Incidents of Pediatric Illness Associated With COVID-19 Still Low In Southern California – KPBS

Credit: Kawasaki Research Foundation

Above: A red rash, as shown on this child's back in this undated photo, is a symptom of Kawasaki disease.

A new illness linked to COVID-19 that impacts children has yet to take much of a hold in southern California. Whats being called the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, which inflames blood vessels and could lead to organ damage, has been found worldwide by doctors in places hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles saw four cases of the illness among children and San Diegos Rady Childrens Hospital treated 1 patient that was discharged home. But on the whole, numbers in southern California remain quite low.

According to data provided to KPBS by the states Health Department, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties have each reported fewer than 11 cases of the illness.

RELATED: Rady Re-Evaluating Recent Kawasaki Cases For New Pediatric Illness Tied To Coronavirus

Radys Dr. Jane Burns told KPBS the illness is like Kawasaki Disease, which affects the blood vessels. She said COVID-19 could be a trigger.

We're trying to piece together all the bits of this puzzle, but it would seem to us that the exposure to the virus and the immune response that a genetically susceptible child makes could be one of perhaps many triggers for Kawasaki disease, Burns told KPBS in an interview earlier this month.

Patients usually have either tested positive for COVID-19 themselves or had contact with a parent or family member who has.

All of Californias confirmed cases were found in children nine years or younger.

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Incidents of Pediatric Illness Associated With COVID-19 Still Low In Southern California - KPBS

103-year-old woman celebrates beating Covid-19 with a cold beer – CNN

When Jennie Stejna tested positive for coronavirus in late April, her family began preparing for the worst, granddaughter Shelley Gunn said.

At one point, her family was told that Stejna had stopped eating and drinking and might not make it through the night. They called her for one last goodbye, Gunn said.

When Gunn's husband, a Navy retiree, asked Stejna if she was ready to pass away, she responded "Hell yeah," according to the family.

"She's always been a feisty woman," Gunn said.

But instead of a grim phone call from Stejna's nursing home, on May 8 they received the news that she had tested negative, and was symptom-free, the family said.

"The nurses came into her room, and she said, "I'm not sick anymore, Get the hell out,'" Gunn said.

The nursing home staff honored Stejna's perseverance with one of her favorite treats -- an ice-cold beer.

"I think it's given everyone a smile and some hope, while it's dark days for everybody," Gunn said.

Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.

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103-year-old woman celebrates beating Covid-19 with a cold beer - CNN

CDC Says Cars Are Better Than Mass Transit during COVID-19 Crisis – Car and Driver

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You don't need us to tell you that this is a different and often difficult situation we're in during this coronavirus pandemic. Between the widespread lockdowns that, let's hope, are behind us and the gradual reopening ahead, people will start moving and interacting more as we all wait for a vaccine. That's going to be difficult. What we care about most, of course, is what this means for cars and driving.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is offering updated advice for dealing with the pandemic, including new recommendations for people who work in offices. Some are straightforward and could be easy to implement, like wearing face masks and holding small meetings and lunch outside when possible (good thing summer's on the way). But other recommendations will be difficult to implement, if not impossible. How is "maintain[ing] social distancing of at least six feet" inside an elevator going to work, for example?

During the day on Sunday, the CDC adjusted its recommendations to clarify that they are "if feasible," and that it doesn't object to people "driving or riding by car either alone or with household members." It also added a suggestion that employees be told to follow CDC guidance on "how to protect yourself when using transportation" if they found it necessary to use public transport methods.

There's also a change in where an employer's responsibility to their employees starts. The CDC saysand OSHA would agreethat "employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace." But what about getting to and from work safely? That wasn't necessarily in the employer purview before COVID-19 hit, but now the CDC is looking at the ways we commute to keep all workers safer. In short, it recommends private cars over public transportation.

The CDC recommends employers offer incentives for employees who usually commute on public transportation or ride sharing so they can "use forms of transportation that minimize close contact with others." That means employers should help pay parking fees for people who drive in their own vehicles or ride in "single-occupancy rides." But even if all employees have access to cars, local infrastructure is not set up for this kind of vehicle influx in some areas. New York City, for example, simply does not have enough parking spaces for everyone who works there to drive in each day. The suggestion to give employees money for single-occupancy rides (i.e., taxis or using ride-hailing apps) could work better, but it also requires Uber and Lyft drivers who are willing to let strangers in and out of their cars throughout the day, which is a bigger challenge now than it was four months ago.

Changes Likely Coming in Workplace, Too

Some of the CDC's transportation suggestions should be easier to integrate into our new work life, like staggering work times. This could mean fewer people in the office at once and could also allow employees commute on public transportation during less busy times, minimizing potential contact vectors. The CDC also recommends employees wash their hands as soon as possible after their commute into work.

The CDC sees private cars as a good way to keep people socially distant from one another outside of office setting as well. In its section for restaurant and bar owners, it recommends asking customers to wait in their cars while waiting to pick up food and, if the establishment is accepting dine-in patrons, even while waiting to be seated.

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CDC Says Cars Are Better Than Mass Transit during COVID-19 Crisis - Car and Driver

Covid-19 misinformation: pro-Trump and QAnon Twitter bots found to be worst culprits – The Guardian

Misinformation about the origins of Covid-19 is far more likely to be spread by pro-Trump, QAnon or Republican bots on Twitter than any other source, according to a study commissioned by the Australia Institutes Centre for Responsible Technology.

In late March, when the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold in the US and across much of the rest of the world, two researchers at Queensland University of Technology, Timothy Graham and Axel Bruns, analysed 2.6m tweets related to coronavirus, and 25.5m retweets of those tweets, over the course of 10 days.

They filtered out legitimate accounts from those accounts most likely to be bots, which can be identified when they retweet identical coronavirus-related content within one second of each other.

Through this methodology, the researchers found 5,752 accounts retweeted coronavirus-related material in a coordinated way 6,559 times.

The researchers identified 10 prominent bot-like networks that were attempting to push political agendas, separate from those bot networks pushing commercial sites by hitching on to trending topics like coronavirus.

The researchers found a coordinated effort to promote the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was a bioweapon engineered by China.

The researchers identified a co-retweet network of 2,903 accounts with 4,125 links between them.

Within this network, the researchers found 28 to 30 clusters of accounts which identified themselves as pro-Trump, Republican or associated themselves with the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.

There were 882 original tweets over the 10-day period pushing the bioweapon conspiracy theory, which were retweeted 18,498 times, and liked 31,783 times, with an estimated 5m impressions on Twitter.

The researchers said the effect of the bot networks was the amplification of the misinformation.

Whether the coordinated inauthentic behaviours we have observed for the bioweapon conspiracy are orchestrated by the hard core of participants in these groups themselves, or are designed by external operators to target and exploit the worldviews of such groups, the net effect is often the same: the themes and topics promoted by coordinated inauthentic activity are taken up by the wider fringe community, and thereby gain amplification and authenticity, the researchers said in the report.

The mis- and disinformation contained in the initial messages is no longer distributed solely by bots and other accounts that may be identified as acting in coordinated and inauthentic ways, but also and to a potentially greater extent by ordinary, authentic human users.

From there disinformation can easily garner broader public attention when media, or people with large numbers of followers on social media, engage with the conspiracy theory, even if to refute it, they said.

Official denials and corrections can perversely be exploited by the conspiracy theorists to claim that authorities are covering up the real truth, they said.

In Australia, for example, the effects of this vicious circle are now being observed in the sharp rise in concerns about 5G technology at least in part as a result of the circulation of the conspiracy theories about links between Covid-19 and 5G.

The report authors recommend that platform operators get better at detecting and mitigating bot activity on their platforms, and mainstream media should be encouraged to reduce clickbait conspiracy theory coverage that has the potential to introduce new audiences to the misinformation .

Such sites may frame the conspiracy theories as outlandish or laughable, but often present them without significant correction or fact-checking; as a result, such coverage puts substantial new audiences in contact with problematic content that they would not otherwise have encountered.

Tabloid media can therefore represent an important pathway for conspiracy theories to enter more mainstream public debate.

The US president, Donald Trump, signed an executive order last week seeking to make social media sites liable for what their users post on the platform in retaliation for Twitter factchecking a tweet he posted containing a false assertion about mail voter fraud.

Peter Lewis, director of the Centre for Responsible Technology, said it was a good start for Twitter to factcheck Trump, but more needed to be done on bot networks to stop the spread of misinformation.

Social media companies need to take greater responsibility for disinformation on their sites, particularly where coordinated and automated retweeting is promoting dangerous disinformation, he said.

While Twitter is starting to call out some of President Trumps more egregious tweets, social media companies have a long way to go to stem the flow of divisive and dangerous disinformation on their platforms.

The report authors noted that while the research had focused on Twitter, the bot-like activity is not limited to Twitter, and has been something other platforms like Facebook had been grappling with.

Facebook for its part has been factchecking select coronavirus claims, and banning some, including connecting 5G to the spread of coronavirus. But the companys chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said Facebook should not factcheck in a similar way to Twitter, saying it shouldnt be the arbiter of truth.

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Covid-19 misinformation: pro-Trump and QAnon Twitter bots found to be worst culprits - The Guardian

Navajo Nation Loses Elders And Tradition To COVID-19 – NPR

Traditional Din medicine practitioner Jeneda Benally, pictured here with her daughter Dahi, is trying to preserve cultural wisdom in danger of being lost during the pandemic. Laurel Morales/KJZZ hide caption

Traditional Din medicine practitioner Jeneda Benally, pictured here with her daughter Dahi, is trying to preserve cultural wisdom in danger of being lost during the pandemic.

In Navajo culture to speak of death is taboo. But since the tribe's coronavirus infection rate has become the highest in the country, they can't help but talk about it.

"It's killing every day," says medicine man Ty Davis, who knows at least five traditional practitioners who have died from COVID-19.

"It put me into shock," he says. "What do we do now? How do we retrieve that knowledge that these elders once knew now that they have died with those ceremonies? How do we get those back?"

Each medicine person specializes in different ceremonies. So when someone dies they take that knowledge with them. Over the last several decades the tribe has gone from a thousand Din or Navajo medicine people to just 300. The coronavirus threatens the few who remain.

Medicine man Avery Denny is attempting to change that trajectory by taking on apprentices where he teaches at Din College on the Navajo Nation.

Professor Avery Denny sings the the Journey Song to college graduates.

"I have great great concerns," Denny says.

Denny says he's up against centuries of colonialism when it comes to preserving Navajo culture and tradition. The federal government forced tribes to relocate, sent Native children to boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking their language for singing their songs.

"Young people are acculturated, assimilated, dominated. They're losing their language and their culture," Denny says.

Denny says white missionaries are also to blame for replacing Navajo religion.

"Christianity is the belief that our people turned to even our leadership so there's no guidance," Denny says. "There's no leader that says, 'OK we'll turn to Navajo values and Navajo Din medicine.'"

For instance, the Navajo president begins each meeting with a Christian prayer even though he also addresses his community in Navajo.

The loss of traditional practitioners is not just a cultural loss but also a personal one for people such as Jeneda Benally, whose aunt recently died from COVID-19.

"I am really emotional about this because it's so painful to lose so many loved ones," she says.

Benally is a traditional practitioner who works alongside her father who was the first medicine man to practice in a Western hospital.

"I felt very early on during this pandemic that I needed to protect my father so that way he can continue to help people in order to protect our future generations," Benally says.

One way she is doing that is working with her brother Clayson to produce youtube videos to share Navajo cultural practices like how to dry farm and how to shear sheep.

The Benallys hope their videos will encourage tribal members to reconnect with their culture, especially now while tribal members are spending a lot of time at home during during the coronavirus pandemic.

"We've got this technology," Jeneda Benally says. "How are we going to find hope in this technology? How are we going to find the continuation of our culture where we can connect our elders to our youth?"

The dilemma is figuring out what parts of Navajo culture they can share publicly and what parts are too sacred and can only be passed down from one Navajo to another.

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Navajo Nation Loses Elders And Tradition To COVID-19 - NPR

Could nearly half of those with Covid-19 have no idea they are infected? – The Guardian

When Noopur Rajes husband fell critically ill with Covid-19 in mid-March, she did not suspect that she too was infected with the virus.

Raje, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had been caring for her sick husband for a week before driving him to an emergency centre with a persistently high fever. But after she herself had a diagnostic PCR test which looks for traces of the Sars-CoV-2 virus DNA in saliva she was astounded to find that the result was positive.

My husband ended up very sick, she says. He was in intensive care for a day, and in hospital for 10 days. But while I was also infected, I had no symptoms at all. I have no idea why we responded so differently.

It took two months for Rajes husband to recover. Repeated tests, done every five days, showed that Raje remained infected for the same length of time, all while remaining completely asymptomatic. In some ways it is unsurprising that the virus persisted in her body for so long, given that it appears her body did not even mount a detectable immune response against the infection.

When they both took an antibody test earlier this month, Rajes husband showed a high level of antibodies to the virus, while Raje appeared to have no response at all, something she found hard to comprehend.

Its mind-blowing, she says. Some people are able to be colonised with the virus and not be symptomatic, while others end up with pretty severe illness. I think its something to do with differences in immune regulation, but we still havent figured out exactly how this is happening.

Epidemiological studies are now revealing that the number of individuals who carry and can pass on the infection, yet remain completely asymptomatic, is larger than originally thought. Scientists believe these people have contributed to the spread of the virus in care homes, and they are central in the debate regarding face mask policies, as health officials attempt to avoid new waves of infections while societies reopen.

You dont need to be coughing to transmit a respiratory infection: talking, singing, even blowing a vuvuzela

But the realisation that asymptomatic people can spread an infection is not completely surprising. For starters, there is the famous early 20th century case of Typhoid Mary, a cook who infected 53 people in various households in the US with typhoid fever despite displaying no symptoms herself. In fact, all bacterial, viral and parasitic infections ranging from malaria to HIV have a certain proportion of asymptomatic carriers. Research has even shown that at any one time, all of us are infected with between eight and 12 viruses, without showing any symptoms.

From the microbes perspective, this makes perfect evolutionary sense. For any virus or bacteria, making people infectious but not ill is an excellent way to spread and persist in populations, says Rein Houben, an infectious diseases researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine.

However, when Covid-19 was identified at the start of the year, many public health officials both in the UK and around the world failed to account for the threat posed by asymptomatic transmission. This is largely because they were working on models based on influenza, where some estimates suggest that only 5% of people infected are asymptomatic. As a result, the large scale diagnostic testing regimes required to pick up asymptomatic Covid-19 cases were not in place until too late.

I warned on 24 January to consider asymptomatic cases as a transmission vehicle for Covid-19, but this was ignored at the time, says Bill Keevil, professor of environmental healthcare at the University of Southampton. Since then, many countries have reported asymptomatic cases, never showing obvious symptoms, but shedding virus.

The first identified case of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 occurred in early January, when a traveller from Wuhan passed on the virus to five family members in different parts of the city of Anyang. After testing positive, she then remained asymptomatic for the entire 21-day follow-up period.

While scientists still dont know whether asymptomatic people are as contagious as those who display symptoms, there are still many ways in which they can pass on Covid-19. We know that you dont need to be coughing to transmit a respiratory infection like Sars-CoV-2, says Houben. Talking, singing, even blowing instruments like a vuvuzela in the past all of those have been shown to transmit respiratory viruses in some way.

Since January, the race has been on to try and identify just how many asymptomatic cases are out there, with varying findings. One study in the Italian town of Vo reported that 43% of the towns cases of Covid-19 were asymptomatic, while initial reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigation into the spread of Covid-19 on the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in March, suggest that as many as 58% of cases were asymptomatic. Some 48% of the 1,046 cases of Covid-19 on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier proved to be asymptomatic while, of the 712 people who tested positive for Covid-19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, 46% had no symptoms.

Almost all evidence seems to point to a proportion of asymptomatic infections of around 40%, with a wide range, says Houben. The proportion is also highly variable with age. Nearly all infected children seem to remain asymptomatic, whereas the reverse seems to hold for the elderly.

Houben points out that, because most asymptomatic people have no idea they are infected, they are unlikely to be self-isolating, and studies have shown this has contributed to the rampant spread of the virus in facilities such as homeless shelters and care homes. He says this means there is a need for regular diagnostic testing of almost all people in such closed environments, including prisons and psychiatric facilities.

When it comes to controlling Covid-19, this really shows that we cannot rely on self-isolation of symptomatic cases only, he says. Going forwards we need trace and test approaches to account for individuals who are not reporting any symptoms.

Since February, the country that has arguably had the greatest success in suppressing asymptomatic spread of Covid-19 is South Korea. Armed with a rigorous contact tracing and diagnostic testing regime, which involved dozens of drive-through testing centres across major cities enabling tests to be carried out at a rate of one every 10 minutes, they put specific policies in place to offset the threat of asymptomatic carriers from the moment the virus began to spread out of control in Daegu.

Once identified, all asymptomatic people are asked to self quarantine in their house until they test negative, with health service officials checking on them twice daily, and monitoring their symptoms, says Eunha Shim, an epidemiologist at Soongsil University in Seoul.

As Korea attempts to prevent a second wave of infections while reopening schools and allowing people to return to offices, preventing asymptomatic spread is one of their main priorities. This is being done by a mass public health campaign advocating the wearing of masks at all times outside the home. In Seoul, it is not possible to access the subway without a mask.

Many scientists are increasingly calling for this policy to be officially introduced in the UK, especially as more and more people resume commuting in the coming months. Keevil says: There is a strong case to be made for the public wearing appropriate face covers in confined areas such as stations, trains, metro carriages and buses, where it is extremely difficult to maintain the two-metre gap, considered essential to allow respiratory droplets from infected people to fall down before making contact with other people.

The argument is that face covers may not protect the wearer, but might significantly reduce transmission of virus particles to adjacent people in the closed environment. If there is any benefit to be gained, then everyone should wear a mask, which is why some countries are fining people who do not wear a mask and preventing them travelling.

Some have argued that masks may pose a risk of harm to the wearer because of their potential to become an infectious surface, but Keevil says this can be avoided through proper cleaning.

There would need to be policies such as, when arriving at work, place the mask immediately in a plastic bag and wash your hands, he says. And then, when returning home, carefully take off the mask and place it immediately in a washing machine for a 60C wash and wash your hands.

It remains to be seen whether the UK government endorses this as an official recommendation, but a recent study across Barts NHS Trust hospitals in London has illustrated how regular testing and social distancing combined with use of facial protection in this case PPE can prevent asymptomatic spread of the virus. Researchers James Moon and Charlotte Manisty said they found that the rate of asymptomatic infection among hospital staff fell from 7% to 1% between the end of March and early May.

For Raje, understanding why asymptomatic patients like her respond the way they do to the virus, will have some critical implications for all of us over the coming months, for example in determining whether vaccines turn out to be effective.

The big question I have after my experience, is whether a vaccine will really work in all people, she says. The vaccination approach is to create an immune response, which then protects you. But if asymptomatic people are not producing a normal antibody response to the virus, what does that mean? Because its these people who are the vectors and the carriers of this virus, I think we cant get away from social distancing until we have some of these answers out there.

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Could nearly half of those with Covid-19 have no idea they are infected? - The Guardian

Williams: America is battling two lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. One is deadlier. – Richmond.com

The mood in the Museum District was curiously carefree on the sun-kissed afternoon following a night of arson and destruction.

Bubbles blew from a machine on the balcony of an apartment on Arthur Ashe Boulevard, across from the scorched United Daughters of the Confederacy building, where the message BUILT ON OUR BACKS was scrawled on the exterior.

Theres a riot going on, in Richmond and throughout the nation, in the aftermath of the 9-minute torture and death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody last Monday. The image of the white police officer pressing his knee into the black mans neck burned into the brain of a sick and smoldering nation, pent up physically and emotionally.

America is battling two potentially lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. Too many folks think neither is a real problem.

Our black literary prophets saw the potential for this moment, from James Baldwin to Langston Hughes, who asked of the black American dream deferred: Does it sag like a heavy load? Or does it explode?

That were still unclear about the individuals, groups and motives behind this past weeks detonation doesnt speak well about the cohesion of the social justice movement.

The message of grassroots activists and peaceful protesters has been hijacked by looters and arsonists. The images are racially diverse, complicated and confusing. Salt Lake City, with a black population of less than 3%, is on curfew following protests. Its unclear whos fueling the lawlessness, though suspicion has been cast toward right-wing and left-wing provocateurs.

If we and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks ... do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world, Baldwin wrote in 1963.

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophesy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!

Prophesies are warnings, and America and Richmond cant say it wasnt warned. Our peaceful efforts to avoid this moment were met with resistance.

When black football players took a knee in protest of the sort of police misconduct that took Floyds life, they were assailed by no less than the president of the United States. The leader of that peaceful protest, Colin Kaepernick, has been blackballed from the NFL. Im sure his protests are looking not so unreasonable today.

For years, when the Virginia General Assembly was controlled by Republicans, our efforts to relocate Confederate monuments or add context to them where they stand were rejected.

These protesters didnt wait for permission, adding their own context in the form of often-profane graffiti.

Dont complain about the riots if you did nothing to acknowledge or address the injustices that sparked them. Policing the tone and methods of oppressed people only compounds their oppression.

Americas unwillingness to address police brutality in a meaningful way reflects its slow walk in acknowledging our discomfit with its glorification of racist iconography. Martin Luther King Jr. would be impatient with the pace of change. After all, he wrote a book titled Why We Cant Wait.

King called a riot the language of the unheard. But I must say, the language is hard to translate beyond its frustration. Raw fury is a poor substitute for strategy and leads to contradiction.

If black lives matter in Richmond, why were two of the targets of vandalism a black dentist, Dr. Randy Adams, and a venerable African American business, Waller & Company Jewelers?

If black lives matter, should these mass gatherings be occurring during a pandemic that has been particularly deadly for African Americans?

Andrea Simpson, an associate professor of political science at the University of Richmond, was a teen-age participant in the civil rights movement in Memphis during the late 1960s. She is a critic of Black Lives Matter and argues that social justice movements need visible leadership and structure.

Your message and how you want things to be redressed must be crystal clear to everyone who hears it, and you repeat the message over and over again, she said.

Part of staying on message is heading off violent distractions, from within the ranks or without. Im not sure whos directing what Im seeing, and toward what end.

America burned during my 1960s childhood, fueled by police brutality in places like Watts and Detroit. The Kerner Commission charged with investigating the unrest described a nation moving toward two societies, one black, one whiteseparate and unequal.

That the description still fits explains a lot. America feels broken.

It cannot be overstated how destabilizing the Trump presidency has been. A nation whose institutions were never as durable as imagined, and whose narrative was never as benevolent as the hype, is exposing the inequities baked into its foundation. The frenetic gun purchasing, dating back to the election of the first black president, seems less like a natural exercise of Second Amendment rights than the amassing of an arsenal for a cataclysmic confrontation.

For young people feeling betrayed by the American Dream, the racial inequality that led to Floyds death amplifies the economic grievances theyre experiencing. They want to tear the system down and start over. But I fear the undisciplined and violent among them are playing into the hands of a president whose talent is demolition, not repair; exploiting societal rifts, not healing them.

Tearing down is easy. The real work is in realizing a dream deferred and mending a fractured nation. We must dare everything to end this nightmare and achieve our country.

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Williams: America is battling two lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. One is deadlier. - Richmond.com

Bars and restaurants roll with changes amid COVID-19 – Gazettextra

When head bartender Billy Burg showed up to Lark for his first work shift in weeks, he was dressed as usual: a white shirt, a black vest and slacks, a black bow tie, and spit-shined leather Oxford shoes.

Burg doesnt know how to tap dance, but he pirouetted behind the bar nonetheless, rattling cocktail shakers like maracas, his arms swooping in arcs as he splashed whiskey, grenadine and bitters into glasses.

It was a cocktail-makers mambo for no audience. The bar Burg stands behind remains closed to customers, cleared of chairs.

Thats part of a reopening plan by Larks management aimed at keeping patrons and staff at the downtown Janesville cocktail and small-plate restaurant safely separated during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Like many in the local restaurant industry, Burg is navigating dramatic changes in how customers and bar and restaurant workers can interact.

Burg has been back bustling at his job since late last week, but he was the lone employee at work at Lark on a recent day. The restaurants kitchen likely wont re-open until sometime in June as the restaurant overhauls how it will serves customers during the pandemic.

For now, Burg is maestro and server of fashionable drinks and, at times, enforcer of new, COVID-era rules Lark has put into place to try to keep its staff and patrons safe.

As Burg mixed a bourbon whiskey Vieux Carr for a woman in a floral sundress seated with two friends at a table halfway across Larks dining room, another woman walked in, moved to the bar and casually put an elbow down to beckon Burg for a cocktail order.

Bartender Billy Burg serves Gina Roberts and Brent Vogel during their visit to Lark on a recent evening. Lark opened its dining area only for cocktails and has started to meter the crowds to 20 at a time with a two-hour limit.

The woman didnt know the bar still is technically closed to the public. Burg had to tell her to find a seat in the dining area.

Above his cloth mask, Burgs eyes and creased forehead told the tale. He was reluctant. He instantly regretted having to shoo a patron from the bar where they would normally just sit down and order a drink.

This is a lot to get used to, a lot for me and everybody. But youve just got to get used to it for a while. The bar feels like a work station for me right now. No one can sit here, theyre all throughout the room, Burg said. Ive got to find other ways to do more to connect with people now. Its just a new part of this job.

Buffet-less buffet

At Macs Pizza Shack on Milton Avenue, restaurant staff watched the last table of a scant, Thursday afternoon lunch crowd finish. Their dine-in haul: just three tables.

The longtime restaurant announced its full reopening last week with a hand-painted, red and white lettering on the windows that read: OPEN, Dine in, Delivery, Curbside, Carryout.

Macs, like many local pizza restaurants, has remained open for delivery and carryout throughout the pandemic, but like other eateries, the longtime restaurant had to shutter its dining room for weeks under the pandemic.

The restaurant has done brisk business with carryout and delivery of pizzas. And at times, it has strained a kitchen that has worked under temporary state restrictions and public health recommendations that have limited the number of kitchen staff who can work at once.

Owner Ericka Bickle said she can remember days in March and April, during the states COVID-19 lockdown, where she felt glued in place at a kitchen work station, cutting cooked pizza after cooked pizza for hours.

Youd work for hours in one spot just to keep up, she said.

Under reopening plans, Macs management has decided at least initially to curb its pizza, broasted chicken and salad buffetone of the restaurants main calling cards. Thats an adjustment many Macs regulars will have to get used to as the restaurant monitors the pandemic and its own ability to serve its patrons safely, Macs manager Eric Carlson said.

Carlson said Macs has used its Facebook page to poll its customers on how they would like the restaurants dining room to operate during the pandemic. He said customers have tossed out dozens of ideas, some of which the restaurant might run with.

Weve gotten suggestions of a lot of different ways that we can do a buffet thats more cafeteria style, or a sit-down with a ticket system, maybe give people a small buffet menu they can choose from. Give them a checklist of the things theyd like a server to bring to their table, Carlson said. We got all these suggestions. Thats what is good about opening up to feedback from the thousands of people who know were a small business just trying to figure out how to do this.

Dramatic dining changes

Another sit-down restaurant, the Prime Quarter Steakhouse on Highway 14, for years has operated under a unique business model. It sells customers the option to select and cook their own steaks over the flame of on an in-house grill.

Dalton Kroeze, manager of the Prime Quarter, said even as other restaurants are beginning to reopen for dining in, his steakhouses owners are holding off on reopening the restaurant until September or October.

And when Prime Quarter does reopen, its likely, Kroeze said, it would no longer operate as a grill-your-own restaurant.

The way we think its going to go is it probably wont be cook-your-own anymore. And we probably wont even have the meat case for people to grab their own steaks. Were gearing it to have a chef behind a separate glass enclosure whod do the cooking. Thats just ... were coming up with different plans on how to make it safer for everybody for sure.

Kroeze said he cant know how customers would take a dramatic change to Prime Quarters signature dining experience, but he said that after a hard look at logistics, it became clear the restaurant couldnt operate a 12-foot grill for customers to use and keep people spaced apart enough to adhere to public health recommendations on social distancing.

He said amid that change, the restaurant will be dealing with spiraling costs for cuts of meat driven by nationwide bottlenecks in the meat supply.

At Lark, owner Joan Neeno said the restaurant for now is allowing in only 20 people at a time. And patrons must sign onto a reservation list that would give them a two-hour slot to have cocktails. Customers would cycle in and out on a timetable.

Lark opened its dining area for cocktails Thursday and has started to meter the crowds to 20 at a time with a two-hour limit.

Thats to limit occupancy at a time when public health officials recommend dining rooms and bars maintain about 25% full occupancy.

Its a model that you already see at some places in Chicago that have limited seating. Its not all that unusual, except for Janesville it is, and its being driven by something entirely unique. Its the pandemic, Neeno said.

For now, the restaurant will run only as a cocktail bar, but bigger changes are in store, Neeno said.

Neeno had been readying a storefront next door to Lark, originally as an offshoot pizza and pasta restaurant. Neeno pivoted on those plans when the curtain of COVID-19 dropped in March.

In coming weeks, Neeno said, the space next door will open as a fresh market selling some ingredients fresh made in Larks kitchen along with other specialty items such as artisan breads. The market should open sometime in mid-June, Neeno said, and when it does, Larks kitchen will reopen for a phased-in approach.

That would allow the kitchen to fuel both the new market and the restaurant crowd.

Neeno said most local restaurant operators shes spoken with say theyve seen only 25% to 30% of capacity in their dining rooms as they reopen.

Neeno believes having a market tied to Lark could give the restaurant an extra conduit to customers who might continue to be leery of dining out amid the pandemic.

The reality is 40% or even 50% occupancy isnt enough to pay the bills and keep people employed. Were hoping the market can bridge that gap moving forward, Neeno said.

People are going to be hesitant to dine in for a while, and we understand that. We want to make it easier for them to take some signature food home. We know the new reality. Were trying to be smart in how we address that.

Gina Roberts smiles with a cocktail in her hand during a during visit to Lark on Thursday evening.

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Bars and restaurants roll with changes amid COVID-19 - Gazettextra

70 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood test positive for COVID-19 – News-Leader

Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Nearly a month before community spread was first detected, "sustained, community transmission" of the coronavirus in the United States began in late January or early February, a report from the CDC says. A "single importation" from China was followed by "several importations" from Europe, the study's authors found. "As America begins to reopen, looking back at how COVID-19 made its way to the United States will contribute to a better understanding to prepare for the future," said CDC Director Robert Redfield. Wochit

During a two-day period, 500 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood were tested for COVID-19. Of those, 70 had positive results, according to a news release.

The soldiers and trainees were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 48th Infantry Regiment.

"Due to the aggressive mitigation strategies in place, the number of infected and exposed individuals has been minimized to the greatest extent possible, and contained within one training unit," the release said. "Affected individuals have been isolated or quarantined as appropriate and in accordance with CDC guidelines. In addition, all impacted buildings, dining facilities and training areas within the unit area have been sanitized in accordance with CDC guidelines."

Upon arrival to Fort Leonard Wood, all 500 soldiers and trainees were medically screened and tested by health professionals at the beginning of their 14-day controlled monitoring phase of basic combat training and all test results at that time were negative, the release said.

Keep reading: Some Missouri counties offering free COVID-19 tests

Four days after the end of the groups controlled monitoring phase, a trainee reported to Harper In-processing Health Screening Facility with symptoms, and immediately, all 500 were tested again, resulting in the increased positive test results, the release said.

According to the release, all those who tested positive are being cared for and monitored according to CDC guidelines and have been isolated to prevent the potential spread to others. Most of those who tested positive are asymptomatic and none have been hospitalized.

"Contact tracing continues to be performed and aggressive measures are continuing to be used to ensure that further spread of COVID-19 is minimized," the release said. "Fort Leonard Wood continues the strict enforcement of social distancing and the wearing of cloth face coverings to mitigate the spread of the virus."

Others are reading: Soldier at Fort Leonard Wood tested positive for COVID-19

"Our people military, civilians and families and their health, welfare and safety are our highest priority. We continue to assess, refine and coordinate prevention and response efforts on post and in the local area to ensure the well-being of our personnel and local population," the release said. "Fort Leonard Wood leadership remain in close coordination with local and state public health authorities and have assessed that the local communities are not at an increased risk."

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70 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood test positive for COVID-19 - News-Leader

Global report: new clues about role of pangolins in Covid-19 as US severs ties with WHO – The Guardian

Scientists claim to have found more clues about how the new coronavirus could have spread from bats through pangolins and into humans, as India reported its worst single-day rise in new cases, and the number of Covid-19 infections worldwide neared 6 million.

Writing in the journal Covid-19 Science Advances, researchers said an examination of the closest relative of the virus found that it was circulating in bats but lacked the protein needed to bind to human cells. They said this ability could have been acquired from a virus found in pangolins a scaly mammal that is one of the most illegally trafficked animals in the world.

DrElena Giorgi, of Los Alamos national laboratory, one of the studys lead authors, said people had already looked at the pangolin link but scientists were still divided about their role in the evolution of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

In our study, we demonstrated that indeed Sars-Cov-2 has a rich evolutionary history that included a reshuffling of genetic material between bat and pangolin coronavirus before it acquired its ability to jump to humans, she said, adding that close proximity of animals of different species in a wet market setting may increase the potential for cross-species spillover infections.

The study stilldoesnt confirm the pangolin as the animal that passed the virus to humans, but it adds weight to previous studies that have suggested it may have been involved.

However, Prof Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney, in Australia, said more work on the subject was needed. There is a clear evolutionary gap between Sars-Cov-2 and its closest relatives found to date in bats and pangolins, he said. The only way this gap will be filled is through more wildlife sampling.

The findings came as Donald Trump announced that the United States was severing its ties with the World Health Organization because it had failed to reform.

In a speech at the White House devoted mainly to attacking China for its alleged shortcomings in tackling the initial outbreak of coronavirus, Trump said: We will be today terminating our relationship with theWorld Health Organizationand redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.

The US is the biggest funder of the WHO, paying about $450m (365m) in membership dues and voluntary contributions for specific programmes.

Trumps declaration was condemned in the US and around the world, with Australianexperts joining counterparts in the UK and elsewhere in voicing their support for the WHO. Prof Peter Doherty, a Nobel laureate and patron of the Doherty Institute, which is part of global efforts to find a Covid-19 vaccine, said the WHO had the full support of the scientific community.

Deaths in the US have climbed to more than 102,000, with 1,747,000 infections. It is by far the biggest total in the world. On Friday it emerged that one person who attended the controversial pool parties in the Ozarks last weekend had tested positive for the virus.

In Brazil, there was another large rise in deaths. More than 27,000 people have died from the disease and the country has the worlds second highest number of cases, at 465,000.

There were also big surges in reported deaths in Russia, which identifiedmore coronavirus cases in a day than at any time since early April;2,819 more people tested positive on Friday.

Iran also recorded itsbiggest daily increase in deaths 232 in 24 hours bringing the total to 4,374. President Hassan Rouhani nevertheless said mosques were to resume daily prayers throughout the country, despite some areas reporting continuing high levels of infections. He added that physical distancing and other health protocols would be observed in mosques. He did not say when they were due to reopen.

India, meanwhile, reported a record daily jump of 7,964 new infections. With the latest tally, India has now reported 173,763 coronavirus cases and 4,971 deaths, making it the ninth most-affected country, according to Reuters. While the fatality rates in India have been lower than in worse-hit countries, experts fear the peak has not been reached. The latest numbers would appear to confirm that prediction.

Egypt registered 1,289 new cases and 34 deaths, the health ministry said, marking another record of daily increases on both counts despite stricter curfew rules.

Other developments across the world include:

A leading UK government adviser has warned that it is too early to lift lockdown restrictions as planned next month because the number of new infections is still too high. John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he wanted the level of new cases to be driven down further before larger gatherings are allowed as the government has said it wants to do. Tory MPs are still being bombarded by constituents with calls for Boris Johnsons top adviser to quit after he appeared to breach lockdown rules.

Restrictions continue to be lifted to some degree across Europe, with thousands flocking to open-air cinemas to see films together for the first time in weeks.

In Australia, where states are expected to move to relax the rules to allow gatherings of more people from Monday, anti-vaccine protesters gathered in several cities to claim that they believed Covid-19 was a scam.

Also in Australia, scientists are examining the sewage waste in a town in Queensland where a 30-year-old man died this week from the virus. Nathan Turner is the youngest victim in the country so far and the case has baffled experts because he had not left the remote town of Blackwater.

The global death toll passed 365,000, according to data compiled byJohns Hopkins University, with the number of cases just short of 6 million. The true number of infections is likely to be much higher, however, given the vast number of unrecorded and asymptomatic cases.

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Global report: new clues about role of pangolins in Covid-19 as US severs ties with WHO - The Guardian

One New COVID-19 Case on Maui Brings Hawaii Total to 652; 95.7% Recovered – Maui Now

There was one new COVID-19 case reported today on the island of Maui, pushing Hawaiis COVID-19 case total to 652.

To date, 608 people (95.7%) have recovered including 110 in Maui County. There are currently 27 active cases in the state.

The breakdown by island includes the following:

The Hawaii State Department of Health reports that there were 608 individuals released from isolation; and 83 cases (13%) that have required hospitalization. A total of 591 patients (91%) were residents.

Maui Countys count increased by one from yesterday. Of the 120 cases in Maui County, at least 110 have been released from isolation, and 22 have required hospitalization.

To date, there have been 17 COVID-19 related deaths in Hawaii, including 11 on Oahu and 6 in Maui County. Lieutenant Governor Josh Green notes that Hawaii has the lowest mortality rate in the US at 1.2 deaths per 100,000.

*Positive cases include presumptive and confirmed cases, and Hawaii residents and non-residents; data are preliminary and subject to change. Note that CDC provides case counts according to states of residence.

Includes cases that meet isolation release criteria (Isolation should be maintained until at least 3 days (72 hours) after resolution of fever and myalgia without the use of antipyretics OR at least 10 days have passed since symptom onset, whichever is longer). (The cases that have died and one case that has left the jurisdiction have been removed from these counts).

One case is a Lnai resident whose exposure is on Maui Island and who will be remaining on Maui Island for the interim.

Maui County now has six COVID-19related deaths.

Maui Memorial Cluster: (Update 5.19.20)

The outbreak at Maui Memorial Medical Center in Kahului was considered closed as of May 19, 2020. The cluster of individuals linked to the Maui hospital outbreak totaled 52 including 38 health care workers and 14 patients who had tested positive, according to Maui Health. DOH officials say it appears the outbreak may have been driven by a single healthcare worker who was allowed to work while ill.

Other Highlights for Maui County:

Hawaii Governor David Ige on May 28 said that the 14-day travel quarantine will be extended for domestic and international travelers past June 30, but an official announcement will be made at a later date.Gov. Ige also mentioned that he and all four mayors have been working for the last three weeks to coordinate reopening of interisland travel and said they would make a decision within the next few days regarding plans on when to lift the interisland quarantine. In the meantime, Mayor Victorino has requested that the interisland travel quarantine be lifted on June 15.

An employee at the Maui Memorial Medical Center has been quarantined at home since the hospital learned of the individuals positive antibody detection on Friday, May 21. Asubsequent COVID swab test at the hospitals emergency department came back positive on Saturday, May 23. Hospital representatives say its too soon in the process to determine a source of the infection but have stated that the case is not related to the Maui Memorial Medical Center cluster of 52 individuals that was deemed closed on May 19.

Increased access to Haleakal National Park began on May 27. The public is now allowed in the Summit District from the park entrance to the summit at the 10,000 foot elevation between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Park entrance fees are temporarily waived. Sunrise and sunset viewing are not available at this time and the parks visitor center buildings, Kipahulu District, crater and backcountry areas remain closed. Commercial and special use permits also remain suspended.

Governor David Ige approved Maui Mayor Michael Victorinos request to reopen most businesses and services with modifications starting Monday, June 1, 2020. This includes clubhouses, dog parks, playgrounds and skate parks, all county parks and beach parks, select county pools, dine-in restaurant service, tattoo parlors, aestheticians, massage therapists and other personal services. Earlier openings included: hair and nail salons on May 25; and drive-in religious services on May 22; and certain retail shops at shopping malls in Maui Countyopened on May 11.

Governor David Ige signed his 8th supplementalemergency proclamation on May 18, effectively extending the eviction moratorium and extending the 14 day travel quarantine for both mainland and interisland travel through the end of June. The governor also unveiled his four step Roadmap to Recovery and Resilience Plan. He said the state is ready to move from Phase 1 of stabilization to Phase 2 of reopening and called the latest phase Act With Care.

The County of Maui started allowing passive recreation at beaches effective on Saturday, May 16. This is for a trial period only of two weeks (from May 16 to 30) and will be reassessed.

Also the 98th Maui Fair, which was scheduled to take place over four days in October, is cancelled for this year due to public health concerns. Organizers say the event was cancelled at the request of the County and will be held sometime next year.

On Tuesday, May 5, Governor David Ige unveiled details of his 7th Supplemental Proclamation, that allows for the next phase includes the reopening to include: non-food agriculture such as landscaping, floral and ornamental; astronomical observatories and support facilities; car washes; and pet grooming services. This also includes some retail operations.

On Monday, May 4, apatient on Maui who was diagnosed with COVID-19 over a month ago and had been on a ventilator, was greeted with a celebratory exit from hospital staff who lined the halls upon her departure.The single mom of three came into the Maui Memorial Medical Center 36 days prior and had a slow process to recovery, according to a hospital spokesperson. Also, Maui Health re-opened the Maui East unit as a medical surgical unit and it is no longer serving as a COVID-19 unit.

On Wednesday, April 29, Mayor Victorino identified a short list parks, golf courses andlocal businesses that quality for limited opening under the first phase of a reopening that began on May 1, 2020.

On Tuesday, April 28, local government leaders visited and toured the outside of Maui Memorial Medical Center in compliance with the hospitals COVID-19 no-visitor policy,and received an update from Maui Health on response efforts at the facility.

On Tuesday, April 28, officials confirmed thatan elderly Lnai womancontracted COVID-19 while she was hospitalized at the Maui Memorial Medical Center. The womaninitially tested negative for COVID-19, but a recent test came back positive. She will remain on Maui until she is healthy enough to return home to Lnai and she no longer poses a risk of transmitting the virus to others. The case is documented as a Maui Island case and there are still no confirmed positive cases on the island of Lnai.

Maui Health on Monday, April 27, confirmed that a Maui Medical Group hospitalist who provides care to patients at Maui Memorial Medical Center has tested positive for COVID-19. The provider was tested for COVID-19 two weeks prior by Maui Medical Group, was asymptomatic, and the results were negative. The provider then became symptomatic and self-quarantined at home. On Friday April 24, a repeat test was performed and on Sunday April 26, the results returned positive for COVID-19.

A joint statement was released on Wednesday evening, April 22, from Mayor Michael Victorino and Merrimans Kapalua restaurant confirming the location of the restaurant grouping from March, which consisted of three COVID-19 positive individuals and between 65 and 100 exposed contacts. Health officials say the grouping does not currently pose a significant risk to the community and refrained from labeling it a cluster.

Two individuals from the Ka Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center on Waiale Road in Wailuku on Maui were moved to a Department of Health quarantine facility after one of them tested positive for COVID-19. The other man who was awaiting test results has since received word that his test came back negative and he was released from quarantine. Monique Yamashita, Executive Director at the facility said 48 individuals including staff and guests were tested on April 24 during a mass testing event. She provided us with an update on May 1 saying all tests came back negative. Also the eight staff that had contact with the COVID-19 positive individual were back to work within a week after all tests came back negative. Yamashita said the facility is still being vigilant with the continued use of PPEs, washing hands and taking other precautions to protect staff and guests.

Update: (5.18.20) All Prior Cases of COVID-19 at Hale Makua are Now Negative: Two home health patients with Hale Makua Health Servicesand a nursing home resident from Hale Makua Kahuluiare now negative for COVID-19. The asymptomatic resident who had tested positive has sincereceived two consecutive test results showing they are negative for COVID-19. As for the home health cases, one client has been released from isolation andhad recovered in April;and the other client has recently received two negative COVID-19 tests so has been released from quarantine as well.

Maui Now learned that a mother who underwent a caesarean section delivery at the Maui Memorial Medical Center in April later tested positive for COVID-19. The source of infection at this time is unknown however, Maui Health noted that the hospital has never had an OB patient, provider or employee test positive for COVID-19. Employees in that department were tested in April, with all results returned as negative.

There was also a confirmed case of a physical therapy worker at the Kula Hospital who tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 16 individuals who received care were tested and so far, no positive cases have been reported as a result.

The Maui positive count included at least one resident of the rural community of Hna in East Maui and at leasttworesidents of Molokai.

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One New COVID-19 Case on Maui Brings Hawaii Total to 652; 95.7% Recovered - Maui Now

How to Recover From Covid-19 at Home – The New York Times

If youre sick and dont have supplies, see if a friend can pick them up for you, or if a grocery store or bodega will deliver. (Tip well!) Either way, avoid contact: Whether its a friend or a delivery person, have the bag left outside your door, and dont open the door until the delivery person is gone.

Over-the-counter drugs may not be enough. In particular, the coughing and nausea caused by Covid-19 can be severe enough to warrant prescription medication.

For my husband and me, benzonatate (for the cough) and promethazine (for the nausea) were lifesavers. Some colleagues were prescribed codeine-based cough medicine or Zofran. If you feel you might need them, ask your doctor about medications sooner rather than later. Dont wait until youre doubled over coughing or cant keep anything down.

If you dont have a primary care doctor, some urgent care clinics offer virtual appointments, and some pharmacies offer prescription delivery.

Dry air can exacerbate some symptoms such as coughing and chest tightness. If you have a humidifier, use it. If not, a hot shower works.

Several readers reported that they felt better when they lay on their stomach. A woman in Britain whose partner was sick for several weeks told me that a particular breathing exercise helped him:

You take a deep breath, hold it for 5 seconds and release. Do that 5 times, then on the 6th time on the release, cough hard. Do that cycle twice, then lie on your front and take slightly deeper breaths for 10 minutes. Try to do it a couple of times a day.

In some cases, your doctor may also prescribe an albuterol inhaler to reduce your cough and ease your breathing.

As soon as you get sick, start a detailed log. Every time you take your temperature do it several times a day, at consistent times log it. Every time you take a pill, log it. Every time you eat or drink, log it. If one symptom resolves or a new one develops, log it.

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How to Recover From Covid-19 at Home - The New York Times

Nearing 100000 COVID-19 Deaths, U.S. Is Still ‘Early In This Outbreak’ – NPR

Memorial Day weekend at Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island, N.Y. As the pandemic continues, Harvard's Dr. Ashish Jha says, mask wearing, social distancing and robust strategies of testing and contact tracing will be even more important. Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Memorial Day weekend at Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island, N.Y. As the pandemic continues, Harvard's Dr. Ashish Jha says, mask wearing, social distancing and robust strategies of testing and contact tracing will be even more important.

The bleak milestone the U.S. is about to hit 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 is far above the number of deaths seen from the pandemic in any other country.

So far, the impact of the coronavirus has been felt unevenly, striking certain cities and regions and particular segments of society much harder than others.

To get a sense of how that may change, and where in the course of the epidemic the U.S. is right now, NPR's Morning Edition host David Greene spoke Tuesday with Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and professor of health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

As you look at this number looming now, what are you reflecting on?

Well, a couple of things. First of all, it is a solemn moment to reflect on the idea that about 100,000 Americans have died mostly just in the last two months. The speed with which this has happened is really devastating. Of course, we've had very little opportunity to mourn all those losses because most of us have been shut down. And I've been thinking about where we go into the future and fall and reminding myself and others that we're early in this outbreak. We're not anywhere near done.

The U.S. ... has had more deaths than any country in the world. Do you think that the country is absorbing the significance of these numbers?

I think for a majority of Americans, this doesn't quite feel real because the deaths have been concentrated in [a] few places. Obviously, New York has been hit very hard, and some other places like Seattle, Chicago some of the big cities. And so people who don't live in those areas may not be absorbing it.

But the nature of this pandemic is that it starts and kind of accelerates in big cities, but then it moves out into the suburbs and into the rural areas. So, by the time we're done with this, I think every American will have felt it much more up close and personal. That's what I worry about that it shouldn't have to take that for people to really understand how tragic this is and how calamitous in many ways this is.

Q: We're coming out of Memorial Day weekend, and we saw many regulations relaxed in many parts of the country. As you were watching that, what are you predicting in terms of what we could see by the end of summer?

If you look at all of the models out there and most models have been relatively accurate a few of them have been too optimistic. But then, if you sort of look at the models of models the ones that really sort of combine it all and put it together and make projections the projections are that we're probably going to see 70,000 to 100,000 deaths between now and the end of the summer.

While the pace will slow down, because we are doing some amount of social distancing and testing is ramping up we're going to, unfortunately, see a lot more sickness and, unfortunately, a lot more deaths in the upcoming months.

Q: There's been talk of a seasonal aspect to this. Whatever happens over the summer, do we face even more deaths as we head later in the year?

Yes. I'm hoping that the models of the summer of an additional 70,000 to 100,000 deaths are too pessimistic. And they may be, because we may get a seasonal benefit because of the summer: People are outside more.

But the flip side of the seasonal benefit of the summer is what will almost surely be a pretty tough fall and winter with a surge of cases a wave that might be bigger than the wave we just went through. And we've got to prepare for that, because we can't be caught flat-footed the way we were this time around.

Q: What can we do to prepare? We're seeing so many states relax restrictions right now. Is it a matter of potentially putting those restrictions back in place where they need to be? Or are there other things we could be doing?

There are two things that I would say. First of all, people can't be locked down for the rest of this pandemic. I understand that people need to get out, and being outside is a good thing. But we have to maintain a certain amount of social distancing. I think mask wearing is really important.

The only other tool we have in our toolbox is a really robust testing, tracing, isolation program. You know, if you think about how it is that South Korea and Germany have been able to do much, much better? They have had a really aggressive testing, tracing, isolation program. We know that works. It allows us to kind of have more of our lives back without the number of deaths that we've suffered. So I really think that still remains and should remain one of our priority areas.

Q: The federal government's new strategic testing plan calls on states to take a lot of the responsibility for testing. ... Do you see that as the best approach?

I think this is a real missed opportunity and very unfortunate in many ways, because while states have a critical role to play, testing capacity and testing supply chains are national and international.

We don't want 50 states competing. We want a federal strategy that helps states. And I'm worried that we're just not getting that from the federal government.

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Nearing 100000 COVID-19 Deaths, U.S. Is Still 'Early In This Outbreak' - NPR

WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 – 29 May 2020 – World Health Organization

President Alvarado,

Prime Minister Mottley,

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

Since the beginning of the pandemic, science has been at the heart of WHOs efforts to suppress transmission and save lives.

Science is moving with incredible speed. Almost every day there is more news about research into vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

But will all people benefit from these tools? Or will they become another reason people are left behind? These are the two most important questions.

A month ago, WHO and partners launched the ACT Accelerator, to speed up the development, production and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID-19.

Today we are joining 35 countries and numerous partners to launch the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP.

C-TAP was first proposed by His Excellency President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica, and Id like to thank His Excellency the President for his leadership and solidarity.

C-TAP is a sister initiative of the ACT Accelerator and offers concrete actions to achieve the objective of the ACT Accelerator, which is equitable access.

C-TAP has five priorities:

First, public disclosure of gene sequencing research;

Second, public disclosure of all clinical trial results;

Third, encouraging governments and research funders to include clauses in contracts with pharmaceutical companies about equitable distribution and publication of trial data;

Fourth, licensing treatments and vaccines to large and small producers;

And fifth, promoting open innovation models and technology transfer that increase local manufacturing and supply capacity.

Through C-TAP, we are inviting companies or governments that develop an effective therapeutic to contribute the patent to the Medicines Patent Pool, which would then sub-license the patent to generic manufacturers.

C-TAP is voluntary, and builds on the success of the Medicines Patent Pool in expanding access to treatments for HIV and hepatitis C.

WHO recognizes the important role that patents play in fuelling innovation.

But this is a time when people must take priority.

Tools to prevent, detect and treat COVID-19 are global public goods that must be accessible by all people.

Science is giving us solutions, but to make those solutions work for everyone, we need solidarity.

COVID-19 has highlighted the inequalities of our world. But its also offering us an opportunity to bridge those inequalities and build a fairer world a world in which health is not a privilege for the few, but a common good.

Now it gives me enormous pleasure to introduce His Excellency Carlos Alvarado, the President of Costa Rica.

Muchas gracias, Presidente Alvarado, mi hermano. Mucho gusto por su liderazgo.

Thank you. Muchas gracias.

Link:

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 29 May 2020 - World Health Organization

Trump: US will terminate relationship with WHO amid Covid-19 pandemic – STAT

President Trump said Friday the U.S. would halt its funding of the World Health Organization and pull out of the agency, accusing it of protecting China as the coronavirus pandemic took off. The move has alarmed health experts, who say the decision will undermine efforts to improve the health of people around the world.

In an address in the Rose Garden, Trump said the WHO had not made reforms that he said would have helped the global health agency stop the coronavirus from spreading around the world.

We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs, Trump said. The world needs answers from China on the virus.

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Its not immediately clear whether the president can fully withdraw U.S. funding for the WHO without an act of Congress, which typically controls all federal government spending. Democratic lawmakers have argued that doing so would be illegal, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened last month that such a move would be swiftly challenged.

The United States has provided roughly 15% of the WHOs total funding over its current two-year budget period. A WHO spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

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Trumps announcement came the same day that the U.S. mission in Geneva met with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, about the countrys demands for WHO improvements. A source familiar with the meeting described it as constructive.

Some congressional Republicans have echoed Trumps attacks on the agency, but in a statement Friday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Senates health committee, said he disagreed with Trump.

Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it, said Alexander (R-Tenn.). Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.

Lawrence Gostin, the faculty director at Georgetowns ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law, called Trumps decision a dangerous move.

Its making an earth-shattering decision in the middle of the greatest health crisis weve experienced literally out of pique and whim, without any deliberative process, Gostin said.

The WHO has repeatedly said it was committed to a review of its response, but after the pandemic had ebbed. Last month, Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said the postmortem on the pandemic should wait until the emergency was over.

But as the Trump administrations response to pandemic has come under greater scrutiny, with testing problems and a lack of coordination in deploying necessary supplies, Trump has sought to cast further blame on China and the WHO for failing to snuff out the spread when the virus was centered in China. During his remarks, Trump alleged, without evidence, that China pressured WHO to mislead the world about the virus.

The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government, Trump said. Chinas coverup of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives, and over a million lives worldwide. (That last claim is not true; globally, there have been about 360,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.)

Trumps phrasing highlights the buildup of China-U.S. tensions amid the pandemic. After a Chinese government spokesman suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. Army first brought the novel coronavirus to Hubei province, Trump retaliated by using the terms Wuhan virus and Chinese virus words widely condemned as racist, and which coincided with a rash of racist incidents targeting Asian Americans.

Experts say that if the U.S. leaves the WHO, the influence of China will only grow.

Global health was our bipartisan moral leadership that had been preserved through this administration, said Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Center for Global Development. And right now that falls apart. Its really to me tragic that this one space that was really about our moral leadership and our convictions and soft power that were now going to let that go in the midst of a pandemic.

Glassman said there are thousands of U.S. employees at the WHO and its regional body for the Americas, and that the U.S. is home to 82 WHO collaborating centers.

When Trump earlier this month threatened to yank U.S. funding in a letter, Tedros would only say during a media briefing that the agency was reviewing it. But he and other officials stressed that the agency had a small budget about $2.3 billion every year relative to the impact the agency had and what it was expected to do.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHOs emergencies program, said the U.S. funding provided the largest proportion of that programs budget. In addition to the pandemic, the program also works to combat HIV, tuberculosis, polio, and other diseases.

So my concerns today are both for our program and working on how we improve our funding base for WHOs core budget, Ryan said. Replacing those life-saving funds for front-line health services to some of the most difficult places in the world well obviously have to work with other partners to ensure those funds can still flow. So this is going to have major implications for delivering essential health services to some of the most vulnerable people in the world and we trust that other donors will if necessary step in to fill that gap.

This story has been updated with reaction to the presidents announcement.

Lev Facher contributed reporting.

Read the rest here:

Trump: US will terminate relationship with WHO amid Covid-19 pandemic - STAT

The Covid-19 Riddle: Why Does the Virus Wallop Some Places and Spare Others? – The New York Times

The coronavirus has killed so many people in Iran that the country has resorted to mass burials, but in neighboring Iraq, the body count is fewer than 100.

The Dominican Republic has reported nearly 7,600 cases of the virus. Just across the border, Haiti has recorded about 85.

In Indonesia, thousands are believed to have died of the coronavirus. In nearby Malaysia, a strict lockdown has kept fatalities to about 100.

The coronavirus has touched almost every country on earth, but its impact has seemed capricious. Global metropolises like New York, Paris and London have been devastated, while teeming cities like Bangkok, Baghdad, New Delhi and Lagos have, so far, largely been spared.

The question of why the virus has overwhelmed some places and left others relatively untouched is a puzzle that has spawned numerous theories and speculations but no definitive answers. That knowledge could have profound implications for how countries respond to the virus, for determining who is at risk and for knowing when its safe to go out again.

There are already hundreds of studies underway around the world looking into how demographics, pre-existing conditions and genetics might affect the wide variation in impact.

Doctors in Saudi Arabia are studying whether genetic differences may help explain varying levels of severity in Covid-19 cases among Saudi Arabs, while scientists in Brazil are looking into the relationship between genetics and Covid-19 complications. Teams in multiple countries are studying if common hypertension medications might worsen the diseases severity and whether a particular tuberculosis vaccine might do the opposite.

Many developing nations with hot climates and young populations have escaped the worst, suggesting that temperature and demographics could be factors. But countries like Peru, Indonesia and Brazil, tropical countries in the throes of growing epidemics, throw cold water on that idea.

Draconian social-distancing and early lockdown measures have clearly been effective, but Myanmar and Cambodia did neither and have reported few cases.

One theory that is unproven but impossible to refute: maybe the virus just hasnt gotten to those countries yet. Russia and Turkey appeared to be fine until, suddenly, they were not.

Time may still prove the greatest equalizer: The Spanish flu that broke out in the United States in 1918 seemed to die down during the summer only to come roaring back with a deadlier strain in the fall, and a third wave the following year. It eventually reached far-flung places like islands in Alaska and the South Pacific and infected a third of the worlds population.

We are really early in this disease, said Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Research Institute. If this were a baseball game, it would be the second inning and theres no reason to think that by the ninth inning the rest of the world that looks now like it hasnt been affected wont become like other places.

Doctors who study infectious diseases around the world say they do not have enough data yet to get a full epidemiological picture, and that gaps in information in many countries make it dangerous to draw conclusions. Testing is woeful in many places, leading to vast underestimates of the viruss progress, and deaths are almost certainly undercounted.

Still, the broad patterns are clear. Even in places with abysmal record-keeping and broken health systems, mass burials or hospitals turning away sick people by the thousands would be hard to miss, and a number of places are just not seeing them at least not yet.

Interviews with more than two dozen infectious disease experts, health officials, epidemiologists and academics around the globe suggest four main factors that could help explain where the virus thrives and where it doesnt: demographics, culture, environment and the speed of government responses.

Each possible explanation comes with considerable caveats and confounding counter-evidence. If an aging population is the most vulnerable, for instance, Japan should be at the top of the list. It is far from it. Nonetheless these are the factors that experts find the most persuasive.

Many countries that have escaped mass epidemics have relatively younger populations.

Young people are more likely to contract mild or asymptomatic cases that are less transmissible to others, said Robert Bollinger, a professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. And they are less likely to have certain health problems that can make Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, particularly deadly, according to the World Health Organization.

Africa with about 45,000 reported cases, a tiny fraction of its 1.3 billion people is the worlds youngest continent, with more than 60 percent of its population under age 25. In Thailand and Najaf, Iraq, local health officials found that the 20-to-29 age group had the highest rate of infection but often showed few symptoms.

By contrast, the national median age in Italy, one of the hardest hit countries, is more than 45. The average age of those who died of Covid-19 there was around 80.

Younger people tend to have stronger immune systems, which can result in milder symptoms, said Josip Car, an expert in population and global health at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

In Singapore and Saudi Arabia, for instance, most of the infections are among foreign migrant workers, many of them living in cramped dormitories. However, many of those workers are young and fit, and have not required hospitalization.

Along with youth, relative good health can lessen the impact of the virus among those who are infected, while certain pre-existing conditions notably hypertension, diabetes and obesity can worsen the severity, researchers in the United States say.

There are notable exceptions to the demographic theory. Japan, with the worlds oldest average population, has recorded fewer than 520 deaths, although its caseload has risen with increased testing.

The Guayas region of Ecuador, the epicenter of an outbreak that may have claimed up to 7,000 lives, is one of the youngest in the country, with only 11 percent of its residents over 60 years old.

And Dr. Jha of Harvard warns that some young people who are not showing symptoms are also highly contagious for reasons that are not well understood.

Cultural factors, like the social distancing that is built into certain societies, may give some countries more protection, epidemiologists said.

In Thailand and India, where virus numbers are relatively low, people greet each other at a distance, with palms joined together as in prayer. In Japan and South Korea, people bow, and long before the coronavirus arrived, they tended to wear face masks when feeling unwell.

In much of the developing world, the custom of caring for the elderly at home leads to fewer nursing homes, which have been tinder for tragic outbreaks in the West.

However, there are notable exceptions to the cultural distancing theory. In many parts of the Middle East, such as Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries, men often embrace or shake hands on meeting, yet most are not getting sick.

What might be called national distancing has also proven advantageous. Countries that are relatively isolated have reaped health benefits from their seclusion.

Far-flung nations, such as some in the South Pacific and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, have not been as inundated with visitors bringing the virus with them. Health experts in Africa cite limited travel from abroad as perhaps the main reason for the continents relatively low infection rate.

Countries that are less accessible for political reasons, like Venezuela, or because of conflict, like Syria and Libya, have also been somewhat shielded by the lack of travelers, as have countries like Lebanon and Iraq, which have endured widespread protests in recent months.

The lack of public transportation in developing countries may have also reduced the spread of the virus there.

The geography of the outbreak which spread rapidly during the winter in temperate zone countries like Italy and the United States and was virtually unseen in warmer countries such as Chad or Guyana seemed to suggest that the virus did not take well to heat. Other coronaviruses, such as ones that cause the common cold, are less contagious in warmer, moist climates.

But researchers say the idea that hot weather alone can repel the virus is wishful thinking.

Some of the worst outbreaks in the developing world have been in places like the Amazonas region of Brazil, as tropical a place as any.

The best guess is that summer conditions will help but are unlikely by themselves to lead to significant slowing of growth or to a decline in cases, said Marc Lipsitch, the director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard University.

The virus that causes Covid-19 appears to be so contagious as to mitigate any beneficial effect of heat and humidity, said Dr. Raul Rabadan, a computational biologist at Columbia University.

But other aspects of warm climates, like people spending more time outside, could help.

People living indoors within enclosed environments may promote virus recirculation, increasing the chance of contracting the disease, said Mr. Car of Nanyang Technological University.

The ultraviolet rays of direct sunlight inhibit the growth of this coronavirus, according to a study by ecological modelers at the University of Connecticut. So surfaces in sunny places may be less likely to remain contaminated, but transmission usually occurs through contact with an infected person, not by touching a surface.

No scientist has proposed that beaming light inside an infected person, as President Trump suggested, would be an effective cure. And tropical conditions may have even lulled some people into a false sense of security.

People were saying Its hot here, nothing will happen to me, said Dr. Domnica Cevallos, a medical investigator in Ecuador. Some were even going out on purpose to sunbathe, thinking it would protect them from infection.

Countries that locked down early, like Vietnam and Greece, have been able to avoid out-of-control contagions, evidence of the power of strict social distancing and quarantines to contain the virus.

In Africa, countries with bitter experience with killers like H.I.V., drug-resistant tuberculosis and Ebola knew the drill and reacted quickly.

Airport staff from Sierra Leone to Uganda were taking temperatures (since found to be a less effective measure) and contact details and wearing masks long before their counterparts in the United States and Europe took such precautions.

Senegal and Rwanda closed their borders and announced curfews when they still had very few cases. Health ministries began contact tracing early.

All this happened in a region where health ministries had come to rely on money, personnel and supplies from foreign donors, many of which had to turn their attention to outbreaks in their own countries, said Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center.

Countries wake up one day and theyre like, OK, the weight of the country rests on our shoulders, so we need to step up, she said. And they have. Some of the responses have been beautiful to behold, honestly.

Sierra Leone repurposed disease-tracking protocols that had been established in the wake of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, in which almost 4,000 people died there. The government set up emergency operations centers in every district and recruited 14,000 community health workers, 1,500 of whom are being trained as contact tracers, even though Sierra Leone has only about 155 confirmed cases.

It is not clear, however, who will pay for their salaries or for expenses like motorcycles and raincoats to keep them operating during the coming wet season.

Uganda, which also suffered during the Ebola contagion, quickly quarantined travelers from Dubai after the first case of coronavirus arrived from there. Authorities also tracked down about 800 others who had traveled from Dubai in previous weeks.

The Ugandan health authorities are also testing around 1,000 truck drivers a day. But many of those who test positive have come from Tanzania and Kenya, countries that are not monitoring as aggressively, leading to worries that the virus will keep penetrating porous borders.

Lockdowns, with bans on religious conclaves and spectator sporting events, clearly work, the World Health Organization says. More than a month after closing national borders, schools and most businesses, countries from Thailand to Jordan have seen new infections drop.

In the Middle East, the widespread shuttering of mosques, shrines and churches happened relatively early and probably helped stem the spread in many countries.

A notable exception was Iran, which did not close some of its largest shrines until March 18, a full month after it registered its first case in the pilgrimage city of Qum. The epidemic spread quickly from there, killing thousands in the country and spreading the virus across borders as pilgrims returned home.

As effective as lockdowns are, in countries lacking a strong social safety net and those where most people work in the informal economy, orders closing businesses and requiring people to shelter in place will be difficult to maintain for long. When people are forced to choose between social distancing and feeding their families, they are choosing the latter.

Counter-intuitively, some countries where authorities reacted late and with spotty enforcement of lockdowns appear to have been spared. Cambodia and Laos both had brief spates of infections when few social distancing measures were in place but neither has recorded a new case in about three weeks.

Lebanon, whose Muslim and Christian citizens often go on pilgrimages respectively to Iran and Italy, places rife with the virus, should have had high numbers of infections. It has not.

We just didnt see what we were expecting, said Dr. Roy Nasnas, an infectious disease consultant at the University Hospital Geitaoui in Beirut. We dont know why.

Finally, most experts agree that there may be no single reason for some countries to be hit and others missed. The answer is likely to be some combination of the above factors, as well as one other mentioned by researchers: sheer luck.

Countries with the same culture and climate could have vastly different outcomes if one infected person attends a crowded social occasion, turning it into what researchers call a super-spreader event.

That happened when a passenger infected 634 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Japan, when an infected guest attended a large funeral in Albany, Ga., and when a 61-year-old woman went to church in Daegu, South Korea, spreading the disease to hundreds of congregants and then to thousands of other Koreans.

Because an infected person may not experience symptoms for a week or more, if at all, the disease spreads under the radar, exponentially and seemingly at random. Had the woman in Daegu stayed home that Sunday in February, the outbreak in South Korea might have been less than half of what it is.

Some countries that should have been inundated are not, leaving researchers scratching their heads.

Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.

And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure.

In Indonesia, we have a health minister who believes you can pray away Covid, and we have too little testing, said Dr. Pandu Riono, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Indonesia. But we are lucky we have so many islands in our country that limit travel and maybe infection.

Theres nothing else were doing right, he added.

Original post:

The Covid-19 Riddle: Why Does the Virus Wallop Some Places and Spare Others? - The New York Times

Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces Results of Completed Antibody Testing Study of 15000 People Showing 12.3 Percent of…

Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces Results of Completed Antibody Testing Study of 15,000 People Showing 12.3 Percent of Population Has COVID-19 Antibodies | Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Skip to main content

State Will Distribute Over7 Million More Cloth Masks to Vulnerable New Yorkers and Frontline Workers Across the State

State is Distributing $25 Million to Food Banks Across the State Through the Nourish New York Initiative

Confirms 4,663 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 312,977; New Cases in 44 Counties

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the results of the state's completed antibody testing study, showing 12.3 percent of the population have COVID-19 antibodies. The survey developed a baseline infection rate by testing 15,000 peopleat grocery stores and community centers across the state over the past two weeks.Of those tested, 11.5% of women tested positive and 13.1% of men tested positive. A regional breakdown of the results is below:

Region

Percent Positive

Capital District

2.2%

Central NY

1.9%

Finger Lakes

2.6%

Hudson Valley(Without Westchester/Rockland)

3%

Long Island

11.4%

Mohawk Valley

2.7%

North Country

1.2%

NYC

19.9%

Southern Tier

2.4%

Westchester/Rockland

13.8%

Western NY

6%

Audio Photos

The Governor also announced that the state will distribute over seven million more cloth masks to vulnerable New Yorkers and essential workers across the state. The masks will be distributed as follows:

While we're in uncharted waters it doesn't mean we proceed blindly, and the results of the 15,000 people tested in our antibody survey program - thelargest survey in the nation - will inform our strategy moving forward

The Governor also announced the state is distributing $25 million to food banks across the state through the Nourish New York Initiative. The Nourish New York initiative, announced earlier this week by Governor Cuomo, is working to quickly reroute NewYork's surplus agricultural products to the populations who need them most through New York's network of food banks. Funding will be distributed as follows:

"While we're in uncharted waters it doesn't mean we proceed blindly, and the results of the 15,000 people tested in our antibody survey program - thelargest survey in the nation - will inform our strategy moving forward,"Governor Cuomo said."We're also going to undertake a full survey of antibody testing for transit workers, who have been on the front lines of this crisis. We've said thank you to our essential workers thousands of times but actions speak louder than words, and we want them to know that we're doing everything we can do to keep them safe."

Finally, the Governor confirmed 4,663 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 312,977 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 312,977 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

County

Total Positive

New Positive

Albany

1,238

34

Allegany

35

0

Broome

305

6

Cattaraugus

50

1

Cayuga

51

0

Chautauqua

35

0

Chemung

124

1

Chenango

99

0

Clinton

62

1

Columbia

205

3

Cortland

28

0

Delaware

61

0

Dutchess

3,049

47

Erie

3,598

117

Essex

28

0

Franklin

15

0

Fulton

79

4

Genesee

155

1

Greene

142

3

Hamilton

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Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces Results of Completed Antibody Testing Study of 15000 People Showing 12.3 Percent of...

Covid-19 recap: Benchmarks, restrictions, and round two? – Port City Daily

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. (Port City Daily photo illustration/Courtesy CDC)

WILMINGTON The last two weeks saw some light at the end of the tunnel, with some local restrictions lifted and hope for a phased state-wide reopening. Still, tensions continue to mount over how and when to fully reopen businesses and public spaces.

What follows is a snapshot that, at least for the time being, covers some of the major moving parts of the Covid-19 situation: the states new metrics for reopening, restrictions and resistance to those restrictions, and what the future beyond reopening in the next months might hold.

If youre looking for resources, you can find some useful ones here:Covid-19 resource roundup: Wilmington-area small businesses, childcare, health, info [Free read]. If youre looking for whats still open, you can find a directory of local businesseshere.

Of course, its hard to recap the whole week, so you can find all of Port City Dailysfree reporting on Covid-19 here.We also encourage you to send comments, questions, and concerns to info@portcitydaily.com.

Late last month, Governor Roy Cooper announced the state was looking at a three-phase reopening plan, beginning as soon as May 8 (when the current stay-at-home order expires). The plan looks to four variables to decide when to move ahead into each new phase: (1) number of Covid-like cases, (2) positive laboratory tests, (3) percentage of total tests that come back positive, and (4) hospitalization.

Take a deep dive into the place with our podcast, here.

Its important to note that these variable go beyond just the number of new cases. While some news outlets continue to announce daily increases, at least some of those dramatic efforts to ramp up testing meaning those with minor symptoms, not just serious respiratory issues, are getting counted now. As Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, put it, the more you test, the more cases youll find.

So where are things right now? Unfortunately, several of the metrics continue to trend slightly upward, including the number of hospitalizations (at any given time) in the graph above.

Below, graphics based on data from NCDHHS on Covid-like cases, testing, and positive tests.

Cases with symptoms similar to Covid-19 Mild COVID-19 illness presents with symptoms similar to influenza-like illness, so surveillance systems that have historically been used during influenza seasons are being used to track trends of mild COVID-19 illness and allow for comparison with prior influenza seasons. It also includes influenza, allowing the state to determine the level of Covid-19 cases above and beyond typical levels of flu cases, according to NCDHHS.

Laboratory-confirmed cases Unfortunately, it doesnt yet look like the case numbers are leveling off, let alone decreasing. However, thats not the whole story (see percentage of tests, below).

Percentage of tests that come back positive Because of increased testing supplies and aggressive efforts to implement those tests, a wider portion of the population is being tested. That means, to some extent, increased numbers of cases arent necessarily new cases as much as they are previously undocumented ones. In other words, its just a better picture of whats out there.

To that end, the percentage of tests that come back positive rather than just the total number of positives is the more important data figure. And, in that department, the percentage of positive cases do appear to be leveling and even decreasing.

This week, New Hanover County allowed its restrictions (which went beyond Governor Coopers executive orders) to lapse, leaving it up to beach towns and Wilmington whether or not to keep stricter rules.

Beach towns including Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach have opened access points and allowed limited activities, mostly mobile exercise (i.e. running is ok, yoga is not) and requiring social distancing. While the mayors of those towns have said relaxed rules could be put back in place, theres also hope for additional restrictions to be lifted. (For example, on Friday, Carolina Beach announced it would allow fishing from the public beach strand starting Monday).

Its worth noting that some of the moves including the selective reopening of fishing piers in Wrightsville Beach and Kure Beach seem to pose some serious state constitutional issues.

Wilmington continued its State of Emergency (and will formally approve it on Tuesday), maintaining six of the nine additional restrictions initially imposed by the county in April. These include the closure of short-term rentals, motels, and hotels (except were in accordance with government efforts to provide emergency lodging and resource management). It also includes keeping public playgrounds and sports facilities (except golf, tennis, and pickleball) closed.

The updated state of emergency does allow for take-out food from restaurants, relaxing the curbside-only policy put in place in March.

Additionally, auto sales are allowed after considerable back-and-forth between the local dealers (backed by the statewide dealership lobby) and local leaders.

Much of the states plan for reopening is based on the best and latest data available but theres a great deal of uncertainty. It remains unclear what the diseases actual mortality rate is, how widespread it actually is right now, and perhaps most importantly whether or not those who get the disease develop lasting immunity (or any immunity at all).

Immunity is a spectrum, after all. With some viruses like Chickenpox humans develop lifelong immunity. With others like HIV theres nearly no protection at all. It remains unclear where SARS-CoV-2 lies on the spectrum (for a good overview,check out Scientific Americans article on the issue).

This uncertainty has led to speculation about whether there will be a second wave of Covid-19 in the fall of 2020. And, while recent polling by Meredith College indicated that three out of four North Carolinians supported Governor Coopers restrictions, its worth considering how many would be willing to go through another round of lock-downs and closures after just a few months.

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Covid-19 recap: Benchmarks, restrictions, and round two? - Port City Daily

Livingston County COVID-19 cases at 80 with 5 new cases confirmed Saturday – The Livingston County News

The Livingston County Department of Health reported five new positive cases of COVID-19 in Livingston County this morning.

The total number of positive cases the county has had is 80, with 34 of those cases active as of Saturday, according to the countys COVID-19 data tracking map.

The newest cases include a male in his 40s living in Mount Morris, a male in his 20s who resides in Mount Morris, a female in her 50s who resides in Geneseo, a male in his 70s who resides in Conesus, and a male infant living in North Dansville.

The individuals and any associated household members are now in the county Department of Health quarantine process, according to Jennifer Rodriguez, the countys public health director.

The county Department of Health has begun outreach to identify close contacts and potential exposure areas per prescribed New York State regulations, Rodriguez said.

The county has reported 33 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 13 days. The last day without a new case reported was April 18.

Rodriguez attributed the succession of positive cases to the increased testing the county has been able to conduct. More than 1,100 Livingston County residents have been tested for COVID-19, including nearly 50 on Friday. The results include 1,078 negative test results, and 80 positive tests.

COVID-19 testing is available for Livingston County residents at curbside testing locations in Dansville and Geneseo. The tests are to confirm the presence of the COVID-19 virus and are not an antibody test, which is a blood test that looks for antibodies that are created in your body after you have had COVID-19.

Individuals seeking a test will need to first call their primary care physician to get a requisition for a test. Individuals who do not have a healthcare provider, should call the Livingston County Department of Health at (585) 243-7270 to see if they meet the COVID-19 testing criteria.

Testing includes those with COVID-19 symptoms such as fever, cough or trouble breathing. Testing has also been expanded to include those who are considered essential healthcare workers and those without a fever, but having other respiratory ailments, or those who are vulnerable due to underlying health conditions.

COVID-19 testing in Livingston County has also been prioritized for individuals with or without symptoms who are employed as health care workers, first responders, or in any position within a nursing home, long-term care facility, or other congregate care setting.

Confirmed cases in Livingston County include 25 in Avon, including 13 at the Avon Nursing Home; 11 in Geneseo, 10 in Mount Morris, six in Nunda, five each in Caledonia, Livonia, North Dansville and York, four in Lima, three in Conesus, and one in Springwater.

The county has reported that 41 patients have recovered from the virus. These include eight each in Geneseo and Avon, five each in Mount Morris and Nunda, four in Livonia, three in North Dansville and York, two in Conesus, and one each in Caledonia, Lima and Springwater, according to the countys COVID-19 data tracking map.

The county has reported five deaths attributed to COVID-19.

The county updates its COVID-19 tracking map daily. To view it, click here.

If you have a fever, cough or trouble breathing, call your health care provider for an assessment of your symptoms.

If you feel as though you may have had exposure to COVID-19, call the county Department of Health at (585) 243-7270.

For general information on COVID-19 or to learn how to volunteer, call 1-877-280-6775.

Livingston County Mental Health has created a help line for community members who need someone to talk to during these stressful times. This is a free and confidential service. Call (585) 243-7251 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Livingston County COVID-19 cases at 80 with 5 new cases confirmed Saturday - The Livingston County News

Increased testing continues to push COVID-19 count higher – The Southern

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Gov. JB Pritzker says during a news conference Saturday in Chicago that the increased number of cases of COVID-19 in Illinois is directly a result of increased testing.

SPRINGFIELD Illinois COVID-19 confirmed case count grew by nearly 2,500 again Saturday as a sustained increase in testing continues to drive the number upward.

It really is a function of doing more testing, Gov. JB Pritzker said of the increased positive case count at his daily briefing on the virus Saturday.

There are now 58,505 confirmed cases in Illinois in 97 counties, including 2,559 deaths.

But the state reported another 15,208 test results, meaning about 16 percent of those resulted in positive cases. That number has gone down in recent weeks from a consistent appearance in the 20s to more frequently appearing in the teens. They had spiked, however, in the two days prior to Saturday.

There have been just less than 300,000 tests conducted in Illinois since the outbreak began, and the state has tested more than 10,000 residents daily for more than a week.

We're doing more and more testing, that is a very good thing, Pritzker said. It's a very good sign, because more testing leads us to be able to keep more people at home who may have come in contact with those people so that we can have fewer infections across the state rather than more.

There were also 105 more deaths related to the virus reported in the past 24 hours, and 4,717 COVID-19 patients were still hospitalized as of midnight Friday, according to Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. There were 1,250 COVID-19 patients in intensive care beds and 789 on ventilators as of midnight as well, according to IDPH.

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Increased testing continues to push COVID-19 count higher - The Southern