and only restaurants with outdoor areas will be allowed to seat people, but at 25% capacity. Gov. Wanda Vzquez said violators will be shut down for a month.

In addition, beaches will remain open only to those doing exercise such as runners and surfers, and businesses, malls and banks will be allowed to operate at only 25% capacity.

The new measures go into effect Saturday and will remain in place until Sept. 11. Face masks remain mandatory.

We have to adjust to living in a new reality, Vzquez said, blaming the jump in cases on careless people.

Associated Press

Cheerleaders and mascots will not be allowed to be on the field during NFL games this season.

The league-wide policy was part of new protocols unveiled Wednesday in conjunction with the NFL Players Association, a person familiar with the decision told USA TODAY Sports' Jarrett Bell. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Previously, some of these decisions were being left to individual teams.

Sideline reporters and pregame panelists also will not be allowed on the field level, per the agreement.

Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz

A new study casts doubt on whether a virus can be transmitted by breast milk.

The study found only one of 64 samples of breast milk from 18 women in the U.S. who had become infected with the virustested positive. Further tests found that the virus couldn't replicate, making it unable to potentially infect a breast-fed infant.

The study by was conducted jointly by researchers at the University of California campuses in San Diego and Los Angeles and the results were published Wednesday in the online edition of the medical journal JAMA.

We hope our results and future studies will give women the reassurance needed for them to breastfeed. Human milk provides invaluable benefits to mom and baby, said Dr. Grace Aldrovandi, co-principal investigator of the study and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UCLA Mattel Childrens Hospital.

Chinese government officials were involved in a coverup about the coronavirus, but not at the national level, says a U.S. intelligence report obtained by the New York Times.

Officials in the Wuhan and Hubei provinces in central China, where the virus first appeared, attempted to keep China's central leadership in Beijing from knowing key information about the early outbreak, concludes the report compiled by several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA. Local officials feared reprisal from the central government.

The report, prepared in June with a mix of classified and unclassified data, backs the overall view that Communist Party officials hid important information from the World Heath Organization even as they sought to get details on the outbreak themselves from recalcitrant local officials.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused China of a coverup, alleging the virus could have been stopped much faster if it had been more forthcoming.

Deaths in Florida from the coronavirus surpassed 10,000, while teachers and state officials argued in court over whether in-person schools should reopen this month.

Florida reported 174 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total confirmed deaths to at least 10,067 the fifth-highest death toll in the nation. The state reported an additional 4,115 confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 584,047. The positivity rate for coronavirus testing in Florida has averaged about 11.4% during the past week.

There were 5,351 patients being treated for the disease in Florida hospitals on Wednesday, down from peaks above 9,500 patients in late July.

Meanwhile, Floridas largest teachers union is seeking an injunction from a judge in Tallahassee to stop schools from reopening by this Friday.

Associated Press

Dreamed of actually snagging tickets to screenings at a major film festival? Because of the coronavirus pandemic, you make be able to see the films from your living room.

The festivals are where critics and insiders get early peeks at movies either slated for theaters or those hoping to receive the kind of breakout attention that will get them there. Because of the virus, the festivals have gone virtual streamed to living rooms.

The New York Film Festival is kicking off Sept. 25 with an opening night featuring Steve McQueens Lovers Rock, and will premiere two other of the Black filmmakers works, Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, part of the same anthology. Also on tap: Chloe Zhaos anticipated Nomadland with Frances McDormand, Sam Pollards documentary MLK/FBI, and the documentary Time, about a woman trying to get her husband released from his 60-year prison sentence.

Jeff Friday, founder of the American Black Film Festival, which runs through Aug. 30, has already seen the positives of making the move to virtual. Usually, 10,000 film fans show up for his annual June event in Miami; this year, he's predicting 200,000 people interested in streaming more than 90 films celebrating Black cinema, as well as panel discussions featuring Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins, Candyman director Nia DaCosta, Mary J. Blige, Lena Waithe and Gabrielle Union.

Brian Truitt

Bars that cater to members of the LGBTQ community are not just bars: they serve as community hubs and safe spaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer folks.So when they had to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, those spaces were lost. Fighting back, some have launched crowdfunding campaigns to stay afloat until they are full back in business.

The owner of Harlem's Alibi Lounge, one of the only Black-owned LGBTQ bars in New York City, unveiled a campaign in May that has raised more than $166,000 and counting.

Julius Bar part of the National Register of Historic Places, the oldest gay bar in New York City and one of the oldest continually operating bars in the city overall has raised more than $97,000 via a GoFundMe campaign since early July.Its Greenwich Village neighbor, the Stonewall Inn, has raised more than $320,000 on the platform.

When, all of a sudden, a pandemic like COVID-19 tells you that you have to isolate, that you have to stay home and if you go to a bar, you go to a restaurant, you could be at a high risk to be exposed to the virus, it makes people not even think twice," said Alibi Lounge owner Alexi Minko. "They decide, Well, in that case I am not going to a bar, Im not going to a restaurant until I know that its safer.

Alex Biese, Asbury Park Press

Many furloughed workers were not being immediately called to report back to duty, a new study finds.In an analysis of its small business clients, payroll service Gusto found that only 37% of workers who were initially furloughed in March and 47% of those who were furloughed in April had returned to their jobs by July. Furthermore, among those furloughed in March who were able to go back to work, nearly 25% had their wages reduced.

Furloughed workers are counted as unemployed when determining the jobless rate, which means the fate of those still in limbo could drive unemployment up or down in the coming months.

Since April, the jobless rate has slowly declined, but if a large number of furloughed workers are able to return to their employers, we could see those numbers drop even more. That would spell good news for an economy that's stuck in a recession. On the other hand, a large chunk of furloughed workers could be permanently laid off in the coming months, too.

Maurie Backman, The Motley Fool

Pharmacists in all 50 states are now allowed to give childhood vaccinations under a new directive aimed at preventing future outbreaks of measles and other preventable diseases.

Alex Azar, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, took the step using emergency powers he has during the coronavirus epidemic, which was declared a public health emergency.The directive announced Wednesday will temporarily preempt restrictions in 22 states starting this fall.

The move is designed to help prevent vaccination rates from falling during the pandemic, Azar said.

Separately, Massachusetts officials announced Wednesday that they will require flu vaccinations for all students, from child care to college. The vaccinations are required by Dec.31. Home-schooled students and those who are studying entirely remotely are exempted.

Associated Press

The New York Police Department announced its created a task force specifically to deal with a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.

There have been 21 reported anti-Asian hate crimes leading to 17 arrests since March around the time the pandemic intensified in the United States, whichChief of Detectives Rodney Harrison told reporters is higher than normal Tuesday.

"Thisincrease was cultivated due to the anti-Asian rhetoric about the virus that was publicized and individuals began to attack Asian New Yorkers either verbal attack or physical assault," Harrison said. "We saw a spike in every borough throughout the city."

N'dea Yancey-Bragg

A patron who spent hours inside a bar during the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota, which ended last Sunday, has tested positive for COVID-19, health officials confirmed.

The person spent nearly six hours atOne-Eyed Jacks Saloon on Aug. 11. State officials are encouraging anyone at the bar to monitor themselves for any symptoms of the coronavirus.

The 2020 Rally drew more than 460,000 vehicles during the 10-day event, according to a count South Dakota transportation officials released Tuesday. The event was scaled down, but face coverings were not required during the event.

Michael Klinski, Sioux Falls Argus Leader

Pope Francis on Wednesday cautioned against prioritizing future coronavirus vaccines based on wealth. Deviating fromhis plannedweekly public address, he said that "we must come out better" from the COVID-19 pandemic.

How sad it would be if for the COVID-19 vaccine priority is given to the richest," he said. The pandemic has laid bare the difficult situation of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world."

The pontiff added that the vaccine should be "universal and for all," rather than "the property of this nation or another," not naming any countries in particular.

At least two dozen Maine residents tested positive for COVID-19 after a wedding reception in rural Maine the states first outbreak linked to a social gathering.

About 65 people attended theindoor event at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket, said Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long. About 18 people in attendance and around 10others who came into contact with attendees all tested positive, according to WABI-TV in Bangor, Maine.

The owner of the Big Moose Inn could face a $10,000 fine if the state's executive orders limiting group gatherings to 50 were violated, officials said.

R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY

During the pandemic, people are talking a lot about children missing classes, graduations and proms. What has received far less attention, child development experts say, is the impact the pandemic is having on the youngest children: babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners.

Birth to age five is a critical time for child development, research shows, and new data from the Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development Early Childhood Household Survey Project (RAPID-EC Project) shows caregiver distress is cascading down to young children in ways science shows can be toxic in the short- and long-term.

The project has been conducting weekly surveys since April and has found caregivers of young children are experiencing distress, material hardship and loss of emotional supports. Since the project's data is sequential, it also is able to show a chain reaction. When a family is stressed about meeting basic needs, the next week they report more emotional distress, and the week after report increases in their child's emotional distress.

"if you can't buy food or you can't pay your rent, that you are experiencing the kind of stress that is going to be toxic to your children,"said RAPID project director Phil Fisher.

Alia E. Dastagir

Nearly 80 teachers in Utah's Salt Lake County have resigned or retired as in-person classes are set to resume at schools this year, the Salt Late Tribune reported.

The Tribune tallied 79 teachers who left their posts due to concerns about COVID-19. At least 16 of the resignations came in the last week, the newspaper reported.

Salt Lake County has the highest number of virus cases in the state, and teachers leaving the classroom told the newspaper that they'd rather resign or retire now than return in the fall, risking their own health or the health of their students.

Were just being told to jump in like nothing is wrong, Jan Roberts, a teacher of32 years who just retired, told the Tribune. Its not OK.

Health officials have identified a COVID-19 cluster at another North Carolina university.

A statement from North Carolina State University confirmed on Tuesday that Wake County health officials identified of COVID-19 cases at off-campus housing east of the Raleigh, North Carolina, campus.

The school said several people who have tested positive as part of this cluster have been identified, including some who are N.C. State students. Contact tracing has been initiated with direct communication to anyone known to have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the school.

The school said reports indicated a party or some type of gathering was hosted at the location on or around Aug. 6. The notice said it was not known how many people were at the gathering, but encouraged anyone who attended to visit their personal healthcare provider or Student Health Services.

Switching from in-person to online schooling has been hard on many families and on their budgets.

About one-quarter of parents say theyve gone into debt to pay for their kids at-home school expenses, and many blame the cost of their kids breakfasts and lunches when they switched to learning remotely from home.

A survey from Credit Karma examines how this school year could affect household finances. More than half of parents say they expect to spend slightly to significantly more on school supplies, the survey of more than 1,000 parents found.

The reasons for the debt are higher grocery prices and the sudden switch to at-home schooling in March.

See more here:

Coronavirus updates: University of North Carolina temporarily suspends fall sports; Pope warns against the rich getting vaccine first - USA TODAY

Tests have been delayed and in short supply as the United States surpassed 5.4 million cases, leaving many uncertain about their risk of spreading the virus. And as researchers rush to develop vaccines, they've had little evidence to tell if antibodies that protect against Covid-19 last long enough to get the virus under control. But developments from researchers Monday brought optimistic outlooks to both fronts.

SalivaDirect, a test that does not require specialized supplies and can deliver results in less than three hours, could be available to the public in a matter of weeks, according to Anne Wyllie, an epidemiologist at Yale School of Public Health who was part of the team responsible for the protocol.

"It skips so many steps up front, so it makes it much more amenable to be used as a surveillance tool like in schools or universities," Dr. Brett Giroir, the White House coronavirus testing coordinator, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday.

And though many are in early stages and have not been peer-reviewed, a recent batch of studies show that humans -- even those with mild symptoms -- have a "robust" immune response to coronavirus that could provide evidence that a vaccine could protect the public for more than just a short period of time, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

"This is very good news and it's optimistic," Lipkin said Monday. "You know, it is a bit of blue sky that we've been looking for."

How long that protection lasts is still unclear, but the studies indicate it could last for months.

The outbreaks at universities continue

Campus life is returning to full swing as college students come back to school -- and now several universities are reporting coronavirus outbreaks.

Add North Carolina State University, where there are two clusters of cases, to the list of schools with outbreaks on or near campus.

Eight members of the Greek Life system have tested positive for Covid-19, school spokeswoman Lauren Barker said in a statement.

Those students live in chapter houses that are either university-owned or privately owned.

Officials at the school said they were also notified by the Wake County Health Department of another cluster at an off-campus housing facility. The health department said reports indicated there was a gathering there August 6.

As part of the university's contact tracing program, close contacts have been advised to quarantine for 14 days, which in some cases could mean the entire house being quarantined, Barker said.

The university announced Tuesday that undergraduate students will shift to online classes for the next two weeks.

"We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of positive cases of Covid-19 in your first weeks back on campus," the Rev. John I. Jenkins, university president, said. "The spike in cases is very serious. And we must take serious steps to address it."

Analysis from contact tracers has shown that most infections have been the result of off campus gatherings, Jenkins said.

Some K-12 school districts are seeing outbreaks too.

In Florida, more than 25 districts are due to have started in-person instruction by week's end. Three districts -- in Baker, Bradford and Martin counties -- reported having to place students in quarantine after a week of in-person classes. Martin County alone has quarantined 321 students, district spokeswoman Jennifer DeShazo said Tuesday.

The school district -- the country's second-largest with more than 600,000 students -- is beginning the new school year without in-person classes. The hope, Superintendent Austin Beutner told CNN Tuesday, is to build a foundation for when the district opens for in-person learning.

"If we want to keep schools from becoming a petri dish and we want to keep all in the school community safe, we need to test and trace at schools," he said.

Study: No apparent racial difference in Covid-19 death rates if there's equal access to health care

The research found no difference in mortality among Black and White patients hospitalized for coronavirus infection, after adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical factors.

Dr. Baligh Yehia of Ascension Health in Missouri and colleagues studied 11,210 adult coronavirus patients between February and May in 92 hospitals across 12 states. They found no statistical difference in the risk of mortality between White and Black patients, after adjusting for age, sex, insurance status, comorbidity, neighborhood deprivation and site of care.

Of the 11,210 patients, 37.3% were Black. Black patients were younger, more likely to be women and more likely to have Medicaid insurance than their White counterparts. Black patients were also more likely to have other health conditions such as asthma, cancer, chronic kidney disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

About 63.7% of patients were hospitalized and 39.4% were Black. After adjusting for outside factors, the team found that mortality was 19.2% among Black patients and 23.1% among White patients. The overall mortality rate was 20.3%.

Similar rates of Black and White patients needed an intensive care unit. Among those in the ICU, 35.2% of Black patients died and 36.4% of White patients died.

"Although current reports suggest that Black patients represent a disproportionate share of COVID-19 infections and death in the United States, in this study, mortality for those able to access hospital care did not differ between Black and White patients after adjusting for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities."

They called for additional research on coronavirus mortality by race.

CNN's Annie Grayer, Jamiel Lynch, Artemis Moshtaghian, Topher-Gauk Roger, Amanda Watts, Lauren Mascarenhas, Jason Hanna, Eric Levenson, Naomi Thomas and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

Read more here:

Faster test results and 'robust' immune response may offer hope of curbing the pandemic, experts say - CNN

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.

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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.

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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

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.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

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.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

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

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

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

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