Coronavirus Archive 2020

2020 ENDS!

December 31st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

228,663 New U.S. cases
19,046 New India cases
56,003 New Brazil cases
19,927 New France cases
27,747 New Russia cases
55,892 New UK cases – ALL TIME HIGH
23,477 New Italy cases
32,486 New Germany cases
13,464 New Poland cases
1. 9,699 New Ukraine cases
12,159 New Mexico cases
31,249 New cases in California

Over 83.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.8 Million
U.S. Cases topped 20.4 million
Over 228K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 83,809,705
Daily new cases: 746,674
Global deaths: 1,825,780 with 13,672 new deaths
Global recovered: 59,325,746
Mortality rate: 2.18%
Recovery rate: 70.79%

U.S. cases: 20,445,654
U.S. new cases: 228,663
U.S. deaths: 354,215
U.S. recovered: 12,125,806
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,437

Texas cases: 1,776,304 with 17,175 new cases
Texas deaths: 28,227 – 329 Today
Dallas County cases: 193,318
Dallas County new cases: – 1,774
Dallas County deaths: 2,00 – 36 today

Today’s Headlines

December 31:

Vitamin D can help reduce coronavirus risk by 54%: Boston University doctor

[Boston Herald] Stop waiting for a miracle drug: A Boston University doctor says a sufficient amount of vitamin D can cut the risk of catching coronavirus by 54%.

“People have been looking for the magic drug or waiting for the vaccine and not looking for something this simple,” said Dr. Michael Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine.

Holick and his colleagues studied blood samples from Quest Diagnostics of more than 190,000 Americans from all 50 states and found that those who had deficient levels of vitamin D had 54% higher COVID positivity compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D in the blood.

The risk of getting coronavirus continued to decline as vitamin D levels increased, the study, published in the Public Library of Science One peer-reviewed journal shows.

“The higher your vitamin D status, lower was your risk,” Holick said.

Many people are vitamin D-deficient because there are only small amounts in food, Holick said. Most vitamin D comes from sun exposure and many are deprived, especially during winter months.

But the sunshine vitamin is easy to find and relatively cheap in drug stores, and taking vitamin D pills comes at no risk. “It’s perfectly safe,” Holick said.

This supplement contains all the ingredients currently recommended to ward off this nasty virus, along with some other nice additions.

Taking supplements does NOT mean you should stop being VERY careful.

America’s Vaccine Rollout Is Already a Disaster

[NYMAG] It’s happening all over again. For months, Americans who despaired about the country’s coronavirus-suppression efforts looked desperately to the arrival of a vaccine for a kind of pandemic deliverance. Now that it has arrived, miraculously fast, we are failing utterly to administer it with anything like the urgency the pace of dying requires — and, perhaps most maddeningly, failing in precisely the same way as we did earlier in the year. That is, out of apparent, near-total indifference.

Almost as soon as the coronavirus arrived in the United States, public-health officials understood quite precisely the basic building blocks of a proper response: test, trace, isolate — in the three-beat mantra of those early months. There were, along the way, misunderstandings and miscalculations — about surface versus aerosol transmission, about mask-wearing, about the relative safety of outdoor socializing, among others. But the basic path was abundantly clear, as nearly every epidemiologist kept screaming, and yet the country failed spectacularly to walk down it. Within hours of receiving WHO guidance on January 13, scientists in Thailand began deploying a COVID-19 test, as the Washington Post recently recounted; it took the CDC 46 days to produce one that worked. By March 1, South Korea was administering 11,000 tests per day, a rapidly growing figure; in the U.S., a country about seven times larger, the number was 183. Early, low-end estimates suggested 500,000 to 700,000 tests each day were necessary to slow the spread of the disease, and high-end estimates ran to 3 million per day; the U.S. didn’t reach 700,000 daily tests until mid-June, and still hasn’t reached that threshold of 3 million per day. As recently as August, lab delays caused by pent-up demand meant it was taking so long to deliver results that the tests themselves were effectively meaningless.

…How badly are we doing? In September, President Trump promised 100 million vaccinations by the end of the year. As a country, we have only 40 million doses, and had aimed, according to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, to vaccinate 20 million by year-end. That’s bad enough. But we have administered only 2 million of those — barely 10 percent of the goal. At this rate, achieving sufficient vaccination to reach herd immunity and bring the pandemic to a close in the U.S. will take about seven years. In Israel, they are vaccinating about one percent of the population each day, meaning the full program of population-wide vaccination will be done by this March…

December 30th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

239,287 New U.S. cases
21,957 New India cases
55,853 New Brazil cases
26,457 New France cases
26,513 New Russia cases
50,023 New UK cases
16,202 New Italy cases
24,838 New Germany cases
12,780 New Poland cases
1. 7,986 New Ukraine cases
12,406 New Mexico cases
32,525 New cases in California

Over 83 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.8 Million
U.S. Cases topped 20.2 million
Over 239K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 83,063,031
Daily new cases: 740,841
Global deaths: 1,812,108 with 15,816 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 58,867,005
Mortality rate: 2.18%
Recovery rate: 70.87%

U.S. cases: 20,216,991
U.S. new cases: 239,287
U.S. deaths: 350,778
U.S. recovered: 11,998,794
U.S. Daily fatalities: 4,199 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,759,131 with 19,715 new cases
Texas deaths: 27,898 – 314 Today
Dallas County cases: 191,544
Dallas County new cases: – 2,292
Dallas County deaths: 1,971 – 16 today

Today’s Headlines

December 30:

‘We are getting crushed.’ What’s behind the alarming rise in California’s Covid-19 cases

(CNN) Since the Thanksgiving holiday, California has faced a surge of Covid-19 infections unparalleled across the United States, leading to continued daily record highs in hospitalizations and deaths.

Bed capacity in intensive care units has plunged to nearly zero in vast portions of the state as patients rush into hospitals, which are struggling to manage strains on resources and personnel.

“We’re experiencing an explosive and very deadly surge,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said December 16.

State and local officials are continuing to enact lockdown and quarantine protocols for residents and visitors, even as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout has provided some long-term hope. Aggressive stay-at-home measures put forth throughout California two weeks ago have yet to slow the spread.

As the nation’s most populous state and home to approximately 1 in 9 Americans, California would understandably lead in a category such as total cases in a pandemic felt nationwide. However, it is the sheer volume of sick residents and the rate of increase that is particularly driving alarm.

On November 1, the seven-day average for new daily cases in California was 4,183. On December 29, it was 31,245.

…Yet the spike cannot be attributed to Thanksgiving alone. California cases were already beginning to rise earlier in November. State officials at the time directly tied it to Covid-19 fatigue, with more instances of private, indoor gatherings that can expose individuals to greater risk of infection.

“Unfortunately, the stories I hear from the patients, it’s all been the same story. People are just having Covid fatigue,” Dr. Thomas Yadegar, the ICU director at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, told CNN’s Paul Vercammen on December 18.

Yadegar explained his patients often described practicing social distancing and being mindful until Thanksgiving arrived, even going as far as checking symptoms and testing before meeting family…

‘Out of control’: Dr. Fauci on Covid-19 surge

CNN‘s Jim Sciutto speaks to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the growing coronavirus pandemic, where Fauci says January may be even worse than December.

Watch video

1st reported US case of COVID-19 variant found in Colorado

DENVER — The first reported U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant that’s been seen in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday, adding urgency to efforts to vaccinate Americans.

The variant was found in a man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver in Elbert County and has no travel history, state health officials said.

Elbert County is a mainly rural area of rolling plains at the far edge of the Denver metro area that includes a portion of Interstate 70, the state’s main east-west highway.

Colorado Politics reported there is a second suspected case of the variant in the state according to Dwayne Smith, director of public health for Elbert County. Both of the people were working in the Elbert County community of Simla. Neither of them are residents of that county — expanding the possibility of the variant’s spread throughout the state.

The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the virus variant, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified.

Scientists in the U.K. believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. The vaccines being given now are thought to be effective against the variant, Colorado health officials said in a news release.

December 29th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

196,080 New U.S. cases
20,529 New India cases
57,605 New Brazil cases
11,395 New France cases
27,787 New Russia cases
53,135 New UK cases – ALL TIME HIGH
11,210 New Italy cases
15,960 New Germany cases
7,624 New Poland cases
6,988 New Ukraine cases
12,099 New Mexico cases
35,197 New cases in California

Over 82.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19.9 million
Over 196K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 82,322,190
Daily new cases: 650,855
Global deaths: 1,796,292 with 14,787 new deaths
Global recovered: 58,331,524
Mortality rate: 2.18%
Recovery rate: 70.86%

U.S. cases: 19,977,704
U.S. new cases: 196,080
U.S. deaths: 346,579
U.S. recovered: 11,844,472
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,397

Texas cases: 1,739,416 with 22,696 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 27,584 – 271 Today
Dallas County cases: 189,252
Dallas County new cases: – 1,129
Dallas County deaths: 1,955 – 19 today

Today’s Headlines

December 29:

Wuhan’s infections may have been 10 times higher

(CNN) Nearly half a million residents in the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus first emerged may have been infected with Covid-19 — almost 10 times its official number of confirmed cases, according to a study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study used a sample of 34,000 people in the general population in Wuhan — the original epicenter of the pandemic — and other cities in Hubei province, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, and the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Liaoning to estimate Covid-19 infection rates.

The researchers found an antibody prevalence rate of 4.43% for Covid-19 among residents in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people. As of Sunday, Wuhan had reported a total of 50,354 confirmed cases of Covid-19, according to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.

The study aimed to estimate the scale of past infections in a population by testing blood serum samples from a pool of people for coronavirus antibodies. Its findings are not taken to be final statistics of how many people in a given area have been exposed to the virus.

The Chinese CDC said the study was conducted a month after China “contained the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.” The prevalence rate outside of Wuhan is significantly lower, the study showed. In other cities in Hubei, only 0.44% of residents surveyed were found to have coronavirus antibodies.

Outside the province, antibodies were only detected in two people among the more than 12,000 residents surveyed.

The results of the study were revealed in a Chinese CDC post on social media Monday. It did not mention whether the study has been published in academic journals.

December 28th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

207,777 New U.S. cases
16,072 New India cases
32,605 New Brazil cases
2,960 New France cases
27,787 New Russia cases
41,385 New UK cases – ALL TIME HIGH
8,581 New Italy cases
14,872 New Germany cases
3,211 New Poland cases
4,385 New Ukraine cases
5,996 New Mexico cases
38,705 New cases in California

Over 81.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19.7 million
Over 207K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 81,671,335
Daily new cases: 529,206
Global deaths: 1,781,505 with 9,621 new deaths
Global recovered: 57,797,388
Mortality rate: 2.18%
Recovery rate: 70.77%

U.S. cases: 19,781,624
U.S. new cases: 207,777
U.S. deaths: 343,182
U.S. recovered: 11,696,727
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,044

Texas cases: 1,715,594 with 18,880 new cases
Texas deaths: 27,313 – 126 Today
Dallas County cases: 188,123
Dallas County new cases: – 1,243
Dallas County deaths: 1,936 – 5 today

December 27th #COVID19 Status

U.S. numbers are significantly low due to lack of activity during this holiday. Expect this to be the case through the weekend.

Highest Growth Zones:

140,000 New U.S. cases
20,333 New India cases
8,479 New Brazil cases
8,822 New France cases
28,284 New Russia cases
32,340 New UK cases
8,937 New Italy cases
12,153 New Germany cases
3,842 New Poland cases
6,113 New Ukraine cases
6,217 New Mexico cases
23,079 New cases in California

Over 81.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19.5 million
Over 140K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 81,142,129
Daily new cases: 424,395
Global deaths: 1,771,884 with 7,263 new deaths
Global recovered: 57,291,222
Mortality rate: 2.18%
Recovery rate: 70.61%

U.S. cases: 19,573,847
U.S. new cases: 140,000
U.S. deaths: 341,138
U.S. recovered: 11,495,875
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,217

Texas cases: 1,696,714 with 12,887 new cases
Texas deaths: 27,187 – 58 Today
Dallas County cases: 186,880
Dallas County new cases: – 6,074
Dallas County deaths: 1,931 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

December 27:

The casualties of this year’s viral conspiracy theories

[BBC] — Conspiracy theories ripped through the internet this year, destroying relationships and endangering lives.

The flurry of online falsehoods about coronavirus began as soon as the pandemic hit.

Misleading pictures suggesting tanks were rolling down village streets and lists of false diagnostic tips were frantically forwarded on WhatsApp.

As luck would have it, I had just begun my job reporting on the impact of online disinformation.

With the help of a BBC team of experts, I got to work looking into the spread of one really viral post.

At first glance, the post seemed legitimate, because the information was attributed to a trusted source: a doctor, an institution, or well-educated “uncle”. It hopped across Facebook profiles around the world, translated into Italian, Arabic and a dozen other languages.

But along with useful information like “wash your hands”, it listed false cures and phony diagnostic tests.

One of the people most responsible for its online spread was an 84-year-old pensioner from Buckinghamshire.

Peter Lee Goodchild assured me that he did not intend to share bad information – but his version of the dodgy post accumulated more than 400,000 shares in early spring.

Have his online habits changed since he went super viral? Not a whole lot.

“Four times I’ve been pulled up by Full Fact or one of the others who vet Facebook to say ‘No that’s incorrect’ or ‘That wasn’t said’ or ‘That didn’t happen’,” Peter explained when I spoke to him later.

He told me he posts on Facebook now more than ever.

Peter may have had good intentions, and although some of the information in his viral post was wrong, it wasn’t critically dangerous.

That’s not always the case when it comes to online falsehoods. Our team found numerous links around the world between misleading and false posts online and serious real world harm.

False claims about 5G technology inspired arsons attacks on phone masts and assaults on telecommunications workers. We catalogued mass poisonings and overdoses of hydroxychloroquine – a drug that world leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro falsely claimed cures or prevents Covid-19.

December 26th #COVID19 Status

U.S. numbers are significantly low due to lack of activity during this holiday. Expect this to be the case through the weekend.

Highest Growth Zones:

223,681 New U.S. cases
18,574 New India cases
17,246 New Brazil cases
3,093 New France cases
29,258 New Russia cases
34,693 New UK cases
10,405 New Italy cases
10,432 New Germany cases
4,878 New Poland cases
7,709 New Ukraine cases
4,974 New Mexico cases
56,830 New cases in California

Over 80.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19.4 million
Over 223K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 80,717,733
Daily new cases: 510,578
Global deaths: 1,764,621 with 6,981 new deaths
Global recovered: 56,908,850
Mortality rate: 2.19%
Recovery rate: 70.50%

U.S. cases: 19,433,847
U.S. new cases: 223,681
U.S. deaths: 339,921
U.S. recovered: 11,410,501
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,658

Texas cases: 1,671,790 with 5,691 new cases
Texas deaths: 27,129 – 20 Today
Dallas County cases: 180,806
Dallas County new cases: – 1,388
Dallas County deaths: 1,925 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

December 26:

Covid symptoms: What are they and how long should I self-isolate for?

The three main symptoms of coronavirus are a fever, a continuous dry cough, or a loss of smell or taste.

According to the UK National Health Service, anyone with these symptoms should get a Covid test and stay at home to help stop the virus from spreading.

But how do you know if you have Covid-19, or you are ill with something else? What do the symptoms feel like?

And how long do you need to self-isolate for exactly?

BBC health and science correspondent Laura Foster explains.

Watch Video – There are TWO back-to-back – watch BOTH

December 25th #COVID19 Status

Christmas Day

U.S. numbers are significantly low due to lack of activity during this holiday. Expect this to be the case through the weekend.

Highest Growth Zones:

98,840 New U.S. cases
22,350 New India cases
22,967 New Brazil cases
20,262 New France cases
29,018 New Russia cases
32,725 New UK cases
19,037 New Italy cases
18,411 New Germany cases
9,091 New Poland cases
11,035 New Ukraine cases
19,679 New Mexico cases – ALL TIME HIGH
21,797 New cases in California

Over 80.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19.2 million
Over 98K new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 80,207,155
Daily new cases: 475,655
Global deaths: 1,757,640 with 8,211 new deaths
Global recovered: 56,471,521
Mortality rate: 2.19%
Recovery rate: 70.41%

U.S. cases: 19,210,166
U.S. new cases: 98,840
U.S. deaths: 338,263
U.S. recovered: 11,257,711
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,197

Texas cases: 1,666,099 with 2,347 new cases
Texas deaths: 27,109 – 151 Today
Dallas County cases: 179,418
Dallas County new cases: – None Reported
Dallas County deaths: 1,921 – 17 today

December 24th #COVID19 Status

Christmas Eve

U.S. numbers are significantly low due to lack of activity during this holiday. Expect this to be the case through the weekend.

Highest Growth Zones:

194,174 New U.S. cases
23,914 New India cases
58,916 New Brazil cases
21,634 New France cases
29,935 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
39,036 New UK cases – ALL TIME HIGH
18,039 New Italy cases
26,418 New Germany cases
13,105 New Poland cases
11,490 New Ukraine cases
12,485 New Mexico cases
34,959 New cases in California

Over 79.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 19 million
Over 194k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 79,731,500
Daily new cases: 677,806
Global deaths: 1,749,149 with 11,800 new deaths
Global recovered: 56,128,897
Mortality rate: 2.19%
Recovery rate: 70.40%

U.S. cases: 19,111,326
U.S. new cases: 194,174
U.S. deaths: 337,066
U.S. recovered: 11,219,123
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,848

Texas cases: 1,663,752 with 7,093 new cases
Texas deaths: 26,958 – 242 Today
Dallas County cases: 179,418
Dallas County new cases: – None Reported
Dallas County deaths: 1,904 – 33 today

December 23rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

232,524 New U.S. cases
24,246 New India cases
46,657 New Brazil cases
14,929 New France cases
27,250 New Russia cases
39,237 New UK cases
13,908 New Italy cases
31,297 New Germany cases
12,358 New Poland cases
10,136 New Ukraine cases
11,653 New Mexico cases
44,598 New cases in California

Over 79 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 18.9 million
Over 232k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 79,053,694
Daily new cases: 691,738
Global deaths: 1,737,629 with 13,797 new deaths
Global recovered: 55,647,083
Mortality rate: 2.20%
Recovery rate: 70.39%

U.S. cases: 18,917,152
U.S. new cases: 232,524
U.S. deaths: 334,218
U.S. recovered: 11,101,833
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,394

Texas cases: 1,656,659 with 20,672 new cases
Texas deaths: 26,716 – 255 Today
Dallas County cases: 179,418
Dallas County new cases: 2,512
Dallas County deaths: 1,871 – 18 today

December 22nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

210,912 New U.S. cases

23,886 New India cases

55,799 New Brazil cases

11,795 New France cases

28,776 New Russia cases

36,803 New UK cases

13,316 New Italy cases

22,495 New Germany cases

7,192 New Poland cases

8,513 New Ukraine cases

12,511 New Mexico cases

34,914 New cases in California

Over 78.3 million Global cases

Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million

U.S. Cases topped 18.6 million

Over 210k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 78,361,956

Daily new cases: 645,710

Global deaths: 1,723,832 with 14,908 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH

Global recovered: 55,123,207

Mortality rate: 2.20%

Recovery rate: 70.34%

U.S. cases: 18,684,628

U.S. new cases: 210,912

U.S. deaths: 330,824

U.S. recovered: 10,945,097

U.S. Daily fatalities: 4,052 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,635,987 with 21,705 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas deaths: 26,461 – 300 Today

Dallas County cases: 176,906

Dallas County new cases: 1,853

Dallas County deaths: 1,841 – 12 today

December 21st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

206,137 New U.S. cases
19,174 New India cases
25,621 New Brazil cases
5,797 New France cases
29,350 New Russia cases
33,364 New UK cases
10,869 New Italy cases
19,333 New Germany cases
4,633 New Poland cases
6,545 New Ukraine cases
5,370 New Mexico cases
43,102 New cases in California

Over 77.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.7 Million
U.S. Cases topped 18.4 million
Over 206k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 77,716,246
Daily new cases: 546,855
Global deaths: 1,708,924 with 9,364 new deaths
Global recovered: 54,591,959
Mortality rate: 2.20%
Recovery rate: 70.25%

U.S. cases: 18,473,716
U.S. new cases: 206,137
U.S. deaths: 326,772
U.S. recovered: 10,802,496
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,903

Texas cases: 1,614,282 with 16,809 new cases
Texas deaths: 26,161 – 142 Today
Dallas County cases: 174,540
Dallas County new cases: 1,814
Dallas County deaths: 1,841 – 10 today

Today’s Headlines

December 21, 2020:

Countries cut UK off as Johnson holds crisis meeting on new coronavirus variant

(CNN)British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to chair an emergency meeting with ministers Monday after the announcement of a potentially fast-spreading new coronavirus variant prompted a chaotic border shutdown.

Alarm over the new variant, which was first identified in England, has resulted in British travelers being cut off from much of Europe and other parts of the world as countries imposed restrictions on travel from the UK.

France announced a temporary ban on all travel and accompanied freight on Sunday night, a potential disaster for UK exporters who rely on trade with Europe. The border closure exacerbated pre-Christmas delays, with trucks backed up from the port of Dover in the southeast of England, a key crossing point for hauliers.

Worse, the move has sparked fears that European exporters would be reluctant to send goods to the UK, for fear of not being able to return. The timing of the restrictions, just days before Christmas and the end of the Brexit transition period, raised concerns about food and medicine shortages in the UK at a critical time.

In the UK, Kent Police closed sections of England’s M20 motorway to “avoid gridlock” in the area surrounding the Eurotunnel. Operation “Stack” — a contingency plan that allows part of the highway to be allocated to parked trucks — has been put in place.

Covid-19: UK isolation grows as more countries ban travel

[BBC] — More countries have banned arrivals from the UK because of concerns at the spread of a new variant of coronavirus.

India is the latest state to suspend flights from the UK, joining Hong Kong, Canada, Switzerland and Germany.

On Sunday evening, France shut its border with the UK for 48 hours, meaning no lorries or ferries will be able to sail from the port of Dover.

The French government said on Monday it will establish a protocol “to ensure movement from the UK can resume”.

As queues grow in Kent, the prime minister is due to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee.

Norway, Belgium and the Irish Republic have also suspended flights from the UK. India will halt flights from Tuesday evening, until the evening of 31 December.

Austria is also set to bring in a ban, while Bulgaria has suspended flights to and from the UK from midnight. Unlike the short-term measures in many other nations, its ban lasts until 31 January.

European Union member states are currently meeting in Brussels to discuss a co-ordinated response.

Thailand had kept its coronavirus cases under control. Now it’s testing thousands as it battles a shrimp market outbreak

[CNN] — Thailand on Sunday began testing tens of thousands of people for coronavirus and extended curbs on movement, a day after locking down a province following the country’s worst outbreak yet.

The outbreak began at a shrimp market in Samut Sakhon, a province southwest of Bangkok and a center of the seafood industry that is home to thousands of migrant workers.

Four cases were reported there on Friday and that number had jumped to 689 by Sunday, the public health ministry said. Thailand had previously kept the epidemic in check, recording around 5,000 Covid-19 cases.

“Today is just the first stage,” Kiattiphum Wongrajit, the ministry’s permanent secretary, told a news conference. “Further results will show a lot more infections.”

He said up to 40,000 people would be tested in Samut Sakhon and nearby provinces, with over 10,000 tests to be conducted by Wednesday.

Migrant workers, mostly from Myanmar, lined up for testing on Sunday, along with some Thais. Most cases identified so far have been asymptomatic, health officials said.

Barbed wire surrounded the market on Sunday as authorities in Bangkok ordered all schools in three districts in the capital that have borders with Samut Sakhon, 45 kilometers (30 miles) away by road, to close until January 4.

The province is due to stay under lockdown and nighttime curfew until January 3, and Kiattiphum said the ministry expected to bring the situation under control in two to four weeks.

December 20th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

189,811 New U.S. cases
24,549 New India cases
25,445 New Brazil cases
12,799 New France cases
28,948 New Russia cases
35,928 New UK cases
15,102 New Italy cases
20,822 New Germany cases
8,590 New Poland cases
8,325 New Ukraine cases
6,870 New Mexico cases
41,801 New cases in California

Over 77.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 18.2 million
Over 189k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 77,169,391
Daily new cases: 549,246
Global deaths: 1,699,560 with 7,788 new deaths
Global recovered: 54,088,483
Mortality rate: 2.20%
Recovery rate: 70.09%

U.S. cases: 18,267,579
U.S. new cases: 189,811
U.S. deaths: 324,869
U.S. recovered: 10,622,082
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,468

Texas cases: 1,597,473 with 10,572 new cases
Texas deaths: 26,019 – 109 Today
Dallas County cases: 172,726
Dallas County new cases: 1,143
Dallas County deaths: 1,831 – 8 today

Today’s Headlines

December 19, 2020:

New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

[BBC] The rapid spread of a new variant of coronavirus has been blamed for the introduction of strict tier four mixing rules for millions of people, harsher restrictions on mixing at Christmas in England, Scotland and Wales, and other countries placing the UK on a travel ban.

So how has it gone from being non-existent to the most common form of the virus in parts of England in a matter of months?

The government’s advisers on new infections have “moderate” confidence that it is more able to transmit than other variants.

All the work is at an early stage, contains huge uncertainties and a long list of unanswered questions.

As I’ve written before, viruses mutate all the time and it’s vital to keep a laser focus on whether the virus’ behaviour is changing.

Why is this variant causing concern?

Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention:

It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus
It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important
Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase the ability of the virus to infect cells

All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily.

However, we do not have absolute certainty. New strains can become more common simply by being in the right place at the right time – such as London, which had only tier two restrictions until recently.

But already the justification for tier four restrictions is in part to reduce the spread of the variant.

“Laboratory experiments are required, but do you want to wait weeks or months [to see the results and take action to limit the spread]? Probably not in these circumstances,” Prof Nick Loman, from the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium, told me.

December 19th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

189,415 New U.S. cases
26,834 New India cases
49,243 New Brazil cases
17,565 New France cases
28,209 New Russia cases
27,052 New UK cases
16,305 New Italy cases
31,553 New Germany cases
11,245 New Poland cases
11,742 New Ukraine cases
12,129 New Mexico cases
36,929 New cases in California

Over 76 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 18 million
Over 189k new U.S. cases –

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 76,620,145
Daily new cases: 613,120
Global deaths: 1,691,772 with 10,693 new deaths
Global recovered: 53,747,151
Mortality rate: 2.21%
Recovery rate: 70.15%

U.S. cases: 17,888,353
U.S. new cases: 189,415
U.S. deaths: 323,401
U.S. recovered: 10,545,445
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,556

Texas cases: 1,586,901 with 14,307 new cases
Texas deaths: 25,910 – 247 Today
Dallas County cases: 171,583
Dallas County new cases: 1,723
Dallas County deaths: 1,823 – 13 today

Today’s Headlines

December 19, 2020:

Ventilator blast kills nine in Turkey

Nine people have been killed after an oxygen ventilator exploded at a hospital treating coronavirus patients in southern Turkey, officials say.

[BBC] — The blast caused a fire in the intensive care unit of the private Sanko University Hospital in Gaziantep, the local governor’s office said.

At least one of the patients died while being transferred to another hospital.

No injuries were reported in relation to the fire, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning and was quickly put out.

The victims were aged between 56 and 85, the hospital said in a statement.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the explosion.

New strain of Covid-19 can spread more quickly

London (CNN) Parts of Britain will go back into lockdown during Christmas after a newly identified strain of Covid-19 proved to spread more quickly than previous strains of the virus.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a series of stricter coronavirus restrictions, tightening rules around household mixing that were due to be relaxed over Christmas in London and southeast England.

The PM broke the news Saturday that London and the southeast of England, where cases are surging, will go into Tier 4 restrictions, similar to a lockdown, on Sunday.

“The spread is being driven by the new variant of the virus,” Johnson said in a hastily called press conference. “It appears to spread more easily and may be up to 70% more transmissable than the earlier strain.”

England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, warned Saturday that a newly identified variant of Covid-19 “can spread more quickly” than previous strains of the virus.

“This is now spreading very fast,” Johnson warned. “It is with a very heavy heart that I say we cannot continue with Christmas as planned.”

Johnson outlined that in areas under the toughest restrictions, there will be no possibility for household mixing over Christmas. In areas under Tier 3, mixing will now be restricted to Christmas Day.

As recently as this week, Johnson reiterated his pledge to relax rules over the Christmas period, allowing up to three households to mix for five days. But as of Saturday, the entire nation is being asked not to travel and those under the highest level of restrictions, will not be allowed to travel abroad except for work purposes.

According to Whitty, the new variant is responsible for 60% of infections in London, which have nearly doubled in the last week.

Earlier, he said “urgent work” is underway to establish whether the new strain, prevalent in the southeast of England, can cause a higher mortality rate.

“There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this,” Whitty said in a statement.

California’s Covid surge has no parallel across the U.S.

ICU bed capacity has plunged to nearly zero in vast portions of the state as patients rush into hospitals, which are struggling to manage strains on resources and personnel.

“We’re experiencing an explosive and very deadly surge,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said.

State and local officials are continuing to enact lockdown and quarantine protocols for residents and visitors,even as the Pfizer vaccine rollout has provided some long-term hope. While it may be too early to tell due to the virus’ long incubation time, aggressive stay-at-home measures put forth throughout California two weeks ago have yet to slow the spread.

On November 1, the seven-day average for new daily cases in California was 4,183. On Thursday, it was 38,774.

… Yet the spike cannot be attributed to Thanksgiving alone. California cases were already beginning to rise earlier in November. State officials at the time directly tied it to Covid-19 fatigue, with more instances of private, indoor gatherings that can expose individuals to greater risk of infection.

December 18th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

261,583 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
25,378 New India cases
52,385 New Brazil cases
15,674 New France cases
28,552 New Russia cases
28,507 New UK cases
15,401 New Italy cases
31,553 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
11,010 New Poland cases
12,630 New Ukraine cases
12,248 New Mexico cases
49,593 New cases in California

Over 76 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 17.8 million
Over 261k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 76,007,025
Daily new cases: 724,227
Global deaths: 1,681,079 with 12,723 new deaths
Global recovered: 53,275,902
Mortality rate: 2.21%
Recovery rate: 70.09%

U.S. cases: 17,888,353
U.S. new cases: 261,583 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 320,845
U.S. recovered: 10,394,286
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,917

Texas cases: 1,572,594 with 16,588 new cases
Texas deaths: 25,663 – 262 Today
Dallas County cases: 169,860
Dallas County new cases: 2,248
Dallas County deaths: 1,810 – 22 today

Today’s Headlines

December 18, 2020:

In the Stupidity Knows No Bounds Category:
In the cutting off your nose to spite your face category:
In the shooting yourself in the foot category:
In the Willful Ignorance category:

Houston doctor says half of the nurses in his unit don’t want COVID-19 vaccine for political reasons

[Fox News] — Health care workers were the first nationwide to receive the COVID-19 vaccine this week, but a doctor at Houston Memorial Medical Center said Wednesday that half of his unit’s nurses don’t want it, calling it a “political toy.”

“Yesterday I had a – not a fight – but I had a friendly argument with more than 50 percent of my nurses, in my unit, telling me that they would not get the vaccine,” Dr. Joseph Varon told NPR’s Steve Inskeep Wednesday.

“Of course I pushed the concept that people should get vaccinated, and I asked, ‘why not?’ And, you know, at the end of the day, like I have said before, coronavirus has become a political toy, and most of the reasons why most of my people don’t want to get the vaccine are politically motivated.”

Varon said that he and his staff will have access to the vaccine next week. Despite some hesitation, he said others are “very happy” and “actually kind of annoyed” that they didn’t make the first round of vaccination.

The first shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine contained about three million doses, with many more to come over the next weeks and months.

About 27% of those in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Tuesday, said they probably or definitely will not get the COVID-19 vaccine, even if it is free and deemed safe.

The number of Americans who said they probably or definitely will get it when it’s available now stands at 71%, an increase from 63% in September.

The first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines begins distribution just as the U.S. reaches 16,716,777 confirmed cases and 303,773 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

December 17th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

234,252 New U.S. cases
28,375 New India cases
68,832 New Brazil cases
18,254 New France cases
28,214 New Russia cases
35,383 New UK cases – ALL TIME HIGH
18,233 New Italy cases
30,951 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
11,953 New Poland cases
12,047 New Ukraine cases
11,799 New Mexico cases
44,937 New cases in California

Over 75.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 17.6 million
Over 234k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 75,282,798
Daily new cases: 748,643 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,668,356 with 13,130 new deaths
Global recovered: 52,852,602
Mortality rate: 2.22%
Recovery rate: 70.21%

U.S. cases: 17,626,770
U.S. new cases: 234,252
U.S. deaths: 317,928
U.S. recovered: 10,291,057
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,351

Texas cases: 1,556,006 with 15,015 new cases
Texas deaths: 25,401 – 255 Today
Dallas County cases: 167,612
Dallas County new cases: 1,382
Dallas County deaths: 1,788 – 23 today

Today’s Headlines

December 17, 2020:

Japanese leader appears to flout virus guidelines as country grapples with record cases

Tokyo (CNN)Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has expressed “remorse” for attending a group dinner with celebrity friends in apparent breach of his own government’s coronavirus guidelines, as infection rates in the country continue to surge.

For weeks, Japanese health officials have urged citizens to reduce their daily activities, remain vigilant and only dine out in small numbers to curb a resurgent winter Covid-19 wave that has seen daily case numbers climb to their highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic.

But on Monday, Suga appeared to disregard those guidelines by attending a gathering with seven guests, who were all over the age of 70, at a high-end steak restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

Addressing reporters at the Prime Minister’s residence on Wednesday, Suga said, “There was sufficient social distance with other participants, but I seriously remorseful for inviting the public skepticism.”

“We have been taking precautions, but the number of infections remains at a high level with 3,000 new infections confirmed in the last weekend. We are taking this very seriously. Experts pointed out the group dining has higher risks,” Suga said.

The COVID Vaccine Could Temporarily Paralyze This Body Part, FDA Warns

[NEWSBREAK] The COVID Vaccine Could Temporarily Paralyze This Body Part, FDA Warns. Less than a week after Pfizer’s highly effective vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), more good news came when the agency stated that it plans to approve another highly effective vaccine from pharmaceutical company Moderna as soon as the end of the week. But the FDA also met these announcements with a warning for doctors that the COVID vaccine from both companies could potentially cause a strange side effect: Bell’s palsy, which is temporary facial paralysis. Read on to see what the agency says about this issue, and for more on your inoculation, check out If You Cut the Line for the COVID Vaccine, It Could Have This Scary Effect.

California reports record number of new cases by an order of magnitude

[OBLIVIOTS] — Yesterday California set an all time high for new cases of OVER 61,000.

61,569 new cases in one day.

Recently California has been trending the low to mid 30k range per day.

DOUBLE the next highest state (Texas)

So here is a set of graphs from my spreadsheet in my Coronavirus Blog that compares Texas and California over time.

I’m sure you will find this interesting.

Californians should be VERY worried.

The problem counties in this order are:

Southern California:

Los Angeles Highest by far at 566,005 cases
San Bernadino
Riverside
San Diego
Orange
Kern

Northern California:

Sacramento
Santa Clara (Silicon Valley)

Yesterday was a banner day for case growth worldwide, as 727,572 new cases were reported. This is a ALL TIME HIGH by quite a bit.

719,776 was the previous high on December 11th, but we are generally trending in the mid 500k to low 600k per day range overall.

So posting over 700 THOUSAND new cases per day is getting dangerously close to posting ONE MILLION new cases in a day.

As it is, we are globally adding ONE MILLION CASES every TWO days now.

Let’s ALL be very careful out there.

Try not to be a statistic, OK?

December 16th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

248,739 New U.S. cases
18,164 New India cases
68,437 New Brazil cases
17,615 New France cases
26,509 New Russia cases
25,161 New UK cases
1. 17,568 New Italy cases
28,969 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
12,455 New Poland cases
10,622 New Ukraine cases
10,297 New Mexico cases
61,732 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 74.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 17.3 million
Over 248k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 74,634,155
Daily new cases: 727,572 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,655,226 with 13,591 new deaths
Global recovered: 52,372,534
Mortality rate: 2.22%
Recovery rate: 70.27%

U.S. cases: 17,392,518
U.S. new cases: 248,739
U.S. deaths: 314,577
U.S. recovered: 10,170,735
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,509 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,540,991 with 20,953 new cases
Texas deaths: 25,146 – 256 Today
Dallas County cases: 166,230
Dallas County new cases: 2,438
Dallas County deaths: 1,765 – 25 today

December 15th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

200,957 New U.S. cases
26,401 New India cases
44,849 New Brazil cases
11,532 New France cases
26,689 New Russia cases
18,450 New UK cases
1. 14,839 New Italy cases
21,377 New Germany cases
6,874 New Poland cases
8,416 New Ukraine cases
11,228 New Mexico cases
35,384 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 73.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 17 million
Over 200k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 73,805,583
Daily new cases: 616,165
Global deaths: 1,641,635 with 13,735 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 51,816,716
Mortality rate: 2.22%
Recovery rate: 70.21%

U.S. cases: 17,143,779
U.S. new cases: 200,957
U.S. deaths: 311,068
U.S. recovered: 9,871,663
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,979

Texas cases: 1,520,083 with 19,718 new cases
Texas deaths: 24,890 – 220 Today
Dallas County cases: 163,792
Dallas County new cases: 1,947
Dallas County deaths: 1,740 – 12 today

Today’s Headlines

December 15, 2020:

Deadliest place in America: They shrugged off the pandemic…

QUINTER, Kansas — Sitting in the front seat of a red pickup as wind-whipped sorghum husks fly down Main Street like snowflakes, Ivy Charles fingers the white surgical mask slipped down beneath her chin.

“He was a puzzle piece who can never be replaced,” she says, tears welling into her tired eyes. “He was supposed to get better. We weren’t expecting him to die.”

Just over a month ago, the now-rampaging coronavirus pandemic tore through this rural town of 1,000 and surrounding Gove County, killing 20 residents. Among them was Charles’ father, Edward “Mac” McElhaney, 78.

Here, where most everyone knows most everyone else, the pandemic has killed farmers and their wives. The town’s unofficial historian. The beloved grandmother whose sour cream chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting was always the talk of the party. The mom whose piano-playing still echoes in the heads of her friends.

And it has drained the hearts of the survivors. Those who feel guilty that they recovered. The ambulance workers battling to treat their own relatives. The exhausted doctor who watched nearly half his patients die.

“It was overwhelming and sad and you don’t think you have that many tears to shed,” says Charles, 46. “And you do.”

As of Thursday, coronavirus has killed a higher percentage of Gove County residents than any other county in the United States: One out of every 132 people has died.

Their intertwined stories illuminate the toll the pandemic has taken on communities across the country as emotional debates over how to control the infection have unfolded amid mounting losses.

Even today, mask-wearing remains controversial in Gove County, and friendships are being strained as authorities struggle to persuade their neighbors to follow basic public health guidelines, such as avoiding large gatherings.

December 14th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

205,555 New U.S. cases
21,791 New India cases
27,419 New Brazil cases
3,063 New France cases
27,328 New Russia cases
20,263 New UK cases
1. 12,025 New Italy cases
18,658 New Germany cases
4,896 New Poland cases
6,451 New Ukraine cases
5,930 New Mexico cases
29,643 New cases in California

Over 73.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 16 million
Over 205k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 73,190,418
Daily new cases: 543,772
Global deaths: 1,627,900 with 8,992 new deaths
Global recovered: 51,323,676
Mortality rate: 2.22%
Recovery rate: 70.12%

U.S. cases: 16,942,822
U.S. new cases: 205,555
U.S. deaths: 308,089
U.S. recovered: 9,871,663
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,630

Texas cases: 1,500,320 with 12,951 new cases
Texas deaths: 24,670 – 55 Today
Dallas County cases: 161,845
Dallas County new cases: 1,699
Dallas County deaths: 1,728 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

December 14, 2020:

Yes, a Covid-19 vaccine has arrived. But here’s what NOT to do

(CNN) The country’s first Covid-19 vaccines could be administered as soon as Monday, after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine received green lights from the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Shipments of the vaccine are expected to arrive in all 50 states on Monday, with more on the way. It’s a monumental moment and achievement, given the new coronavirus emerged just a year ago.

But the pandemic isn’t over yet. Here are three things you shouldn’t do until things are under control.

Don’t rush to your doctor to get a vaccine

First things first: It will be months before most people can receive the vaccine, so be patient and don’t rush out to your doctor’s office or pharmacy in hopes of getting one right away.

It’s up to states to allocate their share of vaccines, but the CDC has recommended that frontline health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities get the vaccine first. Other high-priority groups include essential workers, emergency personnel and those with underlying health conditions that put them at a higher risk of complications or death.

For the next several months, the focus will be on vaccinating these individuals, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN last week. And it will likely be the spring when the vaccine becomes more widely available.

“I would project by the time you get to April, it will be … ‘open season,’ in the sense of anyone, even the non-high-priority groups, could get vaccinated,” Fauci said.

Pointing to the other vaccine candidates in clinical trials and under FDA review, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Axios last week there will be enough vaccines for any American who wants one by the end of the second quarter of 2021.

“We want to make this eventually so it’s as much like getting your flu vaccine as possible,” he said.

Jan Malcolm, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health, told CNN she thinks it’s a “great idea” for people to call their doctor’s office to find out what their plan might be for administering vaccines, but that information may not be readily available just yet.

FDA commissioner’s advice on taking the vaccine if you have allergies

[CNN] FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper about Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine as the first batch was shipped out across the US. Hahn advised Americans with allergies to read the vaccine’s product labeling on the FDA’s website to check for any components that might cause an allergic reaction.

Watch video

December 13th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

187,901 New U.S. cases
27,336 New India cases
21,395 New Brazil cases
11,533 New France cases
28,080 New Russia cases
18,447 New UK cases
1. 17,937 New Italy cases
17,891 New Germany cases
8,976 New Poland cases
9,176 New Ukraine cases
8,608 New Mexico cases
33,176 New cases in California

Over 72.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 16 million
Over 187k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 72,646,646
Daily new cases: 542,607
Global deaths: 1,618,908 with 7,408 new deaths
Global recovered: 50,864,816
Mortality rate: 2.23%
Recovery rate: 70.02%

U.S. cases: 16,737,267
U.S. new cases: 187,901
U.S. deaths: 306,459
U.S. recovered: 9,724,439
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,377

Texas cases: 1,487,369 with 8,542 new cases
Texas deaths: 24,615 – 101 Today
Dallas County cases: 160,146
Dallas County new cases: 1,810
Dallas County deaths: 1,726 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

December 13, 2020:

US starts huge vaccine delivery operation

[BBC] The US public will start receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine from Monday after it was authorised for emergency use, officials say.

The first three million doses of the vaccine would be shipped “across all states” this weekend, said Gen Gustave Perna, who is overseeing distribution.

The vaccine offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19 and was deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

On Saturday, the US recorded a daily toll of 3,309 Covid-related deaths.

The figure, reported on the Johns Hopkins University website, is the highest total in a single day anywhere in the world.

Coronavirus deaths have been rising sharply since November in the US.

Authorising the emergency use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Friday, the FDA – which had come under intense pressure from the Trump administration to do so – said the move was a “significant milestone” in the pandemic.

A mass inoculation drive using doses of the same vaccine has already begun in the UK.

Loading process of first shipment of Pfizer vaccine has begun

[CNN] The loading process of the first shipment of Pfizer vaccine has begun at the Kalamazoo facility in Michigan. This first shipment of vaccine will be going to all 50 states.

Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of the federal government’s vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed previously said he expected 145 sites across all the states to receive the vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, which will complete the initial delivery of the Pfizer orders for the vaccine.

Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas

[BBC] Germany is to go into a hard lockdown over the Christmas period as the number of deaths and infections from the coronavirus reaches record levels.

Non-essential shops will close across the country from Wednesday, as will schools, with children to be cared for at home wherever possible.

Chancellor Angela Merkel blamed Christmas shopping for a “considerable” rise in social contacts.

The latest figures showed 20,200 more infections and a further 321 deaths.

The new lockdown will run from 16 December to 10 January. Announcing the move after meeting leaders of the country’s 16 states, Mrs Merkel said there was “an urgent need to take action”.

Restaurants, bars and leisure centres have already been closed since November, and some areas of the country had imposed their own lockdowns.

Under the national lockdown, essential shops, such as those selling food, will stay open, as can banks. Outlets selling Christmas trees can also continue trading. Hair salons are among the businesses which must close.

December 12th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

253,065 New U.S. cases
30,354 New India cases
44,282 New Brazil cases
13,947 New France cases
28,137 New Russia cases
21,501 New UK cases
1. 19,902 New Italy cases
21,816 New Germany cases
11,499 New Poland cases
12,811 New Ukraine cases
12,057 New Mexico cases
29,214 New cases in California

Over 72.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 16 million
Over 253k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 72,104,039
Daily new cases: 666,711
Global deaths: 1,611,500 with 10,332 new deaths
Global recovered: 50,490,379
Mortality rate: 2.23%
Recovery rate: 70.02%

U.S. cases: 16,549,366
U.S. new cases: 253,908
U.S. deaths: 305,082
U.S. recovered: 9,644,325
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,332

Texas cases: 1,478,827 with 20,984 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 24,514 – 216 Today
Dallas County cases: 158,336
Dallas County new cases: 2,111
Dallas County deaths: 1,722 – 8 today

December 11th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

256,065 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
30,034 New India cases
52,770 New Brazil cases
13,406 New France cases
28,585 New Russia cases
21,672 New UK cases
18,726 New Italy cases
28,344 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
13,105 New Poland cases
13,514 New Ukraine cases
12,253 New Mexico cases
39,193 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 71.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.6 Million
U.S. Cases topped 16 million
Over 256k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 71,437,328
Daily new cases: 719,776 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,601,168 with 12,820 new deaths
Global recovered: 49,636,688
Mortality rate: 2.24%
Recovery rate: 69.48%

U.S. cases: 16,295,458
U.S. new cases: 256,065 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 302,750
U.S. recovered: 9,507,419
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,058

Texas cases: 1,425,119 with 15,084 new cases
Texas deaths: 24,298 – 232 Today
Dallas County cases: 154,376
Dallas County new cases: NO DATA
Dallas County deaths: 1,694 – NO DATA today

December 10th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

219,351 New U.S. cases
34,666 New India cases
53,425 New Brazil cases
13,750 New France cases
27,927 New Russia cases
20,964 New UK cases
16,998 New Italy cases
28,179 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
13,750 New Poland cases
13,371 New Ukraine cases
11,897 New Mexico cases
31,983 New cases in California

Over 70.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 16 million
Over 219k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 70,717,552
Daily new cases: 695,348 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,588,348 with 12,575 new deaths
Global recovered: 48,162,714
Mortality rate: 2.25%
Recovery rate: 68.11%

U.S. cases: 16,039,393
U.S. new cases: 219,351
U.S. deaths: 299,692
U.S. recovered: 9,330,865
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,994

Texas cases: 1,410,035 with 13,483 new cases
Texas deaths: 24,066 – 245 Today
Dallas County cases: 154,376
Dallas County new cases: 2,088
Dallas County deaths: 1,694 – 23 today

Today’s Headlines

December 10, 2020:

A Guide to Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine

The first COVID-19 vaccine that’s likely to go into any American arms is Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, which was designed and developed by the German biotech company BioNTech. Here, we give a rundown of basic facts about the vaccine and an overview of how it works.

Quick Summary

Vaccine name: BNT162b2

Design type: mRNA

Dose number: 2, 21 days apart

Efficacy: 95% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in adults without prior evidence of infection a week or more after receipt of the second dose.

Safety: No serious safety concerns reported. The shots, however, routinely elicit a fairly strong temporary reaction in many people that can include injection site pain, fatigue, headache and chills.

Expected dose availability: Worldwide, up to 50 million doses, or enough for approximately 25 million people, by the end of 2020, with up to 1.3 billion doses expected in 2021.

Expected timeline: First doses not available in U.S. until at least a few days after Dec. 10, when an advisory committee is meeting to review the company’s emergency use authorization submission to the Food and Drug Administration.

Operation Warp Speed involvement: No support for the trials or research and development, but the U.S. government inked a $1.95 billion deal in July as part of OWS to buy 100 million doses, with the potential to acquire up to 500 million more, assuming the vaccine is authorized.

Storage considerations: -70°C (-94°F) for long-term storage; after thawing, vaccine vials can be stored at refrigerator temperatures for up to five days.

Infected after 5 minutes, from 20 feet away

SEOUL — Dr. Lee Ju-hyung has largely avoided restaurants in recent months, but on the few occasions he’s dined out, he’s developed a strange, if sensible, habit: whipping out a small anemometer to check the airflow.

It’s a precaution he has been taking since a June experiment in which he and colleagues re-created the conditions at a restaurant in Jeonju, a city in southwestern South Korea, where diners contracted the coronavirus from an out-of-town visitor. Among them was a high school student who became infected after five minutes of exposure from more than 20 feet away.

The results of the study, for which Lee and other epidemiologists enlisted the help of an engineer who specializes in aerodynamics, were published last week in the Journal of Korean Medical Science. The conclusions raised concerns that the widely accepted standard of six feet of social distance may not be far enough to keep people safe.

The study — adding to a growing body of evidence on airborne transmission of the virus — highlighted how South Korea’s meticulous and often invasive contact tracing regime has enabled researchers to closely track how the virus moves through populations.

December 9th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

228,333 New U.S. cases
26,351 New India cases
54,203 New Brazil cases
14,595 New France cases
26,190 New Russia cases
16,578 New UK cases
12,755 New Italy cases
23,928 New Germany cases – ALL TIME HIGH
12,166 New Poland cases
12,585 New Ukraine cases
11,974 New Mexico cases
32,161 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 69.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 15.8 million
Over 228k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 69,234,626
Daily new cases: 667,100
Global deaths: 1,575,773 with 12,643 new deaths
Global recovered: 47,985,810
Mortality rate: 2.28%
Recovery rate: 69.31%

U.S. cases: 15,820,042
U.S. new cases: 228,333
U.S. deaths: 296,698
U.S. recovered: 9,226,411
U.S. Daily fatalities: 3,300 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,396,552 with 15,192 new cases
Texas deaths: 23,821 – 287 Today
Dallas County cases: 152,288
Dallas County new cases: 1,348
Dallas County deaths: 1,671 – 21 today

Today’s Headlines

December 9, 2020:

We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time

[NYMAG] You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public in an act of scientific and humanitarian generosity that resulted in China’s Yong-Zhen Zhang’s being temporarily forced out of his lab. In Massachusetts, the Moderna vaccine design took all of one weekend. It was completed before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human, more than a week before the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States. By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial. This is — as the country and the world are rightly celebrating — the fastest timeline of development in the history of vaccines. It also means that for the entire span of the pandemic in this country, which has already killed more than 250,000 Americans, we had the tools we needed to prevent it .

To be clear, I don’t want to suggest that Moderna should have been allowed to roll out its vaccine in February or even in May, when interim results from its Phase I trial demonstrated its basic safety. “That would be like saying we put a man on the moon and then asking the very same day, ‘What about going to Mars?’ ” says Nicholas Christakis, who directs Yale’s Human Nature Lab and whose new book, Apollo’s Arrow, sketches the way COVID-19 may shape our near-term future. Moderna’s speed was “astonishing,” Christakis says, though the design of other vaccines was nearly as fast: BioNTech with Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca.

Could things have moved faster from design to deployment? Given the grim prospects for winter, it is tempting to wonder. Perhaps, in the future, we will. But given existing vaccine infrastructure, probably not. Already, as Baylor’s Peter Hotez pointed out to me, “Operation Warp Speed” meant running clinical trials simultaneously rather than sequentially, manufacturing the vaccine at the same time, and authorizing the vaccine under “emergency use” in December based only on preliminary data that doesn’t track the long-term durability of protection or even measure the vaccine’s effect on transmission (only how much it protects against disease). And as Georgetown virologist Angela Rasmussen told me, the name itself may have needlessly risked the trust of Americans already concerned about the safety of this, or any, vaccine. Indeed, it would have been difficult in May to find a single credentialed epidemiologist, vaccine researcher, or public-health official recommending a rapid vaccine rollout — though, it’s worth noting, as early as July the MIT Technology Review reported that a group of 70 scientists in the orbit of Harvard and MIT, including “celebrity geneticist” George Church, were taking a totally DIY nasal-spray vaccine, never even intended to be tested, and developed by a personal genomics entrepreneur named Preston Estep (also the author of a self-help-slash-life-extension book called The Mindspan Diet). China began administering a vaccine to its military in June. Russia approved its version in August. And while most American scientists worried about the speed of those rollouts, and the risks they implied, our approach to the pandemic here raises questions, too, about the strange, complicated, often contradictory ways we approach matters of risk and uncertainty during a pandemic — and how, perhaps, we might think about doing things differently next time. That a vaccine was available for the entire brutal duration may be, to future generations trying to draw lessons from our death and suffering, the most tragic, and ironic, feature of this plague.

Allergy warning for Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after UK health workers suffer reaction

London (CNN) People with a “significant history of allergic reactions” should not be given the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, UK health authorities said Wednesday, after two health care workers experienced symptoms after receiving a shot the day before.

The precautionary advice was given after the pair “responded adversely” following their shots on the first day of the mass vaccination rollout in the UK, National Health Service England said Wednesday.

The two staff members — who both carried an adrenaline auto injector and had a history of allergic reactions — developed symptoms of anaphylactoid reaction after receiving the vaccine on Tuesday. Thousands overall were vaccinated in the UK on Tuesday, NHS England told CNN on Wednesday.

“As is common with new vaccines the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] have advised on a precautionary basis that people with a significant history of allergic reactions do not receive this vaccination after two people with a history of significant allergic reactions responded adversely yesterday,” said Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, in a statement. “Both are recovering well.”

December 8th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

222,663 New U.S. cases
32,067 New India cases
47,850 New Brazil cases
13,713 New France cases
26,097 New Russia cases
12,281 New UK cases
14,837 New Italy cases
18,319 New Germany cases
8,310 New Poland cases
10,811 New Ukraine cases
11,006 New Mexico cases
26,000 New cases in California

Over 68.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 15.5 million
Over 220k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 68,567,526
Daily new cases: 628,531
Global deaths: 1,563,130 with 12,867 new deaths
Global recovered: 47,461,000
Mortality rate: 2.28%
Recovery rate: 69.22%

U.S. cases: 15,591,709
U.S. new cases: 222,663
U.S. deaths: 293,398
U.S. recovered: 9,087,069
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,955

Texas cases: 1,381,360 with 14,651 new cases
Texas deaths: 23,534 – 199 Today
Dallas County cases: 150,940
Dallas County new cases: 1,105
Dallas County deaths: 1,650 – 19 today

Today’s Headlines

December 8, 2020:

First Britons receive Covid-19 vaccine

Cardiff, Wales (CNN) The United Kingdom has become the first Western nation to begin vaccinating its citizens with a Covid-19 shot outside of clinical trials — a landmark moment in the coronavirus pandemic.

The first Briton to get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — 90-year-old Margaret Keenan — received the first of two doses at 6:31 a.m. local time on Tuesday at University Hospital in Coventry, less than a week after the UK became the first country to approve it.

Keenan, who turns 91 next week, said she felt “privileged” to be the first to get the shot.

“It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year,” she said, according to a statement released by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

Keenan told UK media the shot was “fine, I wasn’t nervous at all,” calling it “wonderful, really.”

“This is for a good cause so I’m so pleased I had it done. This is a terrible, terrible disease so we do want rid of it,” she added.

Keenan advised others eligible for the vaccine to take up the offer: “I would say go for it,” she said. “If I can do it, well, so can you.”

May Parsons, the nurse who administered the first jab, said she was honored to be involved in the program.

Florida police raid home of former state Covid-19 data scientist

(CNN) Florida police raided the home of a former state coronavirus data scientist on Monday, escalating a feud between the state government and a data expert who has accused officials of trying to cover up the extent of the pandemic.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement executed a search warrant Monday morning at the home of data scientist Rebekah Jones, who was fired by the state Department of Health in May. The agency is investigating whether Jones accessed a state government messaging system without authorization to urge employees to speak out about coronavirus deaths, according to an affidavit by an agent working on the case.

Jones told CNN that she hadn’t improperly accessed any state messaging system and that she lost access to her government computer accounts after she was removed from her position.

About 10 officers with guns drawn showed up to her Tallahassee home around 8:30 a.m., Jones said. A video taken from a camera in her house, which she posted on social media, showed an officer pointing a gun up a stairwell as Jones told him her two children were upstairs. Jones said that the officer was pointing his gun at her 2-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son and her husband, who she said were in the stairwell, although the video doesn’t make that clear.

Officers also “pointed a gun six inches from my face” and took all of her computers, her phone and several hard drives and thumb drives, Jones said.

Gretl Plessinger, a spokesperson for the law enforcement department, said that agents knocked on Jones’ door and called her “in an attempt to minimize disruption to the family.” Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung up on the agents, and Jones’ family was upstairs when agents did enter the house, Plessinger said. She didn’t respond to questions about why the officers drew guns.

December 7, 2020:

Most of California under strict new lockdown as cases surge

[BBC] Most parts of the US state of California are under a strict new lockdown, as Covid-19 continues to surge across the country.

The stay-at-home order affects around 85% of the state’s 40 million people. It will be in place for at least three weeks and cover the Christmas holiday.

Many businesses will be closed, and people will be banned from meeting anyone outside their household.

On Sunday, the US had a record number of people in hospital with Covid-19.

The country has seen a sharp rise in cases and Covid-related deaths in recent weeks, a surge that could be partly down to last month’s Thanksgiving holiday, when millions of Americans travelled around the US.

The new restrictions in California – the country’s most populous state – were triggered by intensive care capacity in hospitals shrinking.

The measures apply to the southern part of the state and its central valley, while other areas could follow within days. San Francisco has also gone into lockdown, with the mayor imposing a separate set of orders.

California’s lockdown in March, in which all non-essential businesses were closed, was seen as an early model for the US at the beginning of the pandemic.

What are the new restrictions?

Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered that when capacity at intensive care units in any of five regions of the state goes below 15%, that region will go into lockdown within 24 hours.

The stay-at-home orders triggered in this way will be similar to the far-reaching order issued for the state after the pandemic first hit in March, but with a few significant relaxations:

All retail stores are able to stay open, although only at 20% capacity, along with outside spaces such as parks and beaches
Gatherings are prohibited, and people are required to stay at home and minimise contact with other households
Bars, hair salons and indoor restaurants are closed

The lockdown will last for at least three weeks, and until ICU capacity goes above 15% again. Mr Newsom said the measures would help to “flatten the curve” and reduce the pressure on health services.

“We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks,” he said last week.

December 7th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

209,517 New U.S. cases
27,107 New India cases
24,525 New Brazil cases
3,411 New France cases
28,142 New Russia cases
14,718 New UK cases
18,887 New Italy cases
15,161 New Germany cases
4,421 New Poland cases
8,641 New Ukraine cases
6,399 New Mexico cases
27,366 New cases in California

Over 67.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 15.3 million
Over 209k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 67,938,995
Daily new cases: 546,706
Global deaths: 1,550,263 with 8,518 new deaths
Global recovered: 47,023,575
Mortality rate: 2.28%
Recovery rate: 69.21%

U.S. cases: 15,369,046
U.S. new cases: 209,517
U.S. deaths: 290,443
U.S. recovered: 8,982,246
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,537

Texas cases: 1,366,709 with 14,479 new cases
Texas deaths: 23,335 – 83 Today
Dallas County cases: 149,835
Dallas County new cases: 1,663
Dallas County deaths: 1,631 – 3 today

December 6th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

176,104 New U.S. cases
32,272 New India cases
26,363 New Brazil cases
11,022 New France cases
29,039 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
17,271 New UK cases
18,887 New Italy cases
14,750 New Germany cases
9,176 New Poland cases
11,590 New Ukraine cases
7,455 New Mexico cases
28,371 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 67.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 15.1 million
Over 176k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 67,392,289
Daily new cases: 536,493
Global deaths: 1,541,745 with 7,192 new deaths
Global recovered: 46,581,935
Mortality rate: 2.29%
Recovery rate: 69.12%

U.S. cases: 15,159,529
U.S. new cases: 176,104
U.S. deaths: 288,906
U.S. recovered: 8,855,593
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,091

Texas cases: 1,352,230 with 9,451 new cases
Texas deaths: 23,252 – 70 Today
Dallas County cases: 148,172
Dallas County new cases: 1,852
Dallas County deaths: 1,628 – 8 today

December 5th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

210,890 New U.S. cases
36,111 New India cases
42,226 New Brazil cases
12,923 New France cases
28,782 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
15,539 New UK cases
21,052 New Italy cases
17,812 New Germany cases
12,427 New Poland cases
13,825 New Ukraine cases
11,625 New Mexico cases
25,364 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 66.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 14.9 million
Over 210k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 66,855,796
Daily new cases: 624,903
Global deaths: 1,534,553 with 10,096 new deaths
Global recovered: 46,235,859
Mortality rate: 2.30%
Recovery rate: 69.16%

U.S. cases: 14,983,425
U.S. new cases: 210,890
U.S. deaths: 287,825
U.S. recovered: 8,787,738
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,275

Texas cases: 1,342,779 with 11,263 new cases
Texas deaths: 23,182 – 205 Today
Dallas County cases: 146,320
Dallas County new cases: 1,675
Dallas County deaths: 1,620 – 16 today

December 4th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

237,339 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
36,638 New India cases
47,435 New Brazil cases
11,221 New France cases
27,403 New Russia cases
16,298 New UK cases
24,110 New Italy cases
23,541 New Germany cases
13,236 New Poland cases
15,131 New Ukraine cases
12,127 New Mexico cases
24,138 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 66.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 14.7 million
Over 237k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 66,230,893
Daily new cases: 694,867 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,524,457 with 12,542 new deaths
Global recovered: 45,899,406
Mortality rate: 2.30%
Recovery rate: 69.34%

U.S. cases: 14,772,535
U.S. new cases: 237,339 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 285,550
U.S. recovered: 8,658,882
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,721

Texas cases: 1,331,516 with 14,059 new cases
Texas deaths: 22,977 – 248 Today
Dallas County cases: 144,945
Dallas County new cases: 906
Dallas County deaths: 1,604 – 19 today

December 3rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

221,255 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
36,816 New India cases
50,866 New Brazil cases
12,696 New France cases
28,145 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
14,878 New UK cases
23,219 New Italy cases
22,910 New Germany cases
14,863 New Poland cases
14,496 New Ukraine cases
11,030 New Mexico cases
21,825 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 65.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.5 Million
U.S. Cases topped 14.5 million
Over 221k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 65,536,026
Daily new cases: 691,315 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,511,915 with 12,569 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 45,376,598
Mortality rate: 2.31%
Recovery rate: 69.24%

U.S. cases: 14,535,196
U.S. new cases: 221,255 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 282,829
U.S. recovered: 8,561,427
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,964 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,317,457 with 17,542 new cases
Texas deaths: 22,729 – 224 Today
Dallas County cases: 143,739
Dallas County new cases: 2,122
Dallas County deaths: 1,585 – 20 today

December 2nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

205,451 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
35,254 New India cases
48,124 New Brazil cases
14,064 New France cases
25,345 New Russia cases
16,170 New UK cases
20,709 New Italy cases
20,171 New Germany cases
13,823 New Poland cases
13,141 New Ukraine cases
11,251 New Mexico cases
18,264 New cases in California

Over 64.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 14.3 million
Over 205k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 64,844,711
Daily new cases: 650,037
Global deaths: 1,499,346 with 12,517 new deaths
Global recovered: 44,611,170
Mortality rate: 2.31%
Recovery rate: 69.80%

U.S. cases: 14,313,941
U.S. new cases: 205,451 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 279,865
U.S. recovered: 8,462,347
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,889 – ALL TIME HIGH

Texas cases: 1,299,915 with 17,247 new cases
Texas deaths: 22,505 – 211 Today
Dallas County cases: 141,617
Dallas County new cases: 1,640
Dallas County deaths: 1,565 – 16 today

Today’s Headlines

December 2, 2020:

White House coronavirus task force warns states: ‘We are in a very dangerous place’

Washington (CNN) The White House coronavirus task force issued extremely dire warnings to states in weekly reports this week, urging public health officials to circumvent state and local policies amid record high cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as fears of a surge upon a surge following Thanksgiving.

“The COVID risk to all Americans is at a historic high,” say the reports dated November 29, which were shared with states and obtained by CNN. They provide figures from previous moments in the pandemic for comparison.

“The national daily COVID incidence after Memorial Day, but before the summer surge, was fewer than 25,000 new cases/day and is now more than 180,000 new cases/day; COVID inpatients then were fewer than 30,000 but are now more than 90,000; fatalities have more than doubled,” the report says, concluding, “We are in a very dangerous place due to the current, extremely high COVID baseline and limited hospital capacity; a further post-Thanksgiving surge will compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall.”

In a dramatic escalation, the task force, which has frequently pleaded in weekly reports with state officials to enact tighter mitigation measures, including mask mandates and indoor dining restrictions, urged public health officials to take matters into their own hands.

December 1st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

188,620 New U.S. cases
36,456 New India cases
52,248 New Brazil cases
8,083 New France cases
26,402 New Russia cases
13,429 New UK cases
19,347 New Italy cases
15,898 New Germany cases
9,113 New Poland cases
12,498 New Ukraine cases
8,819 New Mexico cases
16,893 New cases in California

Over 64.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 14.1 million
Over 188k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 64,194,674
Daily new cases: 605,383
Global deaths: 1,486,829 with 12,909 new deaths
Global recovered: 44,441,249
Mortality rate: 2.32%
Recovery rate: 69.23%

U.S. cases: 14,108,490
U.S. new cases: 188,620
U.S. deaths: 276,976
U.S. recovered: 8,333,018
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,644

Texas cases: 1,280,720 with 12,584 new cases
Texas deaths: 22,294 – 237 Today
Dallas County cases: 139,977
Dallas County new cases: 1,179
Dallas County deaths: 1,549 – 10 today

November 30th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

169,466 New U.S. cases
31,179 New India cases
21,538 New Brazil cases
4,005 New France cases
26,338 New Russia cases
12,330 New UK cases
16,376 New Italy cases
14,156 New Germany cases
5,736 New Poland cases
9,946 New Ukraine cases
6,472 New Mexico cases
16,491 New cases in California

Over 63.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.9 million
Over 169k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 63,589,291
Daily new cases: 519,902
Global deaths: 1,473,920 with 8,828 new deaths
Global recovered: 43,984,119
Mortality rate: 2.32%
Recovery rate: 69.17%

U.S. cases: 13,919,870
U.S. new cases: 169,466
U.S. deaths: 274,332
U.S. recovered: 8,222,879
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,260

Texas cases: 1,267,486 with 13,479 new cases
Texas deaths: 22,057 – 85 Today
Dallas County cases: 138,798
Dallas County new cases: 702
Dallas County deaths: 1,539 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

November 30, 2020:

Fauci warns of ‘surge in cases’ post Thanksgiving

The US could see “surge upon surge” of coronavirus cases as people return home from the Thanksgiving holiday, a top US disease expert has warned.

[BBC] Speaking on Sunday, Dr Anthony Fauci said it was “not too late” for those yet to travel to help curb the virus by wearing masks and socially distancing.

Thanksgiving typically heralds the busiest week for travel in the US.

The US has recorded more than 13 million coronavirus cases and more than 266,000 people have died.

As of Sunday, the number of Covid-19 cases recorded in November has surpassed four million, double the figure recorded in October.

Last year, an estimated 26 million people passed through US airports in the week surrounding the holiday.

Health experts had called for people to spend Thanksgiving at home, but this week US airports marked their busiest period since mid-March.

Anywhere from 800,000 to more than one million travellers passed through US airport checkpoints on any day during the past week, according to Transport Security Administration statistics.

“There is almost certainly going to be an uptick because of what has happened with the travel,” Dr Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union.

Covid vaccine: Moderna seeks approval in US and Europe

Moderna is filing for US and European regulatory approval of its coronavirus vaccine so that it can be recommended for widespread use.

[BBC] Regulators will look at trial data for the mRNA vaccine and decide if it is safe and effective enough to recommend for roll out.

Clinical studies show the jab is more than 94% effective at protecting people from becoming ill with Covid-19.

Pfizer, which has a similar jab, has already filed for the same US approval.

UK regulators are also reviewing data on the Pfizer vaccine, as well as another type of Covid vaccine from AstraZenca and Oxford University for emergency approval.

Moderna says it hopes to gain UK approval soon, now that it has trial data from 30,000 volunteers – including high risk groups like the elderly – that suggest it works.

A leaderless America slips deep into a grim pandemic winter

Trump sulks after his election defeat and leaves US in limbo

(CNN)America is sliding into a winter limbo of alarming spikes in Covid-19 cases and deepening economic pain while an apathetic lame duck White House and a deadlocked Congress provide no political leadership.

The darkest holiday season in modern history beckons, yet President Donald Trump and his closest aides, sulking after his election defeat, are doing little to save lives, apart from claiming credit for a vaccine that represents a way out of the nightmare of 2020 but remains months away for most Americans.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and GOP-led Senate will return to Washington this week, but have shown no signs they can get together to ease the consequent economic pain of millions of unemployed Americans amid scenes of long Great Depression-style lines outside food banks.

President-elect Joe Biden is moving quickly to put a diverse and experienced team around him — he rolled out an all-female senior communications team Sunday, and he is expected to announce top economic officials this week.

But even a President-elect who promises to replace Trump’s neglect with a science-based approach to the pandemic can only do so much before he takes office on January 20, when the health crisis and economic toll are likely to be far worse.

November 29th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

140,047 New U.S. cases
41,284 New India cases
26,683 New Brazil cases
9,784 New France cases
26,683 New Russia cases
12,155 New UK cases
20,646 New Italy cases
13,637 New Germany cases
11,482 New Poland cases
12,978 New Ukraine cases
6,388 New Mexico cases
15,957 New cases in California

Over 63 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.7 million
Over 140k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 63,059,389
Daily new cases: 505,379
Global deaths: 1,465,092 with 6,989 new deaths
Global recovered: 43,544,036
Mortality rate: 2.32%
Recovery rate: 69.04%

U.S. cases: 13,750,404
U.S. new cases: 140,047
U.S. deaths: 273,072
U.S. recovered: 8,107,203
U.S. Daily fatalities: 818

Texas cases: 1,254,007 with 12,073 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,972 – 54 Today
Dallas County cases: 138,905
Dallas County new cases: 3,303
Dallas County deaths: 1,536 – 8 today

Today’s Headlines

November 29, 2020:

Covid-19 killing Americans at staggering rate

(CNN) As millions of Americans head home after Thanksgiving, the coronavirus could be hitching a ride — threatening to plant seeds of infection across the country as the US on Sunday topped more than 100,000 new cases for the 27th consecutive day.

So far Sunday, the United States has reported 109,671 new cases and 731 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

A surge of new travel-related infections could overwhelm hospitals already stretched to capacity. Hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients reached a record high of 93,238 on Sunday, trumping Saturday’s record-breaking 91,635 figure, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

It is the third time there have been over 90,000 Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 — the first being Thursday with 90,481 before a drop to 89,834 Friday that could be attributed to inconsistencies in reporting over Thanksgiving.

November 28th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

156,103 New U.S. cases
39,567 New India cases
51,922 New Brazil cases
12,580 New France cases
27,100 New Russia cases
15,871 New UK cases
26,315 New Italy cases
14,645 New Germany cases
15,177 New Poland cases
16,294 New Ukraine cases
10,008 New Mexico cases
11,119 New cases in California

Over 62.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.6 million
Over 156k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 62,564,010
Daily new cases: 575,956
Global deaths: 1,458,103 with 8,989 new deaths
Global recovered: 43,188,484
Mortality rate: 2.33%
Recovery rate: 69.03%

U.S. cases: 13,610,357
U.S. new cases: 156,103
U.S. deaths: 272,254
U.S. recovered: 8,041,239
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,228

Texas cases: 1,241,934 with 6,096 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,918 – 64 Today
Dallas County cases: 134,793
Dallas County new cases: 982
Dallas County deaths: 1,528 – 5 today

Today’s Headlines

November 28, 2020:

Being outdoors doesn’t mean you’re safe from COVID-19 – a White House event showed what not to do

[The Conversation] If you think you’re safe from the coronavirus just because you’re outdoors, think again.

While the wind and the large volume of air make the outdoors less risky than being indoors, circumstances matter.

Someone who is infectious can cough or sneeze, or just talk and, if you happen to inhale those respiratory droplets or they plop into your eye, you can get infected. If you shake hands with an infected person and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth, you also run a chance of getting infected. You don’t have to be inhaling an infected person’s air for very long. What matters is the dose.

As an infectious disease doctor, I get a lot of questions from patients about COVID-19 risks. Here are some answers about the risks outdoors.

Doesn’t wind make outside safer than inside?

It’s true that the wind helps disperse respiratory droplets that can carry viruses.

When you’re indoors, one of the big concerns about how the coronavirus spreads is aerosols – tiny, light droplets people emit along with larger droplets when they breathe. These particles can linger in the air, and the concentration can build up in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces. There’s less of a risk in open outdoor settings because of the sheer volume of air and available space to physically distance.

At least one study, not yet peer reviewed, found COVID-19 patients were nearly 20 times more likely to have been infected indoors than outdoors.

But that doesn’t mean you’re in a protective bubble when outdoors.

November 27th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

171,914 New U.S. cases
41,353 New India cases
33,780 New Brazil cases
12,459 New France cases
27,543 New Russia cases
14,739 New UK cases
28,342 New Italy cases
22,018 New Germany cases
17,304 New Poland cases
16,218 New Ukraine cases
12,081 New Mexico cases
15,958 New cases in California

Over 61.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.4 million
Over 171k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 61,988,054
Daily new cases: 679,938 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,449,114 with 11,279 new deaths
Global recovered: 42,787,565
Mortality rate: 2.34%
Recovery rate: 69.03%

U.S. cases: 13,454,254
U.S. new cases: 110,714
U.S. deaths: 271,026
U.S. recovered: 7,846,872
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,471

Texas cases: 1,235,838 with 9,019 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,834 – 18 Today
Dallas County cases: 133,811
Dallas County new cases: 0 – Not reporting Thursday / Friday
Dallas County deaths: 1,523 – 8 today

November 26th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

110,714 New U.S. cases
43,166 New India cases
37,672 New Brazil cases
13,563 New France cases
25,487 New Russia cases
17,555 New UK cases
29,001 New Italy cases
21,576 New Germany cases
16,690 New Poland cases
15,331 New Ukraine cases
8,107 New Mexico cases
10,133 New cases in California

Over 61.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.2 million
Over 110k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 61,308,116
Daily new cases: 588,159
Global deaths: 1,437,835 with 11,012 new deaths
Global recovered: 42,395,359
Mortality rate: 2.35%
Recovery rate: 69.15%

U.S. cases: 13,248,676
U.S. new cases: 110,714
U.S. deaths: 269,555
U.S. recovered: 7,846,872
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,336

Texas cases: 1,231,253 with12,423 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,816 – 206 Today
Dallas County cases: 133,811 – Thanksgiving Data Gap
Dallas County new cases: 0 = Dallas not reporting Thursday and Friday
Dallas County deaths: 1,515 – 18 today

Today’s Headlines

November 26, 2020:

Potential setback for AstraZeneca Vaccine

(CNN) When the British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca announced on Monday that its experimental coronavirus vaccine is 70% effective on average, the world exhaled a collective sigh of relief and stocks rallied. Another vaccine with promising results had arrived.

But a lack of clarity surrounding several aspects of the data from the AstraZeneca vaccine trials have raised some eyebrows in the scientific community, potentially setting back the timing for the vaccine to be authorized in Europe and the US.

AstraZeneca said on Monday that study participants in the UK had been given two different courses of the vaccine.

The drugmaker, which developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford, did not however, at the time, explain why they used two different dosing regimens or why the size of one group was significantly smaller than the other.

In one group, 2,741 participants received a half-dose of the vaccine and then a full dose at least a month later. This group was 90% protected against Covid-19.

In the second group, 8,895 participants received a full dose followed by another full dose at least a month later. This group was only 62% protected.

That’s why AstraZeneca says their vaccine is 70% effective, on average.

But some scientists are questioning why the company would report on a pooled result of two different trials, as it deviates from standard reporting on clinical trials.

And in the days following that announcement, another point of confusion has emerged.

On Tuesday, Mene Pangalos, AstraZeneca’s Executive Vice President who heads up non-oncology research and development, first explained to Reuters that a lab error was the reason why some volunteers had received a smaller dose — the dose that proved to be 90% effective. “The reason we had the half dose is serendipity,” Pangalos said, adding that researchers had “underpredicted the dose of the vaccine by half.”

November 25th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

182,966 New U.S. cases
44,489 New India cases
45,449 New Brazil cases
16,282 New France cases
23,675 New Russia cases
18,213 New UK cases
25,852 New Italy cases
20,825 New Germany cases
15,356 New Poland cases
13,862 New Ukraine cases
10,335 New Mexico cases
14,062 New cases in California

Over 60.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 13.1 million
Over 182k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 60,719,957
Daily new cases: 614,221
Global deaths: 1,426,823 with 11,955 new deaths
Global recovered: 42,031,393
Mortality rate: 2.35%
Recovery rate: 69.22%

U.S. cases: 13,137,962
U.S. new cases: 182,935
U.S. deaths: 268,219
U.S. recovered: 7,805,280
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,328

Texas cases: 1,226,819 with 14,692 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,610 – 193 Today
Dallas County cases: 133,811
Dallas County new cases: 1,368
Dallas County deaths: 1,497 – 18 today

November 24th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

177,833 New U.S. cases
44,376 New India cases
33,445 New Brazil cases
9,155 New France cases
24,326 New Russia cases
11,299 New UK cases
23,227 New Italy cases
16,258 New Germany cases
32,733 New Poland cases
12,287 New Ukraine cases
10,794 New Mexico cases
16,563 New cases in California

Over 60.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12.9 million
Over 177k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 60,105,736
Daily new cases: 591,230
Global deaths: 1,414,868 with 12,850 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 41,553,765
Mortality rate: 2.35%
Recovery rate: 69.13%

U.S. cases: 12,955,007
U.S. new cases: 177,833
U.S. deaths: 265,891
U.S. recovered: 7,636,684
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,204

Texas cases: 1,212,127 with 20,519 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 21,417 – 194 Today
Dallas County cases: 132,443
Dallas County new cases: 1,716
Dallas County deaths: 1,479 – 11 today

Today’s Headlines

November 24, 2020:

Keeping indoor air clean can reduce the chance of spreading coronavirus

[The Conversation] The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, mostly from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. But in spite of the obvious risks posed by being inside, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, small household gatherings are driving much of the recent surge in cases.

The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home would be simply to keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others. Next safest is to entertain outside, but if you can’t, there are a few things you can do to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

First – and most important – always wear masks, make sure everyone stays at least 6 feet away from other people and don’t spend too much time indoors. But in addition to these precautions, making sure the air inside is as clean as possible can also help. I am an indoor air quality researcher who studies how to reduce the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. Using increased ventilation or running an appropriately sized air cleaner or filter can add an extra layer of protection.

COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time – but are these game-changers safe?

[The Conversation] There are now two COVID-19 vaccines that, at least according to preliminary reports, appear to be 94.5% and 95% effective. Both were developed in a record-breaking 11 months or so.

I am an infectious diseases specialist and professor at the University of Virginia. I care for patients with COVID-19 and am conducting the local site for a phase 3 clinical trial of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail as a tool to prevent household transmission of COVID-19. I’m also conducting research on how dysregulation of the immune system during SARS-CoV-2 infection causes lung damage.

Despite the vaccines’ relatively rapid development, the normal safety testing protocols are still in place.

…

How is safety assured when vaccine development is so fast?

Safety is the first and foremost goal for a vaccine.

In my opinion, safety is not compromised by the speed of vaccine development and emergency use authorization. The reason that vaccines may be approved so quickly is that the large clinical trials to assess vaccine efficacy and safety are happening at the same time as the large-scale manufacturing preparation, funded by the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed program.

Typically, large-scale manufacturing begins only once the vaccine has been tested in clinical trials. In the case of COVID-19, the U.S. government wanted to be ready to begin distributing the vaccine the moment the results of the phase 3 trials were known and the safety data had been analyzed.

How long does most vaccine development take?

Vaccines typically take at least a decade to develop, test and manufacture. Both the chickenpox vaccine and FluMist, which protects against several strains of the influenza virus, took 28 years to develop. It took 15 years to develop a vaccine for human papilloma virus, which can cause six kinds of cancer. It also took 15 years to develop a vaccine for rotavirus, which commonly causes severe, watery diarrhea. It took Jonas Salk six years to develop and test the first polio vaccine, starting with the isolation of the virus.

New model: Grim prediction for US as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations explode nationwide

(CNN) Covid-19 is running unabated across almost every American community, and one model projects it will take the country just under two months to reach a staggering 20 million cases.

The US could nearly double its current numbers — about 12.4 million reported infections — by January 20, according to the Washington University in St. Louis forecasting model.

The prediction comes as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations nationwide are exploding, with more than 3.1 million infections reported in the US since the start of November — the most reported in a single month ever.

Hospitalizations are at harrowing highs, with more than 85,800 hospitalized Covid-19 patients in the US, another record set for the 14th day in a row, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

In California, hospitalizations climbed by 77% over the past 2 weeks, while ICU admissions were up 55%. Ohio hospitalizations increased at least 59% over two weeks, the governor said, adding the state currently has the most ICU patients since the pandemic’s start. Pennsylvania’s top health official warned Monday the state could run out of ICU beds within a week.

Some experts have predicted that health care workers — already overwhelmed and exhausted — could soon be faced with difficult decisions of rationing care as hospitals reach capacity.

And as numbers continue to rise, hundreds more Americans will lose their lives to the virus each day. More than 10,000 people have died in just the past week — many of them alone and without the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones.

More than 257,600 people have died in the US since the pandemic’s start — more than any other country by far. And another 140,000 could die over the next two months, according to projections from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Expert: Safest thing you can do this week is stay home

Doctors say CDC should warn people about side effects from Covid vaccine

[CNBC]

Key Points:

The CDC must be transparent about the side effects people may experience after getting their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine, doctors urged during a meeting Monday with CDC advisors.
Dr. Sandra Fryhofer said that both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines require two doses and she worries whether her patients will come back for a second dose because of potentially unpleasant side effects after the first shot.
Both companies acknowledged that their vaccines could induce side effects that are similar to symptoms associated with mild Covid-19, such as muscle pain, chills and headache.

Public health officials and drugmakers must be transparent about the side effects people may experience after getting their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine, doctors urged during a meeting Monday with CDC advisors as states prepare to distribute doses as early as next month.

Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association noted that both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines require two doses at varying intervals. As a practicing physician, she said she worries whether her patients will come back for a second dose because of the potentially unpleasant side effects they may experience after the first shot.

…Participants in Moderna and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trials told CNBC in September that they were experiencing high fever, body aches, bad headaches, daylong exhaustion and other symptoms after receiving the shots. While the symptoms were uncomfortable, and at times intense, the participants said they often went away after a day, sometimes sooner, and that it was better than getting Covid-19.

November 23rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

188,513 New U.S. cases
37,528 New India cases
16,603 New Brazil cases
4,452 New France cases
25,173 New Russia cases
15,450 New UK cases
22,927 New Italy cases
14,537 New Germany cases
15,002 New Poland cases
10,945 New Ukraine cases
7,483 New Mexico cases
17,893 New cases in California

Over 59.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.4 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12.7 million
Over 188k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 59,514,506
Daily new cases: 529,013
Global deaths: 1,402,018 with 8,347 new deaths
Global recovered: 41,155,412
Mortality rate: 2.36%
Recovery rate: 69.15%

U.S. cases: 12,777,174
U.S. new cases: 188,513
U.S. deaths: 263,687
U.S. recovered: 7,548,940
U.S. Daily fatalities: 991

Texas cases: 1,191,608 with 10,912 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,223 – 58 Today
Dallas County cases: 130,727
Dallas County new cases: 1,329
Dallas County deaths: 1,468 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

November 23, 2020:

One in five covid-19 patients are diagnosed with a mental illness within three months

[MIT] — The news: There have been increasing numbers of anecdotal reports of a link between surviving covid-19 and developing mental health problems in recent months. Now we have some numbers to back those reports up. A new study, published in Lancet Psychiatry, has found that almost one in five people who have had covid-19 go on to be diagnosed with a mental illness within three months of testing positive.

How the calculations were made: The researchers from Oxford University and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre gathered the electronic health records of 70 million patients in the US, including 62,354 who had been diagnosed with covid-19 from January 20 to April 1 2020 but did not need to be hospitalized. They found that 18% of patients were diagnosed with a mental health issue in the 14 to 90 days after a covid-19 diagnosis.

To see how covid-19 patients compared to those suffering with other issues, the team compared data with six other conditions (including flu and fractures) over the same time period. They found that the likelihood of a covid-19 patient being diagnosed with a mental health issue for the first time was twice that of those with other conditions. Anxiety disorders, insomnia, and dementia were the most common diagnoses.

November 22nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

137,995 New U.S. cases
44,404 New India cases
18,615 New Brazil cases
0 New France cases
24,581 New Russia cases
18,662 New UK cases
28,337 New Italy cases
13,830 New Germany cases
17,856 New Poland cases
12,079 New Ukraine cases
9,187 New Mexico cases
8,695 New cases in California

Over 58.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12.5 million
Over 137k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 58,985,493
Daily new cases: 490,765
Global deaths: 1,393,671 with 7,101 new deaths
Global recovered: 40,766,899
Mortality rate: 2.36%
Recovery rate: 69.11%

U.S. cases: 12,588,661
U.S. new cases: 137,995
U.S. deaths: 262,696
U.S. recovered: 7,452,540
U.S. Daily fatalities: 906

Texas cases: 1,178,718 with 6,611 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,165 – 77 Today
Dallas County cases: 129,398
Dallas County new cases: 1,074
Dallas County deaths: 1,466 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

November 22, 2020:

U.S. Covid-19 hospitalizations reach a record high in November

(CNN)November isn’t even over, and the US has already seen more new Covid-19 cases than any other month of this entire pandemic.

More than 3 million new cases were reported between November 1 and 22, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s about a quarter of all US cases since the beginning of this pandemic.

Yes, testing has increased. But it hasn’t kept pace with the rate of new infections.

As of late last week, the number of daily new cases increased 25% compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins data.

But the number of new tests increased only 14.55%, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

And in 44 states, the percentage of positive tests is higher than the recommended 5% threshold.

“If a positivity rate is too high, that may indicate that the state is only testing the sickest patients who seek medical attention, and is not casting a wide enough net to know how much of the virus is spreading within its communities,” Johns Hopkins said.

And every surge in new cases leads to more hospitalizations and deaths in the following weeks.

Hospitals are getting overwhelmed

Once again, the US smashed its record for people hospitalized with Covid-19 — putting enormous strain on the health care system and threatening to reduce care for even those who don’t have coronavirus.

At least 83,227 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized Saturday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That’s the 12th straight day that the US has broken its record for Covid-19 hospitalizations.

At least 24 hospital leaders warned the American Hospital Association they’re having staffing shortages, said Nancy Foster, the association’s vice president for quality and patient safety policy.

No, soaring COVID-19 cases are not due to more testing – they show a surging pandemic

[The Conversation] COVID-19 cases are surging upward around the U.S., reaching 100,000 daily cases for the first time on Nov. 4 and 150,000 only eight days later. Some believe this increase in reported cases is a result of increases in testing, as more than 1.5 million tests are performed every day in the U.S. But the evidence is clear that these high numbers reflect a true increase in the number of COVID-19 infections.

Hospitalizations, deaths and test-positivity rates are going up. Taken together, this means that serious COVID-19 illness is on the rise and cases are being undercounted.

Steep increases in hospitalizations and deaths

Rather than being an artifact of changes in testing policy, the rise in cases reflects ongoing transmission and serious illness.

Even as COVID-19 treatments have improved and death rates have fallen, record-breaking levels of hospitalizations are already overwhelming ICUs in many parts of the country. Hospitalizations and deaths will continue to climb even if the surge in new cases abates because the majority of cases are diagnosed before serious illness develops. Today’s new infections will add to the death toll for weeks to come.

These hospitalizations and deaths represent confirmed COVID-19 infections. A COVID-19 diagnosis for hospitalized cases must be justified based on symptoms and test results. COVID-19 is simply the only plausible explanation for ongoing high hospitalization and death rates.

High and rising test positivity

High and rising test-positivity rates provide more evidence that COVID-19 is spreading uncontrollably around the country.

Test positivity can be calculated in two ways: as the percentage of all COVID-19 tests that come back positive, or, the percentage of people tested for active infection that return a positive result. For example, Iowa’s test-positivity rate of 37.2% between Oct. 26 and Nov. 9 implies that for every 100 people tested for COVID-19, 37 are positive.

Test positivity tells public health officials whether a testing program is casting a wide enough net to catch the majority of COVID-19 cases.

A high test-positivity rate indicates that the people getting tested are mostly those who have symptoms or think they’ve been exposed to someone with COVID-19. But people can be infected or contagious even if they aren’t showing symptoms. A low test-positivity rate means that access to testing is wide enough to reach large numbers of people who may not know they have the coronavirus. This greatly increases the chances of diagnosing people without symptoms or known exposure who may nonetheless be infected.

National Guard deployed to El Paso to support morgue crisis

(CNN) Members of the Texas National Guard were mobilized to El Paso County, Texas, to help with the morgue crisis as the state battles a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.

A team of 36 National Guard troops has been deployed to “provide mortuary affairs support,” according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM).

The team was mobilized Saturday morning “after completing an assessment of the situation on the ground in El Paso County this week,” TDEM spokesman Seth Christensen told CNN.

“As we’ve seen a rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations, we are unfortunately also seeing a spike in deaths. We have been working closely with funeral homes and mortuaries to assist with increased capacity and coordination of resources,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said in a statement on Twitter.

Much-hyped Hong Kong-Singapore ‘travel bubble’ postponed amid Covid-19 spike

(CNN) — The highly-anticipated Hong Kong and Singapore “air travel bubble” was postponed Saturday — less than 24 hours before it was due to launch.

The bubble would have allowed quarantine-free, air travel between the two Asian hubs. But a spike in coronavirus infections in Hong Kong means the arrangement will be postponed for two weeks, said Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development, at a press conference Saturday.

Hong Kong reported 43 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the highest daily spike in over three months. Among them, 36 were locally transmitted — including 13 that are untraceable.

The quarantine-free corridor was meant to boost tourism and business travel between the two Asian hubs, which have largely contained their coronavirus outbreak. Hong Kong has recorded 5,561 Covid-19 cases, including 108 deaths, since the outbreak began, while Singapore has reported 58,000 infections and 28 deaths.

Quarantine-free travel would have been a big deal for both destinations, where strict arrival regulations have been in place for months. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, both governments shut borders and denied entry to most non-residents and short-term visitors. In Hong Kong, returning residents are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine and wear an electronic bracelet to track their location.

November 21st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

175,940 New U.S. cases
45,295 New India cases
32,622 New Brazil cases
17,881 New France cases
24,822 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
19,875 New UK cases
34,764 New Italy cases
16,612 New Germany cases
24,213 New Poland cases
14,580 New Ukraine cases
6,719 New Mexico cases
13,278 New cases in California

Over 58.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12.4 million
Over 175k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 58,494,728
Daily new cases: 589,044
Global deaths: 1,386,570 with 8,986 new deaths
Global recovered: 40,467,900
Mortality rate: 2.37%
Recovery rate: 69.18%

U.S. cases: 12,450,666
U.S. new cases: 175,940
U.S. deaths: 261,790
U.S. recovered: 7,403,847
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,507

Texas cases: 1,172,107 with 10,888 new cases
Texas deaths: 21,088 – 132 Today
Dallas County cases: 128,324
Dallas County new cases: 2,183
Dallas County deaths: 1,463 – 13 today

Today’s Headlines

November 21, 2020:

The world is not prepared to handle the Covid-19 vaccine

(CNN) Vaccines like to be kept cool, none more so than the Pfizer candidate for Covid-19, which has to be deep-frozen. And that’s going to be an issue for developing countries — and for rural areas in the developed world.

The “cold chain” is just one of the challenges in distributing vaccines worldwide.

There are plenty of others: decisions about priority populations and databases to keep track of who’s received what vaccine, where and when. Additionally, different vaccines may have more or less efficacy with different population groups; and governments will need PR campaigns to persuade people that vaccines are safe.

But the logistics of transporting and storing vaccines — getting them from the factory gate to the patient’s arm — are critical. And as most vaccines are likely to require two doses, the whole chain needs must be repeated within weeks.

Unique challenges

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine needs to be kept at around -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit) while it’s transported. That’s 50 degrees Celsius colder than any other vaccine currently used.

Moderna says its vaccine can be kept in freezers typically available in pharmacies, and in a refrigerator for 30 days. But there are likely to be fewer doses of the Moderna vaccine than of the Pfizer’s available over the next year.

Phase 3 trials have shown both vaccines to be around 95% effective but the results haven’t yet been reviewed by regulators.

On Wednesday, the CEO of BioNTech, the German biotech company partnering with Pfizer, acknowledged the issue of temperature control.

WHO recommends against using remdesivir to treat Covid-19

(CNN)The World Health Organization has updated its ongoing guidance on Covid-19 medications to advise against using the antiviral drug remdesivir to treat hospitalized patients, no matter how severe their illness may be.

According to the update, published in the medical journal the BMJ on Thursday, current evidence does not suggest remdesivir affects the risk of dying from Covid-19 or needing mechanical ventilation, among other important outcomes.

WHO’s new update comes about a month after the company Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, announced that the US Food and Drug Administration approved remdesivir for the treatment of coronavirus infection. The drug became the first coronavirus treatment to receive FDA approval. On Thursday, FDA gave emergency use authorization to a combination of remdesivir and the rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib to treat suspected or confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Remdesivir may have received FDA approval but not WHO’s recommendation because of emerging research, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who was not involved in the WHO guidance. Studies initially showed some benefit against Covid-19, but as more data accumulate, that appears to be changing,

“We’ve seen people realize that the benefit of remdesivir is marginal at best — and the only benefit we had been touting was maybe it gets people better quicker. But the evidence base for that is weak, it’s not ironclad, and I think that’s what we’re seeing reflected in the WHO guidance, just more evaluation of the data that’s out there and more of now,” Adalja told CNN on Thursday.

“The fact that it was an antiviral that showed some benefit in certain trials — but not in all trials — was enough to push people to want to use it because we had no tools, but I do think it probably will be supplanted shortly,” Adalja said, adding that the indication for drugs can change over time.

Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota led to a Covid-19 outbreak in Minnesota

(CNN)The motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, in August has been linked to a Covid-19 outbreak in Minnesota, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, highlighting how one state’s lax rules during the pandemic affect others with stricter measures in place.

The 10-day event is a long-standing tradition that usually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the country. Despite opposition from local residents this year, the rally took place, complete with crowded bars and nearby concerts.

This year, about 460,000 people attended, according to the report, published Friday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In neighboring Minnesota, the state’s health department investigated a Covid-19 outbreak tied to the rally and found at least 51 residents had attended the rally and became sick, and an additional 35 people were infected after coming into contact with a person who went to the rally, the report said. Those 35 people were household, social and workplace contacts, it said.

Of those 86 cases, four people were hospitalized, and one died.

Canada’s largest city is going into lockdown for at least 28 days

[CNN] Toronto, Canada’s biggest city, is going into lockdown for at least 28 days to limit the spread of Covid-19, according to a news release from the Office of the Premier of Ontario published Friday.

The lockdown will go into effect Monday and it includes Peel Region, which is part of the Greater Toronto Area.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in the news release that Covid-19 numbers are “rising rapidly in certain regions,” adding the lockdown will protect “hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, and every person in this province.”

“We cannot afford a province-wide lockdown, so we are taking preventative action today by moving Toronto and Peel into lockdown level restrictions … We need to take decisive action to stop the spread of this deadly virus,” Ford said.

November 20th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

204,014 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
46,288 New India cases
37,075 New Brazil cases
22,882 New France cases
24,318 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
20,252 New UK cases
37,239 New Italy cases
23,450 New Germany cases
22,464 New Poland cases
14,575 New Ukraine cases
6,426 New Mexico cases
13,822 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 57.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12.2 million
Over 204k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 57,905,684
Daily new cases: 674,049 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,377,584 with 12,123 new deaths
Global recovered: 40,105,102
Mortality rate: 2.38%
Recovery rate: 69.26%

U.S. cases: 12,070,712
U.S. new cases: 196,985 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 258,333
U.S. recovered: 7,316,323
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,950

Texas cases: 1,161,219 with 13,943 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,956 – 190 Today
Dallas County cases: 126,141
Dallas County new cases: 1,974
Dallas County deaths: 1,450 – 21 today

November 19th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

196,985 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
46,182 New India cases
35,686 New Brazil cases
21,150 New France cases
23,610 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
22,915 New UK cases
36,176 New Italy cases
23,676 New Germany cases
23,975 New Poland cases
13,357 New Ukraine cases
4,472 New Mexico cases
12,953 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 57.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 12 million
Over 196k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 57,231,635
Daily new cases: 673,413 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,365,461 with 10,845 new deaths
Global recovered: 39,720,721
Mortality rate: 2.39%
Recovery rate: 69.40%

U.S. cases: 12,070,712
U.S. new cases: 196,985 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 258,333
U.S. recovered: 7,243,488
U.S. Daily fatalities: 2,079

Texas cases: 1,147,276 with 16,984 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 20,766 – 226 Today
Dallas County cases: 124,167
Dallas County new cases: 1,860
Dallas County deaths: 1,429 – 19 today

November 18th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

178,016 New U.S. cases
45,439 New India cases
35,645 New Brazil cases
28,383 New France cases
20,985 New Russia cases
19,609 New UK cases
34,280 New Italy cases
20,801 New Germany cases
19,883 New Poland cases
12,495 New Ukraine cases
3,918 New Mexico cases
14,015 New cases in California – ALL TIME HIGH

Over 56.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11.8 million
Over 178k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 56,558,222
Daily new cases: 615,342
Global deaths: 1,354,616 with 11,240 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 39,349,808
Mortality rate: 2.40%
Recovery rate: 69.57%

U.S. cases: 11,873,727
U.S. new cases: 178,016
U.S. deaths: 256,254
U.S. recovered: 7,160,966
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,604

Texas cases: 1,130,292 with 13,339 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,540 – 205 Today
Dallas County cases: 122,307
Dallas County new cases: 947
Dallas County deaths: 1,401 – 19 today

November 17th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

157,654 New U.S. cases
38,532 New India cases
35,018 New Brazil cases
45,522 New France cases
22,410 New Russia cases
20,051 New UK cases
32,191 New Italy cases
16,206 New Germany cases
19,152 New Poland cases
11,968 New Ukraine cases
1,757 New Mexico cases
8,397 New cases in California

Over 55.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11.6 million
Over 157k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 55,942,880
Daily new cases: 593,472
Global deaths: 1,343,376 with 11,048 new deaths – ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 38,961,033
Mortality rate: 2.40%
Recovery rate: 69.64%

U.S. cases: 11,695,711
U.S. new cases: 157,654
U.S. deaths: 254,255
U.S. recovered: 7,087,796
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,604

Texas cases: 1,116,913 with 10,678 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,335 – 117 Today
Dallas County cases: 121,360
Dallas County new cases: 1,831
Dallas County deaths: 1,391 – 8 today

Today’s Headlines

November 17, 2020:

Doctors Begin to Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects

[WSJ] Nearly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, scientists, doctors and patients are beginning to unlock a puzzling phenomenon: For many patients, including young ones who never required hospitalization, Covid-19 has a devastating second act.

Many are dealing with symptoms weeks or months after they were expected to recover, often with puzzling new complications that can affect the entire body—severe fatigue, cognitive issues and memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood pressure, even hair loss.

What is surprising to doctors is that many such cases involve people whose original cases weren’t the most serious, undermining the assumption that patients with mild Covid-19 recover within two weeks. Doctors call the condition “post-acute Covid” or “chronic Covid,” and sufferers often refer to themselves as “long haulers” or “long-Covid” patients.

“Usually, the patients with bad disease are most likely to have persistent symptoms, but Covid doesn’t work like that,” said Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford and the lead author of an August BMJ study that was among the first to define chronic Covid patients as those with symptoms lasting more than 12 weeks and spanning multiple organ systems.

For many such patients, she said, “the disease itself is not that bad,” but symptoms like memory lapses and rapid heart rate sometimes persist for months.

South Dakota: What dying Covid-19 patients tell this nurse

The overarching message here is that so many Covid patients refuse to believe what is happening to them. Right up to their very last breath they still deny the facts.

[CNN] CNN’s Alisyn Camerota speaks with Jodi Doering, a nurse from South Dakota who says some of her coronavirus patients often don’t want to believe that Covid-19 is real, even in their dying moments.

Watch Video

How bad is Russia’s Covid crisis? Packed morgues and excess deaths

Moscow (CNN)The limbs of a lifeless body hang off a stretcher in a hospital ward as coronavirus patients battle for their lives just a few feet away. An elderly woman gasps for breath, her desperate panting a grim soundtrack to one of many disturbing cell-phone videos emerging from hospitals across Russia.

“This is how our nights look: horrifying,” says a male voice narrating the footage, given to CNN by a prominent opposition-linked Russian doctors’ union, “Doctors’ Alliance,” which says it was recorded in mid-October by a hospital staff member in Ulyanovsk, a city around 500 miles east of Moscow.

“Two more down in our ward,” he says, while filming a corpse. “This is how Covid-19 is killing everybody.”

This grisly video is just one of several obtained by CNN that reveal appalling conditions inside overcrowded facilities. Some footage shows morgues with bodies, stripped naked, piled on top of each other on grimy floors, in scenes that look like war zones more than hospitals.

As Russia struggles to get the pandemic under control, the videos are one of several signs pointing to an actual death toll far higher than official figures suggest.

Russia says as of November 16 more than 33,000 people have died of Covid-19. But that number is disputed by critics who say the Kremlin is underreporting the numbers.

“I think the real figure is [around] 130,000 people,” said Alexey Raksha, a former government statistician who has made his estimates based on official data on excess deaths — the number of fatalities above what would normally be expected — to assess the toll of the pandemic.

[OBLIVIOTS] The graphs below are taken from our embedded spreadsheet. This will give you an idea of the rapid Covid-19 growth in Russia recently. As you can see, the current growth statistics vastly exceed the summer spikes.

The top graph is total cases over time.

The bottom graph is new cases per day. This should be the canary in the coal mine.

November 16th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

171,678 New U.S. cases
28,555 New India cases
13,647 New Brazil cases
9,406 New France cases
22,778 New Russia cases
21,363 New UK cases
27,352 New Italy cases
14,582 New Germany cases
20,816 New Poland cases
9,832 New Ukraine cases
2,874 New Mexico cases
11,209 New cases in California

Over 55.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11.5 million
Over 171k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 54,817,107
Daily new cases: 491,350
Global deaths: 1,324,457 with 6,216 new deaths
Global recovered: 38,138,525
Mortality rate: 2.42%
Recovery rate: 69.57%

U.S. cases: 11,538,057
U.S. new cases: 171,678
U.S. deaths: 252,651
U.S. recovered: 7,019,304
U.S. Daily fatalities: 819

Texas cases: 1,106,235 with 11,879 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,218 – 78 Today
Dallas County cases: 120,715
Dallas County new cases: 1,831
Dallas County deaths: 1,383 – 10 today

November 16, 2020:

Governors left to manage Covid-19 spread as rates projected to get worse

(CNN)State and local leaders have been left to manage the spread of Covid-19 as infections increase at unprecedented speed — and as things get worse, their participation will likely be more important, experts say.

For much of the pandemic, health experts have lamented the lack of a strong national response from the United States while state leadership has implemented measures and restrictions. And now, on the heels of the country adding 1 million cases in less than a week (the fastest it ever has), two former Food and Drug Administration commissioners said Sunday slowing the spread is “now up to governors.”

“State and local actions, supported by improved treatments, can help build a bridge to vaccinations and more widespread immunity in 2021,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb and Dr. Mark McClellan wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Americans are understandably tired of Covid, but accepting temporary restrictions now will help prevent even more painful personal and economic disruptions.”

They called on leaders to enforce measures like wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and maintaining social distancing as the winter holidays threaten to drive cases even higher.

Already, more than 11 million people have been infected in the US and 246,217 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And with more than 2,000 Americans predicted to die every day by January, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, coronavirus could become the single leading cause of death in the US on a daily basis, the dean of tropical medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine said.

“It’s more than just heading in the wrong direction,” Dr. Peter Hotez said while speaking Sunday with CNN’s Ana Cabrera. “We are on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to company data

(CNN) The Moderna vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released Monday by the company, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate.

“These are obviously very exciting results,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. “It’s just as good as it gets — 94.5% is truly outstanding.”

Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data.

“It was one of the greatest moments in my life and my career. It is absolutely amazing to be able to develop this vaccine and see the ability to prevent symptomatic disease with such high efficacy,” said Dr. Tal Zacks, Moderna’s chief medical officer.

Vaccinations could begin in the second half of December, Fauci said. Vaccinations are expected to begin with high-risk groups and to be available for the rest of the population next spring.

Today’s Headlines

November 16, 2020:

Governors left to manage Covid-19 spread as rates projected to get worse

They called on leaders to enforce measures like wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and maintaining social distancing as the winter holidays threaten to drive cases even higher.

“It’s more than just heading in the wrong direction,” Dr. Peter Hotez said while speaking Sunday with CNN’s Ana Cabrera. “We are on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to company data

“These are obviously very exciting results,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. “It’s just as good as it gets — 94.5% is truly outstanding.”

Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data.

Vaccinations could begin in the second half of December, Fauci said. Vaccinations are expected to begin with high-risk groups and to be available for the rest of the population next spring.

November 15th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

140,341 New U.S. cases
30,715 New India cases
14,134 New Brazil cases
27,228 New France cases
22,572 New Russia cases
24,962 New UK cases
33,977 New Italy cases
14,045 New Germany cases
21,854 New Poland cases
10,681 New Ukraine cases
3,269 New Mexico cases
8,817 New cases in California

Over 54 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11.3 million
Over 140k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 54,817,107
Daily new cases: 491,350
Global deaths: 1,324,457 with 6,216 new deaths
Global recovered: 38,138,525
Mortality rate: 2.42%
Recovery rate: 69.57%

U.S. cases: 11,366,379
U.S. new cases: 140,341
U.S. deaths: 251,832
U.S. recovered: 6,935,630
U.S. Daily fatalities: 576

Texas cases: 1,093,645 with 6,658 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,075 – 11 Today
Dallas County cases: 118,884
Dallas County new cases: 1,458
Dallas County deaths: 1,373 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

November 15, 2020:

How close are we to a vaccine?

[BBC] Hopes are rising that an effective vaccine against Covid-19 will be available within the next year.

Preliminary findings show a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech can prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19. Meanwhile results from other advanced trials are expected soon.

Why do we need a vaccine?

If you want your life to get back to normal, then we need a vaccine.

Even now, the vast majority of people are still vulnerable to a coronavirus infection. It is only the restrictions on our lives that are preventing more people from dying.

But vaccines safely teach our bodies to fight the infection. This can either stop us catching coronavirus in the first place or at least make Covid less deadly.

The vaccine, alongside better treatments, is “the” exit strategy.

What drugs can help treat coronavirus?

Which vaccines look most likely to succeed?

Pfizer/BioNtech is the first pharmaceutical company to share data from the final stages of testing – known as a phase 3 trial.

This is a crucial point in vaccine development, where some experimental vaccines will fail.

About 43,000 people have been given the vaccine, and no safety concerns have been raised.

Normal life back next winter, says vaccine creator

[BBC] The impact of a new Covid vaccine will kick in significantly over summer and life should be back to normal by next winter, one of its creators has said.

Prof Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech, said this winter would still be hard as the vaccine would not have a big impact on infection numbers.

Last week, BioNTech and co-developers Pfizer said preliminary analysis showed their vaccine could prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19.

About 43,000 people took part in tests.

The UK is expected to get 10 million doses by the end of the year, with a further 30 million doses already ordered. The vaccine is given in two doses, three weeks apart.

Older residents and staff in care homes are likely to be prioritised, followed by health workers and the over-80s. People would then be ranked by age.

In an interview on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Prof Sahin said he was confident the vaccine would reduce transmission between people as well as stop symptoms developing in someone who has had the vaccine.

Austria locks down as new wave grips Europe

[BBC] Austria is moving from a night curfew and partial shutdown to a second national lockdown that will be in place for at least two and a half weeks.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has urged Austrians not to meet anyone from outside their household in an attempt to curb a rapid rise in Covid cases.

He said schools would close and students would learn from home when new measures come into force on Tuesday.

Austria reported a record number of 9,586 new daily infections on Friday.

That figure was nine times higher than at the peak of the initial wave earlier this year. The country has recorded more than 191,000 cases since the start of the pandemic, and 1,661 Covid-related deaths.

The new lockdown measures, which will see all non-essential shops and services – including hairdressers – close, will remain in place until 6 December. People have been told to work at home wherever possible.

Austria’s Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said it was the last chance to stop the health service from collapsing under the pressure of new infections.

November 14th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

161,674 New U.S. cases
41,659 New India cases
29,463 New Brazil cases
32,095 New France cases
22,702 New Russia cases
26,860 New UK cases
37,249 New Italy cases
16,077 New Germany cases
25,571 New Poland cases
12,524 New Ukraine cases
5,860 New Mexico cases
7,747 New cases in California

Over 54 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11.2 million
Over 161k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 54,325,757
Daily new cases: 579,054
Global deaths: 1,318,241 with 8,833 new deaths
Global recovered: 37,867,937
Mortality rate: 2.43%
Recovery rate: 69.71%

U.S. cases: 11,226,038
U.S. new cases: 161,674
U.S. deaths: 251,256
U.S. recovered: 6,891,015
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,281

Texas cases: 1,086,987 with 8,793 new cases
Texas deaths: 20,064 – 118 Today
Dallas County cases: 117,426
Dallas County new cases: 1,543
Dallas County deaths: 1,373 – 12 today

Today’s Headlines

November 14, 2020:

Covid-19 hospitalizations set a new record across the US

[CNN] The United States has more people hospitalized with Covid-19 than ever before, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

There were 68,516current hospitalizations reported on Friday across the entire US, according to CTP. The seven-day average for current hospitalizations is now 62,123, which is up 20.01% from last week.

Nineteen states reported record high Covid-19 hospitalizations today, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Those states are; Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Record high hospitalizations are expected to continue daily as new Covid-19 cases continue to skyrocket.

Recovering Covid-19 patients struggle to return to normal

[CNN] Surviving Covid-19 is hard enough for those who get severely ill from the disease, but returning to normal is a struggle, too, according to new research.

It found that survivors were likely to face health and financial hardships even months later.

A team of scientists led by Dr. Vineet Chopra of the University of Michigan Health System looked at 488 Covid-19 patients treated and released from hospitals in Michigan. They surveyed them about two months after their release, between March 16 and July 1.

Health impact: A third of the survivors reported ongoing health issues, such as a cough, new or worsening conditions and persistent loss of taste or smell, the researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Emotional impact: Nearly half said they were “emotionally affected” by their illness and a small number, 28, sought mental health care after discharge.

Financial impact: Another 36% reported “at least a mild financial impact from their hospitalization.” Of those employed before their illness, 40% said they either lost their job or were too sick to return to work. Just over a quarter of those who returned to work reported reduced hours or modified responsibilities.

November 13th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

190,428 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
45,343 New India cases
35,849 New Brazil cases
23,794 New France cases
21,983 New Russia cases
27,301 New UK cases
40,902 New Italy cases
23,184 New Germany cases
24,051 New Poland cases
11,787 New Ukraine cases
5,558 New Mexico cases
10,067 New cases in California

Over 53 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.3 Million
U.S. Cases topped 11 million
Over 190k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 53,746,703
Daily new cases: 660,941 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,309,408 with 10,141 new deaths
Global recovered: 37,521,858
Mortality rate: 2.44%
Recovery rate: 69.81%

U.S. cases: 11,064,364
U.S. new cases: 190,428 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 249,975
U.S. recovered: 6,789,146
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,390

Texas cases: 1,078,194 with 12,762 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,946 – 216 Today
Dallas County cases: 115,883
Dallas County new cases: 767
Dallas County deaths: 1,361 – 11 today

Today’s Headlines

November 13, 2020:

Even if you’re asymptomatic, COVID-19 can harm your heart, study shows

COVID-19 can do some pretty scary things to the human heart. It can trigger blood clots in severe cases and cause inflammation and scarring.

New research now shows that even young people with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic are at risk for developing potentially dangerous inflammation around the heart.

I am an imaging cardiologist who is developing diagnostic techniques to assess changes in heart muscle function in patients with COVID-19. In a study released Nov. 4, my colleagues and I found evidence of heart abnormalities in over one-third of student athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 and underwent cardiac screening at West Virginia University this fall.

While we didn’t detect ongoing damage to the heart muscle itself, we frequently found evidence of inflammation and excess fluid in the pericardium, the sac around the heart. Almost all of the 54 students tested had either mild COVID-19 or were asymptomatic.

November 12th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

165,306 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
43,861 New India cases
34,640 New Brazil cases
33,172 New France cases
21,608 New Russia cases
33,470 New UK cases
37,977 New Italy cases
23,462 New Germany cases
22,683 New Poland cases
11,057 New Ukraine cases
5,658 New Mexico cases
9,158 New cases in California

Over 53 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.8 million
Over 165k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 53,085,762
Daily new cases: 653,250 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,299,267 with 9,734 new deaths
Global recovered: 37,210,160
Mortality rate: 2.45%
Recovery rate: 70.09%

- U.S. cases: 10,873,936
U.S. new cases: 165,306 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 248,585
U.S. recovered: 6,726,120
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,188

Texas cases: 1,065,432 with 10,233 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,730 – 157 Today
Dallas County cases: 115,116
Dallas County new cases: 808
Dallas County deaths: 1,350 – 9 today

November 11th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

149,446 New U.S. cases
48,285 New India cases
47,724 New Brazil cases
35,879 New France cases
19,851 New Russia cases
22,950 New UK cases
32,961 New Italy cases
20,536 New Germany cases
25,221 New Poland cases
10,611 New Ukraine cases
7,646 New Mexico cases
6,088 New cases in California

Over 52.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.7 million
Over 149k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 52,432,512
Daily new cases: 626,961 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,289,533 with 10,347 new deaths
Global recovered: 36,675,916
Mortality rate: 2.46%
Recovery rate: 69.95%

U.S. cases: 10,708,630
U.S. new cases: 149,446 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 247,397
U.S. recovered: 6,648,679
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,598

Texas cases: 1,055,199 with 12,760 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 19,573 – 120 Today
Dallas County cases: 114,308
Dallas County new cases: 1,304
Dallas County deaths: 1,341 – 10 today

November 10th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

137,228 New U.S. cases
44,679 New India cases
25,517 New Brazil cases
22,180 New France cases
20,977 New Russia cases
20,412 New UK cases
35,090 New Italy cases
16,668 New Germany cases
25,454 New Poland cases
10,179 New Ukraine cases
5,746 New Mexico cases
8,439 New cases in California

Over 51.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.5 million
Over 137k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 51,805,551
Daily new cases: 562,132
Global deaths: 1,279,186 with 9,881 new deaths
Global recovered: 36,392,212
Mortality rate: 2.47%
Recovery rate: 70.25%

- U.S. cases: 10,559,184
U.S. new cases: 137,228
U.S. deaths: 245,799
U.S. recovered: 6,601,331
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,351

Texas cases: 1,042,439 with12,212 new cases – ALL TIME HIGH
Texas deaths: 19,453 – 123 Today
Dallas County cases: 113,004
Dallas County new cases: 1,401
Dallas County deaths: 1,331 – 10 today

Today’s Headlines

November 10, 2020:

Vitamin D to be delivered to millions of vulnerable people

[Yahoo] Free supplies of vitamin D will be delivered to more than two million clinically vulnerable people and care home residents over the winter amid growing optimism about the role of the supplement in cutting the risk of death from Covid-19.

Ministers are drawing up plans for four-month supplies of the vitamin to be delivered directly to care home residents in England and those deemed to be clinically extremely vulnerable. The move follows a similar move by the Scottish Government.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is said to be seeking to act in light of emerging evidence about Vitamin D, while Boris Johnson told MPs last week that “we are indeed looking at the possible beneficial effects of vitamin D, and … we will be updating the House shortly”.

Brazil suspends trials of China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine, citing ‘serious adverse event’

(CNN)Brazil’s health regulator has suspended trials of a Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine following a “serious adverse event” involving a volunteer recipient, according to sources cited by CNN’s affiliate, CNN Brasil.

Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech began Phase 3 trials of its CoronaVac in collaboration with the Brazilian Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo in late July, with an aim to recruit 130,000 volunteers. Phase 3 trials represent the final and most important testing stage before regulatory approval is sought.

The pause in testing marks a potential setback for one of China’s leading vaccine candidates and comes as US drugmaker Pfizer said Monday that early data from its own coronavirus vaccine showed more than 90% effectiveness.

According to a note from Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency, an incident reported on October 29 led to a decision to suspend the trial in order to better evaluate the data and assess the risk.

“With the study interrupted, no new volunteers can be vaccinated,” read the note published by CNN Brasil late Monday.

The note did not elaborate on the specific nature of the serious event or where it took place, citing privacy concerns. The Butantan Institute said it would hold a press conference Tuesday morning local time, according to CNN Brasil.

Biden wants to see masks mandated in all 50 states

(CNN) While health officials agree face masks help prevent the spread of Covid-19, state and local governments have varied widely on implementation of mask rules. Now, President-elect Joe Biden wants to change that.

Biden’s office has released plans that his administration intends to implement in the beginning of his term, and one is a national mask mandate “by working with governors and mayors.”

Most states already have some type of mask mandate, but some have no statewide rule — either leaving it as a recommendation or giving the authority to local officials.

Here are the states with no statewide mask requirement.

Alaska

Alaska does not require the use of masks, limit group size or business operations. All the state does is encourage Alaskans to do their part to limit the spread of Covid-19, recommending that residents practice social distancing and wear a mask, without any mandate.

The mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, though, has signed an order requiring people to wear face coverings in public.

Arizona

Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, allows individual counties to mandate a mask, but does not have a statewide initiative. Scottsdale was the first to make masks mandatory starting June 19. Other major municipalities with requirements include Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff.

Florida

There is no statewide mask requirement, yet some local municipalities have their own mandates.

Georgia

Statewide, masks are required for some essential employees, including restaurants and personal care services employees.

Meanwhile, several counties and cities have mask mandates.

Idaho

The state does not have a statewide requirement, but several local municipalities do, including Boise.

Iowa

The state does not have a statewide requirement, but several local municipalities do.

Mississippi

On September 4, Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, lifted the state face covering requirement.

Just over a month later and amid rising case numbers, Reeves signed an executive order requiring face coverings in counties with higher Covid-19 case numbers. But that order expires on Wednesday.

Missouri

The state does not have a statewide requirement, but several local municipalities do.

Nebraska

There is no statewide mandate, but clients and staff in barbershops, salons, tattoo parlors and massage parlors must wear masks, as part of the current Directed Health Measure requirements.

North Dakota

The state does not have a statewide requirement, but at least one local municipality, Fargo, does.

Oklahoma

The city council in Oklahoma City voted in a special meeting in July to approve an emergency public safety ordinance requiring face coverings in indoor public places throughout Oklahoma City.

South Carolina

Several counties and cities, including Charleston and Columbia, have mask mandates.

South Dakota

Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, has taken a hands-off approach to Covid-19. In October, she wrote in an op-ed that the government should not mandate a mask requirement.

“As I’ve said before, if folks want to wear a mask, they should be free to do so,” she wrote. “Similarly, those who don’t want to wear a mask shouldn’t be shamed into wearing one.”

South Dakota is second — only to North Dakota — in the number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

Tennessee

Though there is no statewide mandate, Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, signed an executive order granting the mayors in 89 counties the authority to issue mask requirements.

Wyoming

Though there is no statewide mandate, Laramie County, home to the capital city Cheyenne, has a mask requirement that went into effect on November 1. However, according to CNN affiliate KGWN, the county’s district attorney’s office has said violations of the mandate will not be prosecuted.

November 9th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

133,476 New U.S. cases
37,211 New India cases
11,651 New Brazil cases
20,155 New France cases
21,798 New Russia cases
21,350 New UK cases
25,269 New Italy cases
16,485 New Germany cases
21,713 New Poland cases
8,687 New Ukraine cases
4,960 New Mexico cases
7,659 New cases in California

Over 51.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.4 million
Over 133k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 51,243,419
Daily new cases: 505,547
Global deaths: 1,269,305 with 7,175 new deaths
Global recovered: 36,052,794
Mortality rate: 2.48%
Recovery rate: 70.36%

- U.S. cases: 10,421,956
U.S. new cases: 133,476
U.S. deaths: 244,448
U.S. recovered: 6,552,810
U.S. Daily fatalities: 680

Texas cases: 1,030,227 with10,251 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,330 – 44 Today
Dallas County cases: 111,603
Dallas County new cases: 1,248
Dallas County deaths: 1,321 – 2 today

November 8th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

105,662 New U.S. cases
46,661 New India cases
10,554 New Brazil cases
38,619 New France cases
20,498 New Russia cases
20,572 New UK cases
32,614 New Italy cases
14,026 New Germany cases
24,785 New Poland cases
9,387 New Ukraine cases
5,887 New Mexico cases
5,320 New cases in California

Over 50.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.1 million
Over 124k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 50,731,151
Daily new cases: 467,970
Global deaths: 1,256,352 with 7,573 new deaths
Global recovered: 35,793,227
Mortality rate: 2.49%
Recovery rate: 70.55%

- U.S. cases: 10,288,480
U.S. new cases: 105,662
U.S. deaths: 243,768
U.S. recovered: 6,483,420
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,027

Texas cases: 1,019,976 with 7,548 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,286 – 39 Today
Dallas County cases: 108,631
Dallas County new cases: 848
Dallas County deaths: 1,319 – 1 today

November 7th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

124,232 New U.S. cases
21,056 New Brazil cases
20,396 New Russia cases
46,318 New India cases
6,810 Mexico cases
4,869 New cases in California

Over 50.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10.1 million
Over 124k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 50,263,181
Daily new cases: 596,680
Global deaths: 1,256,352 with 7,573 new deaths
Global recovered: 35,548,003
Mortality rate: 2.50%
Recovery rate: 70.72%

U.S. cases: 10,182,818
U.S. new cases: 124,232
U.S. deaths: 243,257
U.S. recovered: 6,441,744
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,027

Texas cases: 1,012,428 with 5,273 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,247 – 93 Today
Dallas County cases: 108,631
Dallas County new cases: 0
Dallas County deaths: 1,318 – 11 today

November 6th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

139,064 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
18,247 New Brazil cases
20,582 New Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
49,851 New India cases
5,931 Mexico cases
6,645 New cases in California

Over 49.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 10 million
Over 139k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 49,666,501
Daily new cases: 647,315 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,248,779 with 9,361 new deaths
Global recovered: 35,253,391
Mortality rate: 2.51%
Recovery rate: 70.98%

U.S. cases: 10,058,586
U.S. new cases: 139,064 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 242,230
U.S. recovered: 6,391,208
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,277

Texas cases: 1,007,155 with 9,239 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,154 – 124 Today
Dallas County cases: 108,631
Dallas County new cases: 999
Dallas County deaths: 1,307 – 14 today

Today’s Headlines

November 6, 2020:

More states announce restrictions as US tops 100k new Covid-19 infections for 2nd day

[OBLIVIOTS] — Our tracking data shows higher numbers and more days. We have tracked 4 days exceeding 100k per day in the last week, with the high being 124,985 on 11/3. Yesterday’s total was 118,167 new cases. We have found Johns Hopkins’ data to be very conservative with the notable exception of China’s numbers, where they report more aggressive data than other tracking sites. We have no concrete explanation for this anomaly, but you can draw your own conclusion. The embedded spreadsheets have all this data.

(CNN)The US reported more than 121,000 infections Thursday, beating a daily case record it set just 24 hours ago.

The grim tally comes after Wednesday’s record of more than 100,000 cases, which was the first time the US hit a six-figure number of infections. That means in just two days, the country reported more than 220,000 positive tests, bringing the past week’s total to more than 660,000 new cases of the virus.

As nationwide cases soar, the number of hospitalized Americans is also climbing, with now more than 53,000 patients across the US, according to the COVID Tracking Project. And doctors have warned that as those numbers move upward, a rise in deaths will follow.

The US reported 1,210 deaths Thursday, the third day in a row the nation lost more than 1,000 people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The US now averages 895 deaths a day, and the number is rising rapidly, Johns Hopkins data show. Three states reported record-high deaths on Thursday, according to JHU: New Mexico, North Dakota and Tennessee.

In the Midwest — where communities have been hit particularly hard and outbreaks are only worsening — hospitalizations are up “following the region’s sharply accelerating case surge,” the project said in a Thursday blog post.

“Reported deaths from the Midwest are rising as well, several weeks into that region’s case surge,” the project said. More than 234,900 Americans have died since the pandemic’s start and an ensemble forecast published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects another 31,000 people could lose their lives over the next two and a half weeks.

In New Mexico, where health officials have sounded the alarm for weeks over a Covid-19 crisis, the daily number of Covid-19 deaths hit a record high. Hospitalizations have shot up by 260% in the last month, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said, and health officials added they expect to run out of general hospital beds “in a matter of days.”

The governor said the state is “not trending anywhere in the right direction” and urged residents to follow public health guidance aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. “If we don’t do them, more drastic decision-making will occur, and we will have a horrible November and a dramatically bad December,” the governor said.

‘It is everywhere’

New Mexico is one of at least 38 states reporting more new Covid-19 infections than the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins. Only two US states — Alabama and Tennessee — are trending in the right direction.In Minnesota, health officials reported more than 3,900 new cases Thursday — the highest daily total for the state and the third day in a row that single-day cases reach a new high.

In Utah, where warnings have been echoed by state officials for weeks, Thursday’s 2,807 new cases broke a daily record.

Gov. Gary Herbert said the numbers were “grim news” and “discouraging,” and predicted the state would continue to see “this dramatic increase, unless we modify and change our behavior.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine meanwhile warned of community spread as the state also reported a record-high of Covid-19 cases Thursday.

“It is everywhere, we can’t hide from it, we can’t run from it,” the governor said during a news conference. “The risk of catching this virus in every county is very real.” And social gatherings like weddings, funerals and private parties are helping fuel the spread of the virus, he said.

“This should scare you, that you have this much spread in your hometown,” DeWine added. “It has just skyrocketed.”

November 5th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

118,167 New U.S. cases
23,317 New Brazil cases
19,404 New Russia cases
47,622 New India cases
5,567 Mexico cases
6,177 New cases in California

Over 49.0 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.9 million
Over 118k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 49,019,186
Daily new cases: 597,173 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,239,786 with 8,632 new deaths
Global recovered: 34,980,782
Mortality rate: 2.53%
Recovery rate: 71.36%

U.S. cases: 9,919,522
U.S. new cases: 118,167
U.S. deaths: 240,953
U.S. recovered: 6,340,472
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,188

Texas cases: 997,916 with 9,951 new cases
Texas deaths: 19,030 – 126 Today
Dallas County cases: 107,632
Dallas County new cases: 1,138
Dallas County deaths: 1,293 – 13 today

Today’s Headlines

November 5, 2020:

Covid-19 Milestones Set Once Again

[OBLIVIOTS] — As Donald J Trump files lawsuits across the nation in a last-ditch effort to salvage his presidency and avoid a slew of legal entanglements, the virus marches on unabated. In a desperate attempt to convince voters of any reasonable approach to this pandemic, as recently as Tuesday, the Trump administration was still claiming success in handling the Coronavirus carnage across the United States. Anyone with even a modicum of cognitive ability and a 4th grade reading ability, knows this is a bald faced lie.

November 4th saw 10,544 new fatalities reported worldwide, an all time high number. The previous high of 8,730 new deaths was reported on April 17th. The coronavirus is steadily spreading worldwide at a disturbing rate. Countries across Europe are implementing stringent lockdowns in an effort to slow the growth of Covid-19 infections.

In recent days, record high new case counts have been reported in numerous first world countries:

U.S.: 108,827 yesterday — a high of 124,985 on November 3rd
India: 50,465 yesterday — a high of 97,859 on September 16th
France: 40,558 yesterday — a high of 52,518 on November 2nd
Russia: 19,768 yesterday — all time high
Spain: 25,042 yesterday — a high of 48,570 on November 2nd
Argentina: 10,652 yesterday — a high of 18,326 on October 21st
UK: 25,177 yesterday — a high of 26,687 on October 21st
Italy: 30,548 yesterday — a high of 31,756 on October 31st
Germany: 20,228 yesterday — all time high
Poland: 24,692 yesterday — all time high
Ukraine: 9,524 — all time high
Netherlands: 7,633 yesterday — a high of 11,119 on October 30th
Chechia: 15,731 yesterday — all time high
Switzerland: 10,073 yesterday – a high of 21,926 on November 2nd
Portugal: 7,497 yesterday — all time high
Austria: 6,901 yesterday — all time high

The United States Continues to report very high new case counts. We have set numerous records and are now trending above 100,000 new cases per day.

Our new reported deaths per day are back above 1,000 for the first time since early September.

The following graphs show the current statistics and trends Globally, for the U.S. and Texas. Texas recently surpassed California for the #1 position of total case count and makes new strides in putting distance between herself and California every day. Yesterday, November 4th, Texas set an all time high record for new cases of 10,639 with the exception of a backlog case dump on September 22nd of 18,398.

Global Total Comparisons 11-4-2020

U.S. New Case / Death Comparison 11-4-2020

U.S. States High Case Count Comparison 11-4-2020

Texas / California Comparison 11-4-2020

Texas Total Cases / Deaths 11-4-2020

November 4th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

108,827 New U.S. cases
23,815 New Brazil cases
19,768 cases
50,465 New India cases
5,225 Mexico cases
5,297 New cases in California

Over 48.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.8 million
Over 108k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 48,422,013
Daily new cases: 575,887
Global deaths: 1,230,786 with 10,544 new deaths — ALL TIME HIGH
Global recovered: 34,671,485
Mortality rate: 2.54%
Recovery rate: 71.60%

U.S. cases: 9,801,355
U.S. new cases: 108,827
U.S. deaths: 239,829
U.S. recovered: 6,292,019
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,188

Texas cases: 988,325 with 10,639 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,904 – 150 Today
Dallas County cases: 106,494
Dallas County new cases: 866
Dallas County deaths: 1,280 – 3 today

November 3rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

124,985 New U.S. cases – A NEW RECORD
12,920 New Brazil cases
18,648 Russia cases
46,033 New India cases
5,250 Mexico cases
5,209 New cases in California

Over 47.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.6 million
Over 124k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 47,846,126
Daily new cases: 526,209
Global deaths: 1,220,242 with 8,974 new deaths
Global recovered: 34,353,326
Mortality rate: 2.55%
Recovery rate: 71.80%

U.S. cases: 9,692,528
U.S. new cases: 124,985 -A NEW RECORD
U.S. deaths: 238,641
U.S. recovered: 6,236,170
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,644

Texas cases: 977,686 with 8,439 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,754 – 92 Today
Dallas County cases: 105,628
Dallas County new cases: 719
Dallas County deaths: 1,277 – 8 today

Today’s Headlines

November 3, 2020:

‘Missing Link’ identified by experts in Europe’s handling of Covid-19

London (CNN)Lockdowns are multiplying throughout Europe as Covid-19 cases rise exponentially, threatening to push health services across the continent to breaking point.

Fearing all of its intensive care beds could be full by mid-November, France implemented nationwide restrictions at the end of October — as did Belgium and Ireland. Germany’s softer, so-called “lockdown light,” restrictions began on Monday, and Austria is following suite on Tuesday.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for a second lockdown to begin in England later this week, while daily record increases of coronavirus infections in Italy appear to foreshadow another round of severe restrictions.

As countries attempt to beat back the virus before the Christmas holiday season, experts are calling on European governments to rethink their pandemic approach, fix its blind spots, and prevent another spiraling rise in illness next year, further derailing economies in the process.

November 2nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

93,632 New U.S. cases
8,501 New Brazil cases
18,257 Russia cases
37,592 New India cases
3,763 Mexico cases
5,352 New cases in California

Over 47.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.5 million
Over 93k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 47,319,917
Daily new cases: 496,847
Global deaths: 1,211,268 with 5,947 new deaths
Global recovered: 34,035,485
Mortality rate: 2.56%
Recovery rate: 71.93%

U.S. cases: 9,567,543
U.S. new cases: 93,632
U.S. deaths: 236,997
U.S. recovered: 6,171,402
U.S. Daily fatalities: 526

Texas cases: 969,247 with 8,320 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,662 – 48 Today
Dallas County cases: 104,909
Dallas County new cases: 1,517
Dallas County deaths: 1,269 – 1 today

Today’s Headlines

November 2, 2020:

Nearly 50,000 Americans hospitalized as experts warn of growing healthcare pressure

(CNN)The fall surge has left nearly 50,000 people hospitalized across the US due to Covid-19, and experts say the strain healthcare systems are under could soon get worse.

Hospitalizations were on the rise in 47 states last month, according to the Covid Tracking Project, and a total of 47,502 people were hospitalized as of Sunday. The rates come alongside a surge of cases that made October a record setting month for coronavirus infections in the US.

The US recorded its highest number of new cases on Friday with a reported 99,321, the record for any nation in the world. And experts have said that the impacts will likely continue to get worse as colder months drive up infections.

“We’re right at the beginning of what looks like exponential growth in a lot of states,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “This is very worrisome as we head into the winter.”

Gottlieb expects Thanksgiving to be an inflection point, and from there he said the hospital system is going to be facing pressure similar to the early spikes — when hospitals around the country were reaching capacity and healthcare workers were stretched thin.

November 1st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

71,321 New U.S. cases
10,100 New Brazil cases
18,665 Russia cases
46,441 New India cases
4,430 Mexico cases
3,532 New cases in California

Over 46.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.4 million
Over 71k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 46,823,070
Daily new cases: 449,291
Global deaths: 1,205,321 with 5,128 new deaths
Global recovered: 33,754,837
Mortality rate: 2.57%
Recovery rate: 72.09%

U.S. cases: 9,473,911
U.S. new cases: 71,321
U.S. deaths: 236,471
U.S. recovered: 6,103,605
U.S. Daily fatalities: 399

Texas cases: 960,927 with 4,193 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,614 – 33 Today
Dallas County cases: 103,392
Dallas County new cases: 750
Dallas County deaths: 1,268 – 1 today

October 31st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

86,293 New U.S. cases
16,077 New Brazil cases
18,140 Russia cases
46,715 New India cases
6,151 Mexico cases
3,367 New cases in California

Over 46.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.2 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.4 million
Over 86k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 46,373,779
Daily new cases: 473,921
Global deaths: 1,200,193 with 6,438 new deaths
Global recovered: 33,483,520
Mortality rate: 2.59%
Recovery rate: 72.20%

U.S. cases: 9,402,590
U.S. new cases: 86,293
U.S. deaths: 236,072
U.S. recovered: 6,062,438
U.S. Daily fatalities: 913

Texas cases: 956,734 with 6,763 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,581 – 74 Today
Dallas County cases: 102,642
Dallas County new cases: 759
Dallas County deaths: 1,267 – 13 today

Today’s Headlines

October 31, 2020:

University of Texas study suggests construction sites could be key to curbing COVID-19

[DMN] Construction workers are five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than their peers in other professions, according to a new study from University of Texas at Austin researchers.

“Allowing unrestricted construction work was associated with an increase of COVID-19 hospitalization rates through mid-August 2020,” the study’s authors note in their findings. They analyzed five months of hospitalization data in Austin.

The study also highlights the disproportionate representation of Hispanic workers in the construction industry in the U.S., including in Texas, and the compounded risks facing that growing demographic.

About 30% of construction workers nationally are Hispanic or Latino — almost twice the percentage they comprise in the overall labor force. The Hispanic population is known to experience more underlying health conditions linked to severe cases of COVID-19. They’re also more likely to have more people living in the same house, and feel pressure to continue working even when sick, according to the authors.

Although Hispanics account for 40% of Texas’ population, they represent 56% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, according to the latest data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Household spread of Covid-19 is common and quick, a new CDC study finds

(CNN) The spread of Covid-19 among members in a household after one person is infected is “common” and occurs quickly after illness onset, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The person exposed or suspected of having Covid-19 should be isolated before getting tested and before test results come back to protect others in the home, said the study, published Friday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“Because prompt isolation of persons with COVID-19 can reduce household transmission, persons who suspect that they might have COVID-19 should isolate, stay at home, and use a separate bedroom and bathroom if feasible,” wrote a CDC-led team of researchers.

In addition, all members of the household should wear masks at all times in common spaces, the team said.

US coronavirus cases break global daily record. Experts warn it will only get worse

(CNN) The US reported 99,321 new Covid-19 cases on Friday [ OBLIVIOTS – Worldometer puts the number at 103,530 ] — the highest single day number of cases recorded for any country. The top five records in daily cases all occurred within eight days, and an expert says he worries the upward trend will push hospitals past capacity.

Friday’s number surpassed the previous daily record held by India, which reported 97,894 coronavirus cases in a single day on September 17, according to India’s health ministry.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in the US is at least 9,047,792, according to Johns Hopkins University. The US also reported more than 1,000 additional deaths Friday, bringing the US toll from the pandemic to 229,708.

Some 46,688 Covid-19 patients were in hospitals on Friday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That’s up 63.2% from a three-month low of 28,608 on September 20, and it’s the highest total since August 13.

October 30th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

103,530 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME RECORD
23,126 New Brazil cases
18,283 Russia cases
48,120 New India cases
6,000 Mexico cases
4,889 New cases in California

Over 45.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.3 million
Over 103k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 45,899,858
Daily new cases: 579,277 – A NEW RECORD
Global deaths: 1,193,755 with 7,532 new deaths
Global recovered: 33,249,483
Mortality rate: 2.60%
Recovery rate: 72.44%

U.S. cases: 9,316,297
U.S. new cases: 103,530 – ALL TIME RECORD
U.S. deaths: 235,159
U.S. recovered: 6,024,512
U.S. Daily fatalities: 982

Texas cases: 949,971 with 7,485 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,507 – 105 Today
Dallas County cases: 101,883
Dallas County new cases: 832
Dallas County deaths: 1,254 – 11 today

Today’s Headlines

October 30, 2020:

Taiwan just went 200 days without a locally transmitted Covid-19 case

(CNN)As much of the world struggles to contain new waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan just marked its 200th consecutive day without a locally transmitted case of the disease.

Taipei’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the world’s most effective. The island of 23 million people last reported a locally transmitted case on April 12, which was Easter Sunday. As of Thursday, it had confirmed 553 cases — only 55 of which were local transmissions. Seven deaths have been recorded.

Easter was an important milestone in the United States because President Donald Trump had said a month earlier he wanted the country “opened up and just raring to go” by the holiday.

At that point, 1.7 million people had been infected and 110,000 had been killed by the virus — globally. On Friday, those figures had passed 45 million cases and more than 1.1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Taiwan’s landmark achievement comes in a week when France and Germany are enacting new lockdowns and the United States identified a record 88,000-plus cases in a day. The state of Florida, which has a similar population size to Taiwan, with approximately 21 million people, identified 4,188 cases on Wednesday alone.

Taiwan has never had to enact strict lockdowns. Nor did it resort to drastic restrictions on civil freedoms, like in mainland China.

Instead, Taiwan’s response focused on speed. Taiwanese authorities began screening passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, on December 31, 2019 — back when the virus was mostly the subject of rumors and limited reporting.

October 29th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

92,016 New U.S. cases
26,647 New Brazil cases
17,717 Russia cases
49,281 New India cases
5,948 Mexico cases
4,250 New cases in California

Over 45.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.2 million
Over 92k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 45,320,581
Daily new cases: 570,799 – A NEW RECORD
Global deaths: 1,186,223 with 7,144 new deaths
Global recovered: 32,992,305
Mortality rate: 2.62%
Recovery rate: 72.80%

U.S. cases: 9,212,767
U.S. new cases: 92,016 – ALL TIME RECORD
U.S. deaths: 234,177
U.S. recovered: 5,983,345
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,047

Texas cases: 942,486 with 7,673 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,402 – 113 Today
Dallas County cases: 101,051
Dallas County new cases: 656
Dallas County deaths: 1,243 – 8 today

October 28th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

82,721 New U.S. cases
28,852 New Brazil cases
16,202 Russia cases
49,912 New India cases
5,595 Mexico cases
4,068 New cases in California

Over 44.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9.1 million
Over 82k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 44,749,782
Daily new cases: 513,037 – A NEW RECORD
Global deaths: 1,179,079 with 7,771 new deaths
Global recovered: 32,725,332
Mortality rate: 2.63%
Recovery rate: 73.13%

U.S. cases: 9,120,751
U.S. new cases: 82,721
U.S. deaths: 233,130
U.S. recovered: 5,933,212
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,046

Texas cases: 934,813 with 7,295 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,289 – 97 Today
Dallas County cases: 100,395
Dallas County new cases: 624
Dallas County deaths: 1,235 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

October 28, 2020:

Covid: Melbourne’s hard-won success after a marathon lockdown

[BBC] — Melbourne’s grinding second coronavirus lockdown began in the chill of winter.

In early July, the nights were long and dark, and Australia’s cultural capital was confronting the terrifying reality of another deadly wave of infections.

More than 110 days later, experts say it is emerging as a world leader in disease suppression alongside places including Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Raina McIntyre, a biosecurity professor at the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute, told the BBC that Australia’s response had been “light years ahead” of the US and the UK.

“It is just thoroughly shocking. When we think of pandemics we don’t think that well-resourced, high-income countries are going to fall apart at the seams, but that is exactly what we have seen,” she said.

At the end of Tuesday, Melbourne’s five million residents will see an end to strict stay-home orders that put an entire city into a type of protective custody.

Why deaths aren’t rising as fast in Covid-19’s second wave, despite big spikes in new infections

(CNN)Europe is drowning in the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Infection rates are skyrocketing across the continent. Governments are imposing strict lockdowns. Economies are shutting down again. But there is a glimmer of hope: The virus, while still deadly, appears to be killing fewer people on average.

Recent case and fatality figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that while recorded Covid-19 cases are spiking in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and other European countries, deaths are not rising at the same rate.

“The fatality rate has declined, in the UK, we can see it going down from around June to a low point in August,” said Jason Oke, a senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. “Our current estimate is that the infection fatality rate is going up a little bit, but it hasn’t come up to anywhere near where we were and that’s unlikely to change dramatically unless we see a really surprising increase in the numbers of deaths.”

October 27th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

75,247 New U.S. cases
29,353 New Brazil cases
16,550 Russia cases
42,965 New India cases
5,942 Mexico cases
4,914 New cases in California

Over 44.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 9 million
Over 75k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 43,776,586
Daily new cases: 432,790
Global deaths: 1,194,515 with 5,433 new deaths
Global recovered: 32,444,043
Mortality rate: 2.65%
Recovery rate: 73.34%

U.S. cases: 9,038,030
U.S. new cases: 75,247
U.S. deaths: 232,084
U.S. recovered: 5,877,964
U.S. Daily fatalities: 535

Texas cases: 927,518 with 7,064 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,192 – 74 Today
Dallas County cases: 99,771
Dallas County new cases: 597
Dallas County deaths: 1,229 – 7 today

Today’s Headlines

October 27, 2020:

[OBLIVIOTS] — The latest International High Growth Rate Covid-19 data set of graphs.

These graphs compare the highest growth rate countries as of EOD 10/26/2020. The top 3 (U.S., India and Brazil) outdistance everyone else by a large margin, so I have to break up the data sets in relative chunks to give a visual index you can compare. But as you can see, for the most part, everyone has completely lost control of this virus. Just look at the growth curves for most countries. Very few are flattening their growth rate. The U.S. has set all time high daily new case records in the last week and it looks like we are headed in that direction again. The U.K., Spain, France, Argentina and Italy are all reporting extremely high new case numbers daily.

Russia, has been trending in the 15k-17k per day range. As a point of reference, their all time high stretch was 11k daily for about 2 weeks in Mid May. Then is started dropping and was averaging 4k-6k per day until late September when they started to lose control. Now they are posting numbers 50% higher than their previous peak. October 6th was when they started posting 11k numbers again and it seems to have leveled off in the last week. Keep in mind, we have no reason to believe these numbers are not under-reported. So for all we know the real numbers are much higher.
Brazil has leveled off at about half of what their peak was back in the summer when they were posting 60k new cases per day.
India is also down from their summer peak of 80k-90k per day in early September. They are currently reporting in the mid 50k to mid 60k new daily cases.
The U.S., however is the black sheep of the family (don’t start. That is not a racial comment). The U.S. last week posted their highest new daily case count of 85,302 cases. The previous high was 78,336 on July 24th. Yesterday was 76,832. Historically, daily case count plummets on Sunday and Monday and starts its upward climb to a Friday peak, then starts down and repeats. So we may see a new record high towards the end of the week.

Current global daily case counts have been averaging over 400k per day with our highest day 507,388 new cases reported on October 22nd. At this rate we are adding a million new cases every 4 days. Just think about that. Current estimates are that 90% of those infected, even mildly, will have some future diminished capacity, heart problems, vascular problems, shortness of breath, etc. The long-term implications of this are still unclear, but if this is true, think of the fiscal impact per country of people who can no longer work to support themselves and the impact on their families / living conditions / homelessness, etc. If these projections are even off by 50%, that is still a lot of people with less functionality. The impact on society as a whole will be devastating. THIS is why we all need to behave like EVERY.LIFE.MATTERS. Not just NOT DYING, but NOT having your functionality diminished by enough to radically impact your quality of life.

October 26th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

73,604 New U.S. cases
17,422 New Brazil cases
17,347 Russia cases
36,838 New India cases
4,166 Mexico cases
4,387 New cases in California

Over 43.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.9 million
Over 73k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 43,776,586
Daily new cases: 432,790
Global deaths: 1,194,515 with 5,433 new deaths
Global recovered: 32,179,652
Mortality rate: 2.66%
Recovery rate: 73.51%

U.S. cases: 8,962,783
U.S. new cases: 73,604
U.S. deaths: 231,045
U.S. recovered: 5,883,824
U.S. Daily fatalities: 535

Texas cases: 920,454 with 6,960 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,118 – 52 Today
Dallas County cases: 99,174
Dallas County new cases: 498
Dallas County deaths: 1,222 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

China is testing millions after one case found

(CNN) China has rolled out mass coronavirus testing for nearly 5 million people and imposed lockdown measures in the prefecture of Kashgar in the far western region of Xinjiang, after a single asymptomatic coronavirus case was reported on Saturday.

The testing drive has so far identified 137 additional cases — and all are asymptomatic, according to Xinjiang’s regional health commission. This is the highest daily number of asymptomatic Covid-19 cases reported in China in nearly seven months.

As of Sunday afternoon, some 2.8 million people have been tested. The government expects to finish testing all of Kashgar’s 4.7 million population by Tuesday.

The outbreak is Xinjiang’s second since China’s initial wave of coronavirus infections was brought under control in March.

Australia’s coronavirus epicenter records no new cases as the US and Western Europe struggle

(CNN)Melbourne, the city at the epicenter of Australia’s coronavirus epidemic, will move out of lockdown this week after the Victoria state health department on Sunday reported no new cases and no deaths due to the virus for the first time in more than four months.

Announcing the relaxation of restrictions at a news conference on Monday, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said starting on Tuesday at 11:59 p.m., Melbourne residents will be allowed to leave their homes and most businesses in the state can reopen with restrictions on the number of people.

“With 0 cases and so much testing, we are able to say that now is the time to open up. Now is the time to congratulate every single Victorian who has stayed the course,” Andrews said.

The remarkable milestone of no new cases comes just months after Andrews declared a “state of disaster” to stem an outbreak that saw as many as 725 people in the state test positive for the virus in a single day.

Spain imposes national night-time curfew to curb infections

[BBC] Spain has declared a national state of emergency and imposed a night-time curfew in an effort to help control a new spike in Covid-19 infections.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the curfew, which came into force on Sunday night, would be in place between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00

Under the measures, local authorities can also ban travel between regions.

Mr Sánchez said he would ask parliament to extend the new rules, initially in force for 15 days, to six months.

Spain was hit hard during the first wave of the pandemic earlier this year and at the time imposed a much more restrictive lockdown – one of the toughest in the world.

Like many other European regions, however, it has been hit by a second wave of infections.

In Italy, new restrictions were also announced on Sunday. The government said the steady rise in cases there was causing a huge strain on the country’s health services.

Meanwhile France has reported a record number of new daily infections. A total of 52,010 infections were reported on Sunday, up from just over 45,000 on Saturday.

At least 5 of Vice President Pence’s aides test positive for coronavirus

(CNN) At least five people in Vice President Mike Pence’s orbit have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days, including chief of staff Marc Short, close aide Zach Bauer and outside adviser Marty Obst, sources told CNN.

There are concerns that more people within Pence’s inner circle will test positive in the coming days, a source said. “They’re scared,” the source said of staffers in the vice president’s office.

Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence each tested negative for coronavirus on Sunday, a White House official said. Despite contact with multiple people who recently tested positive, Mike Pence is refusing to quarantine in defiance of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Pence’s office announced Saturday evening that Short had been diagnosed with Covid-19. Sources told CNN that Obst, who is a senior political adviser to Pence but is not a government employee, and at least three staffers in Pence’s office have also tested positive for the virus.

Bauer, one of the staffers who tested positive, according to two sources familiar with the matter, is Pence’s “body man,” meaning his job is to accompany Pence throughout the day and night helping him with a wide range of duties, putting him in close proximity to the vice president. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Bauer has not been in the office since Tuesday, when he went home to quarantine after coming into contact with Obst. Bauer tested positive Saturday.

October 25th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

61,247 New U.S. cases
12,904 New Brazil cases
16,710 Russia cases
45,158 New India cases
4,360 Mexico cases
2,681 New cases in California

Over 43.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.8 million
Over 61k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 43,328,174
Daily new cases: 383,575
Global deaths: 1,159,082 with 4,233 new deaths
Global recovered: 31,900,636
Mortality rate: 2.67%
Recovery rate: 73.63%

U.S. cases: 8,889,179
U.S. new cases: 61,247
U.S. deaths: 230,510
U.S. recovered: 5,772,498
U.S. Daily fatalities: 442

Texas cases: 913,494 with 3,745 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,066 – 40 Today
Dallas County cases: 98,676
Dallas County new cases: 803
Dallas County deaths: 1,220 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

Expert issues dire warning about next 6 weeks

[CNN] The US continues to report an upward trend in new coronavirus cases as Dr. Michael Osterholm warns that the next 6-12 weeks could be the darkest period of the pandemic. CNN’s Nick Watt

Watch video

Dr Fauci: Covid vaccine could come by end of 2020

[BBC] Dr Anthony Fauci says a Covid-19 vaccine could be available in the United States before the end of the year if proved to be “safe and effective”.

The US government scientist told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that the limited first doses would go to people according to a set prioritisation – and that it would take “several months into 2021” before it was more widely available.

He added that the vaccine wouldn’t replace the need for public health measures to be in place to help protect people from the virus for a considerable time.

Watch video

US reports second-highest day of coronavirus cases since the pandemic began

(CNN) As the fall surge continues, the United States has reported its second-highest day of new Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Saturday saw 83,718 new cases, just 39 cases shy of the all-time record that was reported Friday.

Health experts have warned that the fall season would bring a resurgence of cases — and since the US never lowered its daily case baseline enough, they say compounding cases will likely get worse. Already, the national cases total more than 8.5 million and 224,891 people have died, according to JHU.

“We easily will hit six-figure numbers in terms of the number of cases,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN Friday night. “And the deaths are going to go up precipitously in the next three to four weeks, following usually new cases by about two to three weeks.”

Social gatherings and family events moving indoors to avoid the colder weather is largely to blame for the high rates of spread, officials said over the weekend.

In Maryland, the governor said this week family gatherings were the No. 1 source of transmission in the state, followed by house parties. In North Carolina, health officials reported its highest daily case count Friday and said they continue to see clusters “from social and religious gatherings.”

October 24th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

80,979 New U.S. cases
25,574 New Brazil cases
16,521 Russia cases
50,224 New India cases
6,025 Mexico cases
4,272 New cases in California

Over 42.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.8 million
Over 80k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 42,944,599
Daily new cases: 456,233
Global deaths: 1,154,849 with 5,625 new deaths
Global recovered: 31,670,386
Mortality rate: 2.69%
Recovery rate: 73.75%

U.S. cases: 8,827,932
U.S. new cases: 80,979
U.S. deaths: 230,068
U.S. recovered: 5,741,611
U.S. Daily fatalities: 784

Texas cases: 909,749 with 6,463 new cases
Texas deaths: 18,026 – 72 Today
Dallas County cases: 97,873
Dallas County new cases: 778
Dallas County deaths: 1,217 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

U.S. Covid-19 New Case Count Reaches a New High

October 24, 2020 — A graphical representation of U.S. Covid-19 growth as of EOD yesterday.

Yesterday the U.S. reported its highest ever daily new cases of 85,302. The previous high of 78,278 was reported on July 16th. We were doing much better throughout August and September, but in the last two weeks, we’ve been trending higher in the 50k-70k range. As you can see from the blue graph, the last two days have seen a significant spike in new cases. If our pattern continues as usual, tomorrow and Monday will be significantly lower and then we will start working our way back up again.

The dual line graphs track new case per day growth for the highest growth states, broken down into Tier 1, which is 3,000 cases and up – and Tier 2 which is up to the 3,000 case per day range.

As you can see, the trend is indicative of what all the authorities on epidemiology keep telling us. The virus is out of control.

Literally, if EVERYONE would mask the hell up and keep a significant distance from other people – and NOT CONGREGATE with anyone outside the immediate family — for about 6 weeks, we could get a handle on this.

Or we could keep being spoiled brats who “don’t want to be told what to do” and this will drag on for another year and a half.

Covid-19 Cough Clouds And How They Travel In Closed Spaces Mapped

The more we learn about Covid-19, the more the importance of transmission through airborne respiratory droplets, particularly in confined spaces without adequate ventilation, becomes apparent.

Most research has focused on how far droplets from coughs can travel, usually with an accompanying video or image that will make you feel quite ill.

However, less is known about the way the properties of a cough cloud can change as the cloud travels through the air. Researchers from the American Institute of Physics have sought to address that in a new study looking at how cough clouds evolve over a journey, and the effect face masks have on their volume and spread.

“When a person coughs, what is the volume of air that gets contaminated due to the cough ejected out by the person?” the team asks in their paper published in Physics of Fluids. “The answer to this question is not straightforward because the surrounding air gets entrained into the cough-cloud coming out from the person’s mouth and, eventually, becomes its part; therefore, a much larger volume than initially ejected is affected by coughing.”

The team hoped that by answering this question, they could discover effective ways to reduce infection indoors, such as by determining the maximum number of people that can safely be housed in an enclosed space, like a hospital ward or cinema. They also wanted to find out the effect of temperature and humidity on the spread of cough clouds, to determine how much ventilation is needed in an office or an aircraft cabin in order to reduce infection.

October 23rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

85,302 New U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH
23,016 New Brazil cases
17,340 Russia cases – ALL TIME HIGH
54,028 New India cases
6,604 Mexico cases
5,876 New cases in California

Over 42.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.7 million
Over 85k new U.S. cases – ALL TIME HIGH

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 42,488,366
Daily new cases: 496,353
Global deaths: 1,149,224 with 6,493 new deaths
Global recovered: 31,423,798
Mortality rate: 2.70%
Recovery rate: 73.96%

U.S. cases: 8,746,953
U.S. new cases: 85,302 – ALL TIME HIGH
U.S. deaths: 229,284
U.S. recovered: 5,698,161
U.S. Daily fatalities: 903

Texas cases: 903,286 with 7,045 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,954 – 76 Today
Dallas County cases: 97,095
Dallas County new cases: 612
Dallas County deaths: 1,214 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

Europe braces for tough new restrictions as coronavirus cases soar

London (CNN) Tens of millions more people across Europe face tougher coronavirus restrictions going into the weekend as countries across the region battle to bring down rising infection rates.

A two-week “firebreak” lockdown comes into force at 6 p.m. local time Friday in Wales, under which everyone except critical workers is expected to stay at home.

The restrictions are the toughest seen in Wales since the spring, when the United Kingdom was badly hit in the first wave of infections to sweep Europe.

New restrictions also came into force Friday morning in northern England’s Greater Manchester region, following a protracted tussle between national and local leaders over financial support.

Regions in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and elsewhere are also introducing curfews in a bid to stem the spike in cases. And Slovakia has announced strict new limits on people’s movement and activities from Saturday.

Ireland on Thursday became the first country in Europe to reimpose a national lockdown.

The Irish measures, which prohibit social gatherings and require people to work from home unless they are providing an essential service, will remain in place for six weeks.

Over Half a Million New Cases Reported Today

[OBLIVIOTS] October 22, 2020 — A milestone has been reached today that no one ever hoped for. In one day, 507,338 new cases were added globally to the Covid-19 numbers. We have been trending in the 300,000 to high 400,000 numbers in the last two weeks or so, but as this week winds down, the numbers have been rapidly accelerating.

The largest contributors in order of highest infection rates are:

USA – 76,832 New Cases
Brazil – 31,985
India – 54,482
Russia – 15,971
Spain – 43,880
Argentina – 16,325
France – 41,622
Colombia – 8,570
UK – 21,238
Italy – 16,078
Germany – 12,519
Belgium – 16,746
Netherlands – 9,271
Chechia – 14,150

This is not a good trend at all. This indicates that globally we have dropped the ball.

October 22nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

76,832 New U.S. cases
31,985 New Brazil cases
15,971 Russia cases
54,482 New India cases
6,612 Mexico cases
6,302 New cases in California

Over 41.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.6 million
Over 76k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 41,992,013
Daily new cases: 507,388 – A NEW RECORD
Global deaths: 1,142,731 with 6,396 new deaths
Global recovered: 31,184,436
Mortality rate: 2.72%
Recovery rate: 74.26%

U.S. cases: 8,661,651
U.S. new cases: 76,832
U.S. deaths: 228,381
U.S. recovered: 5,655,301
U.S. Daily fatalities: 972

Texas replaces California as #1 Covid-19 cases

Texas cases: 896,241 with 6,728 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,878 – 92 Today
Dallas County cases: 96,483
Dallas County new cases: 435
Dallas County deaths: 1,211 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

Over Half a Million New Cases Reported Today

The largest contributors in order of highest infection rates are:

USA – 76,832 New Cases
Brazil – 31,985
India – 54,482
Russia – 15,971
Spain – 43,880
Argentina – 16,325
France – 41,622
Colombia – 8,570
UK – 21,238
Italy – 16,078
Germany – 12,519
Belgium – 16,746
Netherlands – 9,271
Chechia – 14,150

This is not a good trend at all. This indicates that globally we have dropped the ball.

Covid-19 anti-vaxxers use century-old arguments

(CNN)As we get closer to an effective vaccine for Covid-19, we should expect to see a renewed push of disinformation and vocal resistance from the anti-vaccination movement.

Over the past year, seemingly endless conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns have gained traction online amid rising Covid-19 infection rates worldwide.

Looking at the history of these movements can help us understand why they can be so effective at capturing a popular following.

As a historian of medicine, it has become clear from researching the history of vaccines that those who promote anti-vaccination consistently use a standard set of strategies. Although it can be hard to see patterns of argument in the modern context, looking back at a historical instance of epidemic and misinformation provides a useful case study for revealing today’s recurring anti-vaccination strategies.

One popular pamphlet published in 1885 during the smallpox epidemic in Montreal is a great example. Over a century later, we have the benefit of living in a world that has eradicated smallpox using a vaccine. Yet in the past, smallpox vaccination was hotly contested, despite the evidence in favor of its effectiveness.

The number of older people getting coronavirus in Europe is rising again. That’s really bad news

(CNN) Europe is deep in the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic, and a particularly worrying trend is beginning to emerge: More older people are becoming infected.

Over the summer months, the continent saw infection clusters popping up mostly among younger people who were venturing out into bars, restaurants and other public spaces. While that wasn’t ideal, it meant the death rate stayed relatively low, since younger people are statistically less vulnerable to the virus and most avoid getting seriously ill.

However, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has warned that more older people are now becoming infected. According to the ECDC’s latest situation report, at least 13 countries in Europe saw new infection rates among people aged 65 or over rise to what ECDC defines as “high” last week — between 64 per 100,000 in Croatia and 206 per 100,000 in the Netherlands.

A sharp increase in infections among older people in recent weeks can be seen in almost all European countries where data is available.

Covid-19 infection rates among over-65s in some Eastern European countries are now more than double what they were during the first wave — over 100 in the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia and Hungary.

Higher infection rates among the elderly are worrying because older people are much more likely to end up in hospital and to face a significantly higher risk of dying.

According to the World Health Organization, almost 88% of all deaths in Europe were among the over-65 age group, as of late August. In the Czech Republic, over-65s made up 14% of weekly infections, but 94% of deaths as of October 11.

Faulty US Covid-19 response meant 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable deaths, report finds

[CNN] The Trump Administration’s faltering response to the coronavirus pandemic has led to anywhere between 130,000 and 210,000 deaths in the United States that could have been prevented, according to a report released Thursday by a team of disaster preparedness experts.

Insufficient testing, a lack of national mask mandates or guidance, a delayed overall response and outright mocking of basic public health practices by the administration has put the US at the top of the global coronavirus death toll, the report from Columbia University Earth Institute’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness finds

“We estimate that at least 130,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 210,000 could have been avoided with earlier policy interventions and more robust federal coordination and leadership,” the report reads.

“Even with the dramatic recent appearance of new COVID-19 waves globally, the abject failures of U.S. government policies and crisis messaging persist. U.S. fatalities have remained disproportionately high throughout the pandemic when compared to even other high-mortality countries,” it adds.

“The inability of the U.S. to mitigate the pandemic is especially stark when contrasted with the response of high income nations, such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, and Canada, as well as low- and middle-income countries as varied as Thailand, Pakistan, Honduras, and Malaysia. All of these nations have had greater success in protecting their populations from the impact of the coronavirus.”

Ireland imposes strictest coronavirus lockdown in Europe

[CNN] Ireland has now moved to “Level 5” measures — in what is now Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdown.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced the restrictions on Monday when the country’s case count topped 50,000. The restrictions are set to be in place for six weeks to deal with the “deteriorating situation with the disease across the country.”

Martin tweeted late Wednesday, “This evening, as we think about the next six weeks of increased restrictions at Level 5, we just need to remember that we are doing this to protect our families and the most vulnerable in our communities. We will come through it and we will see each other again. #LockdownEve.”

Covid-19 hospitalizations continue to rise in several states, and Wisconsin is now using an overflow facility

[CNN] With the number of people with Covid-19 being admitted to hospitals rising, several states are looking at their supply of beds.

On Wednesday, an overflow medical facility set up at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis received its first patient.

“We are thankful to have this facility available to Wisconsinites and our hospitals, but also saddened that this is where Wisconsin is at today,” Gov. Tony Evers said. “Folks, please stay home. Help us protect our communities from this highly contagious virus and avoid further strain on our hospitals.”

The facility will take patients who meet specific criteria, and doctors and nurses there can give remdesivir and oxygen treatment, according to the governor’s statement.

The seven-day average for the number of people in the hospital has risen from 749 two weeks ago to 1,098 as of Tuesday, according to data from the state health department.

Wisconsin is not alone in rising numbers. Over the past two weeks, 42 states have seen hospitalizations increase by more than 5%, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

October 21st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

64,512 New U.S. cases
25,832 New Brazil cases
15,700 Russia cases
56,000 New India cases
6,845 Mexico cases
3,690 New cases in California

Over 41.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.5 million
Over 64k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 41,484,625
Daily new cases: 444,006 – A NEW RECORD
Global deaths: 1,136,335 with 6,744 new deaths
Global recovered: 30,910,869
Mortality rate: 2.74%
Recovery rate: 74.51%

U.S. cases: 8,584,819
U.S. new cases: 64,512
U.S. deaths: 227,409
U.S. recovered: 5,602,116
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,260

Texas replaces California as #1 Covid-19 cases

Texas cases: 889,513 with 6,620 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,786 – 106 Today
Dallas County cases: 96,048
Dallas County new cases: 589
Dallas County deaths: 1,205 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

Texas is fixin’ to surpass California as the state with the most Covid-19 cases.

Texas will either today or tomorrow, surpass California as the state with the most Covid-19 cases. And California has roughly 30% more population than Texas.

October 20th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

63,654 New U.S. cases
23,690 New Brazil cases
16,319 Russia cases
54,422 New India cases
5,788 Mexico cases
3,744 New cases in California

Over 41 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.5 million
Over 63k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 41,040,619
Daily new cases: 393,053
Global deaths: 1,129,591 with 6,607 new deaths
Global recovered: 30,625,859
Mortality rate: 2.75%
Recovery rate: 74.62%

U.S. cases: 8,520,307
U.S. new cases: 63,654
U.S. deaths: 226,149
U.S. recovered: 5,545,619
U.S. Daily fatalities: 927

Texas cases: 882,893 with 5,816 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,680 – 81 Today
Dallas County cases: 95,459
Dallas County new cases: 510
Dallas County deaths: 1,201 – 7 today

Today’s Headlines

10 people have died after every resident of a Kansas nursing home got Covid-19

(CNN)Ten people living at a Kansas nursing home have died after an outbreak of Covid-19 infected every resident, according to a news release Monday from the Norton County Health Department.

All 62 residents at the privately owned Andbe Home in Norton have tested positive for the virus, the release states.

“Steps are being taken to prevent any further outbreak including quarantining residents in their rooms and not allowing outside visitors into the facility,” the release says, adding that relatives of all residents have been notified.

Some staff members have also tested positive, and the rest are being tested, the release states.

Nationwide, some 252,939 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported among nursing home residents, and more than 59,600 have died, federal data show. Nursing home workers also have contracted the disease, and some have died.

One resident of Andbe Home is hospitalized and the remaining 51 are being cared for at the facility, the health department said. Norton, near the Nebraska line, is about five hours’ drive west of Kansas City.

Covid-19 cases are climbing in more than half of US states

(CNN)Covid-19 numbers are once again climbing back up across the country, with more than half of US states reporting a rise in new infections in what experts say is the dreaded fall surge.

And there’s several factors that got the country here, one expert told CNN.

Among them are college and school reopenings, Dr. Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNN Monday night. But that’s not all.

“I think there’s some, what people might say, pandemic fatigue, in some places people not really following the advice, the public health guidance that’s out there — masking, or distancing, or telecommuting. There’s more people going back to large gatherings, family gatherings.”

And those gatherings will likely multiply as the holidays approach and more people transition indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.

Across the country, more than 8.2 million people have been infected with the virus since the start of the pandemic.

At least 12 states reported their highest seven-day average of daily cases Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, the nation’s seven-day average climbed to more than 56,000 cases — a level not seen in the past 12 weeks. And on Friday, the US reported the most new infections in a day since late July.

October 19th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

68,854 New U.S. cases
15,783 New Brazil cases
15,982 Russia cases
46,498 New India cases
3,699 Mexico cases
5,314 New cases in California

Over 40.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.4 million
Over 68k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 40,647,566
Daily new cases: 369,359
Global deaths: 1,122,984 with 4,663 new deaths
Global recovered: 30,352,918
Mortality rate: 2.76%
Recovery rate: 74.67%

U.S. cases: 8,456,653
U.S. new cases: 68,854
U.S. deaths: 225,222
U.S. recovered: 5,503,268
U.S. Daily fatalities: 448

Texas cases: 877,077 with 6,913 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,599 – 17 Today
Dallas County cases: 94,949
Dallas County new cases: 382
Dallas County deaths: 1,194 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

Masks made Czech Republic the envy of Europe. Now they’ve blown it

(CNN) Inside the intensive care unit at Prague’s Na Bulovce Hospital some patients are hooked up to ventilators through tracheostomy tubes, others are lying face down, to help them breathe. The doctors and nurses don head-to-toe hazmat suits; as coronavirus cases surge in the Czech Republic, the country can’t afford to have health workers sidelined by the virus.

There are currently more new Covid-19 cases per million people recorded in the Czech Republic than in any other major country in the world. On Friday, more than 11,100 new cases were reported in a single day, a new record. In the first 17 days of October, more people have died of the virus in the Czech Republic than during the previous eight months of the epidemic combined.

The Czech Medical Chamber and the health minister have called on Czech doctors living abroad to return home to help fight the virus. Medical students and people with medical training have also been encouraged to come forward. More than 1,000 qualified nurses who’ve left the profession have offered to come back to help.

For now, the Na Bulovce hospital has enough beds for everyone. But it’s preparing for the worst.

“We have other back-up beds prepared in other departments in case the capacity exceeds our current possibilities,” said Dr. Hana Rohacova, the head doctor at the hospital’s infection disease clinic. This weekend, the government began setting up a temporary field hospital in Prague. Czech Health Minister Dr. Roman Prymula told CNN he expects the extra beds will be needed as soon as the end of this month.

It’s a stunning development. Less than two months ago, the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis boasted his country was among the “best in Covid.”

Italy’s second coronavirus wave feels different. Here’s why

[CNN] Italy recorded a record number of positive coronavirus tests for the fifth day running on October 18, but in a marked contrast to the ‘first wave’, the number of patients in intensive care remains relatively low. CNN’s Ben Wedeman reports from Naples.

Watch video

Fauci: Covid would have to be ‘really, really bad’ to implement a lockdown

(CNN)Despite the US seeing a rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths, Dr. Anthony Fauci says that things would have to get “really, really bad” for him to advocate for a national lockdown.

The US is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day — up more than 60% since a mid-September dip — and experts say the country is in the midst of the dreaded fall surge. On Friday, the US reported the most infections in a single day since July. As of Saturday, more than 8.1 million cases of the virus had been reported in the US and 219,666 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

With all the previous and current measures to offset the spread of the virus, “the country is fatigued with restrictions,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday night.

“We want to use public health measures not to get in the way of opening the economy, but to being a safe gateway to opening the economy,” Fauci told CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook during the interview.

“So instead of having an opposition, open up the economy, get jobs back, or shut down. No, put shut down away and say ‘we’re going to use public health measures to help us safely get to where we want to go.’ “

Covid-19 vaccine company under investigation for misrepresenting its role in Operation Warp Speed

New York (CNN Business) California biotech company Vaxart, which is working on a Covid-19 vaccine, is under federalinvestigation and is being sued by a number of investors for allegedly exaggerating its involvement in the US government’s Operation Warp Speed program for developing Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.

Vaxart stated in an October 14 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it’s being investigated by the SEC and federal prosecutors, and that it was served with a grand jury subpoena in Julyfrom the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

In June, Vaxart (VXRT) issued a press release that said “Vaxart’s Covid-19 Vaccine Selected for the US Government’s Operation Warp Speed.” The news helped propel Vaxart’s stock price to nearly $17, up from approximately $3, and hedge fund Armistice Capital, which partly controlled Vaxart, sold shares for a profit of more than $200 million, according to its SEC filings.

A few weeks before the announcement, Vaxart granted amendments to the warrants agreements, which allowed Armistice to sell almost all of their stock, which they did once the stock price skyrocketed.

Covid-19: Italy tightens rules after coronavirus cases surge

[BBC] — A mask-wearing PM Giuseppe Conte said the measures were needed “to avoid a new lockdown”.

Mayors will get powers to close public areas after 21:00 and the opening times of restaurants and the size of groups allowed will tighten.

The moves came as Italy recorded its highest daily infection rate for the second day in a row.

Another 11,705 new cases were announced on Sunday, beating the previous record, which came a day earlier on Saturday, of 10,925.

Italy was the European nation hardest hit at the start of the pandemic. It has now recorded 414,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. Its 36,500 deaths place it second to only the UK in Europe.

The prime minister said in a televised address on Sunday evening: “We cannot waste time, we must put in place measures to avoid a generalised lockdown, which could severely compromise the economy.

“The government is here but everyone has to do their part.”

October 18th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

45,134 New U.S. cases
10,982 New Brazil cases
15,099 Russia cases
55,511 New India cases
4,119 Mexico cases
1,806 New cases in California

Over 40.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.3 million
Over 45k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 40,279,207
Daily new cases: 321,309
Global deaths: 1,118,321 with 3,694 new deaths
Global recovered: 30,112,204
Mortality rate: 2.78%
Recovery rate: 74.76%

U.S. cases: 8,387,799
U.S. new cases: 45,134
U.S. deaths: 224,730
U.S. recovered: 5,457,684
U.S. Daily fatalities: 448

Texas cases: 870,164 with 2,770 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,582 – 28 Today
Dallas County cases: 94,567
Dallas County new cases: 592
Dallas County deaths: 1,194 – 4 today

October 17th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

54,387 New U.S. cases
22,792 New Brazil cases
14,922 Russia cases
62,092 New India cases
5,447 Mexico cases
2,075 New cases in California

Over 39.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.3 million
Over 54k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 39,956,898
Daily new cases: 382,236
Global deaths: 1,114,627 with 5,529 new deaths
Global recovered: 29,884,788
Mortality rate: 2.79%
Recovery rate: 74.79%

U.S. cases: 8,342,665
U.S. new cases: 54,387
U.S. deaths: 224,282
U.S. recovered: 5,432,192
U.S. Daily fatalities: 927

Texas cases: 867,394 with 4,225 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,554 – 93 Today
Dallas County cases: 93,975
Dallas County new cases: 647
Dallas County deaths: 1,190 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

Life as a Covid-19 Long-Termer

[ROLLING STONE] — On a damp and unseasonably cool late-March day in Southern California, Nicole Batenhorst looked around the triage tent and realized that getting a folding metal chair made her one of the lucky ones. She had just arrived at her local hospital in an ambulance after her heartbeat had become dangerously erratic, and was still wearing pajamas. The emergency room was full, so she was ushered into a triage tent set up outside, bursting with overflow patients desperate to get help and stay dry in a place with no available beds or blankets.

After about a half hour in the tent, she was given a bed inside when her heart rate dropped to 36 beats per minute. A doctor came to check on her, and almost immediately started crying. He told Batenhorst that he had to send her home because there were other patients who needed the bed more. “That was terrifying — seeing a male, middle-aged ER doctor cry like that,” says Batenhorst. “He also said that three people had died just since his shift started that morning. It was 10 a.m.”

…Now, seven months after her hospital visit and eight months after her symptoms began, Batenhorst is still debilitatingly ill. In this time, she has experienced shortness of breath, dizziness, intense headaches, severe gastrointestinal issues (causing her to lose a significant amount of weight), a consistent fever, extreme fatigue, brain fog, chest pain, arrhythmia, joint inflammation, and organ failure, among other complications. Batenhorst hasn’t left her home since her trip to the hospital in March, and hasn’t gotten an antibody test. But for a variety of reasons — including the test’s high rates of false negatives and the fact that it’s still unclear how long antibodies last after infection — the results wouldn’t necessarily clear things up.

We Just Got More Evidence Your Blood Type May Change COVID-19 Risk And Severity

Research is coalescing around the idea that people with Type O blood may have a slight advantage during this pandemic.

Two studies published this week suggest that people with Type O have a lower risk of getting the coronavirus, as well as a reduced likelihood of getting severely sick if they do get infected.

One of the new studies specifically found that COVID-19 patients with Type O or B blood spent less time in an intensive-care unit than their counterparts with Type A or AB. They were also less likely to require ventilation and less likely to experience kidney failure.

These new findings echo similar findings about Type O blood seen in previous research, creating a clearer picture of one particular coronavirus risk factor.

Patients with Type O or B blood had less severe COVID-19

Both new studies came out Wednesday in the journal Blood Advances. One looked at 95 critically ill COVID-19 patients at hospitals in Vancouver, Canada, between February and April.

They found that patients with Type O or B blood spent, on average, 4.5 fewer days in the intensive-care unit than those with Type A or AB blood. The latter group stayed, on average, 13.5 days in the ICU. The researchers did not see any link between blood type and the length of each patient’s total hospital stay, however.

They did, however, find that only 61 percent of the patients with Type O or B blood required a ventilator, compared to 84 percent of patients with Type A or AB.

October 16th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

71,963 New U.S. cases
30,574 New Brazil cases
15,150 Russia cases
65,126 New India cases
6,751 Mexico cases
3,107 New cases in California

Over 39.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.2 million
Over 71k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 39,574,662
Daily new cases: 404,179
Global deaths: 1,109,098 with 6,050 new deaths
Global recovered: 29,655,454
Mortality rate: 2.80%
Recovery rate: 74.94%

U.S. cases: 8,288,278
U.S. new cases: 71,963
U.S. deaths: 223,644
U.S. recovered: 5,395,401
U.S. Daily fatalities: 927

Texas cases: 863,169 with 6,067 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,491 – 98 Today
Dallas County cases: 93,328
Dallas County new cases: 480
Dallas County deaths: 1,187 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

Covid: Remdesivir ‘has little or no effect’ on survival, says WHO

Anti-viral drug remdesivir has little to no effect on Covid patients’ chances of survival, a study from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found.

[BBC] — The WHO trial evaluated four potential medications for Covid-19, including remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine.

Remdesivir was among the first to be used to treat coronavirus, and was recently given to US President Donald Trump when he was in hospital.

The drug’s manufacturer Gilead rejected the findings of the trial.

In a statement, Gilead said the findings of the study were “inconsistent” with others, and that it was “concerned” that the results have yet to be reviewed.

Global new cases exceed 400,000 for the first time

[OBLIVIOTS] — Worldwide we added 426,000 new cases yesterday. Just think about that.

Think about the entire population of Tulsa Oklahoma being infected in ONE DAY.

Or Tampa Florida

Or Arlington Texas

In ONE DAY

The global daily new case numbers have been trending above 200,000 since July 7th, and in the 250,000 to 300,000+ range since the end of July. Our previous high day was Wednesday at 390k. Yesterday was a watershed moment with such a drastic increase.

U.S. cases have been trending dangerously upward in recent weeks as well. After weeks of reporting in the 40,000 range for daily cases, yesterday was 66,000+.

We are headed into very dangerous territory.

I’m not suggesting lockdowns. I think that is biting off your nose to spite your face. I just had someone point out the mortality rate is very low, which is apparently the big factor for a lot of people. That is actually true. In the U.S., we have maintained a daily mortality under 1,000 a day since September 24th. That’s great. But the mortality rate should not be the big deciding factor and we need to stop thinking that way. The infection rate should be the big concern.

Because:

We are accruing more and more “long haulers” – people who have “recovered” from Covid-19 but who, months later, are still battling debilitating consequences. And there is literally no end in sight for many of these previously healthy people. With NO contributing factors. Many are YOUNG. It is not just us Old Farts who are getting really sick. And it is not just people with underlying / contributing factors like obesity, heart conditions, diabetes, etc. LOTS of perfectly healthy people with no contributing factors are getting very sick. Some die. A growing number of others are becoming the “long haulers” as they like to call themselves. Their lives have changed, possibly forever. They cannot work to support themselves, they struggle to get enough oxygen. Previously active people with regular exercise routines are unable to even walk any distance, let alone do actual exercise.

The goal should not be to “survive” this disease, but to “avoid” it. It is also not unusual for people to be facing $100k in hospital bills if they survive this disease. So even if you think it’s “just the flu”, the expense alone should influence your behavior.

The reason we are looking at these kinds of high infection numbers (again) is sheer willful ignorance on the part of around 40% of the population. Worldwide. It’s not just the U.S. with large numbers of stupid, stubborn people. It is everywhere. And this is going to kill the global economy due to travel restrictions / quarantines, to say nothing of the loss of vital, healthy citizens.

If we could just get EVERYONE to mask the hell up and stay home (except for mandatory provisioning, etc.) for a few weeks, we could get a handle on this. But there are far too many imbeciles who hate being “told what to do” when this is “just the flu”.

Well, the virus HATES being disrespected and tends to go after those who do so.

This is NOT the flu. It simply is NOT even remotely true that “99% of people survive” (a popular mantra of the willfully ignorant). The current global mortality rate is 2.82%. That is 28 times the seasonal flu average.

Let’s all just make an attempt at being part of the solution and NOT part of the problem, OK?. Try thinking of your fellow travelers on this whirling ball for a change.

All this data is in the spreadsheet embedded above.

International New Cases

U.S. Daily Cases and Deaths:

Modern aircraft ventilation systems aren’t spreading viruses, DoD study suggests

(CNN) — A new study released Thursday suggests that people don’t need to worry about circulating air spreading coronavirus on airplanes.

The US Department of Defense study supports earlier research showing the ventilation systems on aircraft filter the air efficiently and take out particles that could transmit viruses.

The study, which was released without peer review, did not take into account other ways that people could catch the virus on aircraft — including from others coughing or breathing directly on them, from surfaces or from confined spaces such as restrooms.

The US Transportation Command, The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and the Air Mobility Command used Boeing 777-200 and 767-300 aircraft loaded up with sensors meant to duplicate the effect of a fully loaded passenger flight.

October 15th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

66,282 New U.S. cases
29,498 New Brazil cases
13,754 Russia cases
60,439 New India cases
5,514 Mexico cases
3,010 New cases in California

Over 39.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1.1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.2million
Over 66k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 39,170,483
Daily new cases: 426,619 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,102,926 with 6,050 new deaths
Global recovered: 29,378,708
Mortality rate: 2.82%
Recovery rate: 75.00%

U.S. cases: 8,216,315
U.S. new cases: 66,272
U.S. deaths: 222,717
U.S. recovered: 5,320,139
U.S. Daily fatalities: 874

Texas cases: 857,102 with 5,702 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,393 – 85 Today
Dallas County cases: 92,848
Dallas County new cases: 589
Dallas County deaths: 1,184 – 4 today

October 14th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

59,790 New U.S. cases
26,675 New Brazil cases
14,231 Russia cases
67,988 New India cases
4,056 Mexico cases
3,435 New cases in California

Over 38.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8.1million
Over 59k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 38,743,864
Daily new cases: 390,018 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,096,876 with 5,384 new deaths
Global recovered: 29,123,526
Mortality rate: 2.83%
Recovery rate: 75.17%

U.S. cases: 8,150,043
U.S. new cases: 59,790
U.S. deaths: 221,843
U.S. recovered: 5,278,753
U.S. Daily fatalities: 970

Texas cases: 851,400 with 5,744 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,308 – 112 Today
Dallas County cases: 92,259
Dallas County new cases: 504
Dallas County deaths: 1,180 – 7 today

Today’s Headlines

Herd immunity is another word for mass murder

Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. That is exactly what it is,” Haseltine said on CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday.

[CNN] Haseltine went on to say that if the virus is allowed to spread, as the Trump Administration is allegedly advocating, “we are looking at two to six million Americans dead – not just this year but every year.”

“This is an unmitigated disaster for our country – to have people at the highest levels of our government countermanding our best public health officials,” Haseltine said. “We know this epidemic can be put under control. Other countries have done it. We are doing the opposite.”

Fauci: I hope these coronavirus numbers jolt Americans

[CNN] Dr. Anthony Fauci tells CNN’s Jake Tapper that he hopes the dire number of coronavirus cases in the US serve as a wake-up call to Americans to stay vigilant and take protective measures against the virus.

Watch video

Dutch woman dies after catching Covid-19 twice

(CNN) An elderly Dutch woman has become the first known person to die from catching Covid-19 twice, according to experts, raising serious questions about how long immunity and antibodies can last.

The woman, 89, suffered from a rare type of bone marrow cancer called Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia. Her immune system was compromised due to the cell-depleting therapy she received, the researchers at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands wrote in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

However, the researchers said her natural immune response could still have been “sufficient” to fight-off Covid-19, as the type of treatment she received for cancer “does not necessarily result in life threatening disease.”

The patient was initially admitted into hospital earlier this year with a severe cough and fever, testing positive for Covid-19.

She was discharged five days later when “besides some persisting fatigue her symptoms subsided completely,” according to the report.

But two days into chemotherapy treatment — 59 days after the start of the first Covid-19 episode — the woman developed fever, cough and difficulty breathing.

October 13th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

52,464 New U.S. cases
11,415 New Brazil cases
13,868 Russia cases
63,517 New India cases
4,295 Mexico cases
3,756 New cases in California

Over 38.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8 million
Over 52k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 38,353,846
Daily new cases: 313,783
Global deaths: 1,090,756 with 5,384 new deaths
Global recovered: 28,846,587
Mortality rate: 2.84%
Recovery rate: 75.21%

U.S. cases: 8,090,253
U.S. new cases: 52,464
U.S. deaths: 220,873
U.S. recovered: 5,226,427
U.S. Daily fatalities: 862

Texas cases: 845,656 with 6,087 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,196 – 98 Today
Dallas County cases: 91,755
Dallas County new cases: 638
Dallas County deaths: 1,173 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

Johnson & Johnson pauses Covid-19 vaccine trial after ‘unexplained illness’

(CNN) Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

“Following our guidelines, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) as well as our internal clinical and safety physicians,” the company said in a statement. ENSEMBLE is the name of the study.

“Adverse events — illnesses, accidents, etc. — even those that are serious, are an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies.” The pause was first reported by Stat News.

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine arm is developing the shot. The company did not say what the unexplained illness was, but one point of clinical trials is to find out if vaccines cause dangerous side effects. Trials are stopped when they pop up while doctors check to see if the illness can be linked to the vaccine or is a coincidence.

The Pandemic Has Claimed Far More Lives Than Reported, Study Says

[NBC DFW] Far more Americans have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic than have been counted and reported, according to new research published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“For every two Americans that we know of who are dying of COVID-19, another American is dying,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, author of the new research and director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University.

October 12th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

45,791 New U.S. cases
8,429 New Brazil cases
13,592 Russia cases
54,265 New India cases
3,542 Mexico cases
2,979 New cases in California

Over 38 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 8 million
Over 45k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 38,040,063
Daily new cases: 272,832
Global deaths: 1,081,419 with 3,924 new deaths
Global recovered: 28,347,260
Mortality rate: 2.87%
Recovery rate: 75.11%

U.S. cases: 8,037,789
U.S. new cases: 45,791
U.S. deaths: 220,011
U.S. recovered: 5,184,615
U.S. Daily fatalities: 316

Texas cases: 839,569 with 3,737 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,098 – 15 Today
Dallas County cases: 91,117
Dallas County new cases: 330
Dallas County deaths: 1,169 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

Thousands signing up to be deliberately exposed to Covid-19

London (CNN)As most of us obsess with avoiding Covid-19 at all costs, a rapidly growing group of people around the world say they are prepared to deliberately take on the virus.

Tens of thousands of people have signed up to a campaign by a group called 1 Day Sooner to take an experimental vaccine candidate and then face coronavirus in a controlled setting.

Among them is Estefania Hidalgo, 32, a photography student in Bristol, England, who works at a gas station to pay the bills.

“I do night shifts there, and it can be very lonely,” she recalled on a sunny day near her home. Passing those long lockdown hours with just podcasts to keep her company, she describes discovering the challenge trial movement — and hearing volunteers’ motivations — as a revelatory moment.

“I was shaken,” she said. “No one should be left behind. Old people, poor people, people of color. Everyone just deserves to be healthy.”

“This was a way for me to take back control of the situation, to feel like I was in a less hopeless place, and a less hopeless world, and be like, OK, I can do this. To make it better, I chose not to be in fear.”

So-called human challenge trials, while sometimes controversial, are nothing new. They have been used for cholera, typhoid, malaria, and even the common cold. But unlike for those diseases, we do not yet have a completely effective treatment for Covid-19, should the experimental vaccine fail.

China to test 9 million people as coronavirus cluster detected in city of Qingdao

Hong Kong (CNN) The Chinese port city of Qingdao plans to test some nine million people in the coming five days, after 12 locally-transmitted coronavirus cases were reported sparking concerns of a wider outbreak.

China has been largely coronavirus free since mid-August, with all cases reported by the country imported from elsewhere. But as of October 11, Qingdao has reported a dozen locally transmitted cases, all of which have been linked to a hospital treating imported infections, the city’s Municipal Health Commission said in a statement Monday.

Mass testing has already been carried out at the Qingdao Chest Hospital, which has been placed on lockdown, with 114,862 people, staff and patients, having tested negative as of Monday.

Testing will now be rolled out citywide for the entire population of nine million, repeating the type of mass response previously seen in Beijing and other cities across China where clusters of infections have been detected.

Those responses have been successful in keeping China’s overall infection rate low since the country’s initial outbreak was suppressed in March. That has enabled life to return to relative normality, with more than 600 million tourists traveling this month for Golden Week, a national holiday around the Mid-Autumn Festival.

October 11th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

46,493 New U.S. cases
3,139 New Brazil cases
13,634 Russia cases
67,757 New India cases
3,175 Mexico cases
2,723 New cases in California

Over 37.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.9 million
Over 46k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 37,740,724
Daily new cases: 272,832
Global deaths: 1,081,419 with 3,924 new deaths
Global recovered: 28,347,260
Mortality rate: 2.87%
Recovery rate: 75.11%

U.S. cases: 7,945,505
U.S. new cases: 51,027
U.S. deaths: 219,282
U.S. recovered: 5,128,162
U.S. Daily fatalities: 413

Texas cases: 835,832 with 2,904 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,083 – 28 Today
Dallas County cases: 90,787
Dallas County new cases: 433
Dallas County deaths: 1,169 – 2 today

October 10th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

51,027 New U.S. cases
34,650 New Brazil cases
12,846 Russia cases
74,535 New India cases
4,577 Mexico cases
3,114 New cases in California

Over 37.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.9 million
Over 51k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 37,467,892
Daily new cases: 356,905
Global deaths: 1,077,495 with 4,783 new deaths
Global recovered: 28,112,547
Mortality rate: 2.88%
Recovery rate: 75.03%

U.S. cases: 7,945,505
U.S. new cases: 51,027
U.S. deaths: 219,282
U.S. recovered: 5,089,842
U.S. Daily fatalities: 634

Texas cases: 832,928 with 3,475 new cases
Texas deaths: 17,055 – 63 Today
Dallas County cases: 90,354
Dallas County new cases: 492
Dallas County deaths: 1,167 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

Tool’s Maynard Keenan Suffering From Lung Damage due to Covid-19

[LOUDWIRE] Keenan got COVID-19 in late February, before the pandemic was officially declared. “I kind of didn’t want to run around screaming it. But it’s real. And there’s after-effects,” Keenan shared with AZ Central. “I had to go through some major medications to undo the residual effects. Still coughing. There’s still lung damage.”

When asked if he’s currently feeling alright, Keenan answered, “Well no. I still have the cough. Every other day, I have these coughing fits because my lungs are still damaged at the tips. And I just got over the inflammation that was going on with my wrist and hands. I had an autoimmune attack on my system in the form of, like, a rheumatoid arthritis. Basically, from what I understand, it attacks weird spots and it’s random. So that’s what I got. That was my prize.”

Several regions sound alarm as US reports most Covid-19 daily cases in nearly 2 months

[OBLIVIOTS] Just as I was preparing an update on this topic, the following article came up in my newsfeed.

Just to illustrate what a piss poor job Americans are doing of limiting this virus expansion. Yesterday we added another 60,000+ new cases. As you can see from this graph, the last time we had that many new cases in a day was August 14th. We were improving. Then a lot of Murkins decided they were “over it”. Well kiddies, the virus is tireless. And our piss poor excuse for leadership at most levels is in denial. They are focusing on “getting the economy going” without imagining the long-term consequences of this action. Sure, we will get people back to work and schools open. And then all hell will break loose because this virus is not going to take a vacation. Ever. It is relentless. And the long-term effects, even on people who were never hospitalized, is proving to be daunting at best. You need to consider the growing number of “long haulers” that have what may very well turn out to be lifetime disability due to the ravages of Covid-19 on numerous body systems and organs.

To keep banging the same damned drum…

You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.

Read CNN’s report this morning:

(CNN) Just as the US reported the highest number of daily Covid-19 infections in nearly two months, several experts offered grim outlooks if Americans don’t take the right precautions.

Florida, which over the summer became the country’s hotspot, is “ripe for another large outbreak,” an infectious disease expert told CNN.

Late last month, the state cleared the way for bars and restaurants to fully reopen and this week reported more than 6,000 cases over a two day-period.

“What they’ve done is opened up everything as if nothing had ever happened there and you and I could be talking probably in eight to 10 weeks, and I will likely bet that Florida will be a house on fire,” Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN Friday.

White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx also cautioned Friday of “early suggestions” of alarming trends in the Northeast, urging residents to take action and help prevent the spread before the virus takes off again.

“The actions this time have to happen at the personal level, in our private homes, rather than just the public spaces,” she said.

October 9th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

60,715 New U.S. cases
27,651 New Brazil cases
12,126 Russia cases
73,196 New India cases
5,263 Mexico cases
3,785 New cases in California

Over 37.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.8 million
Over 60k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 37,110,987
Daily new cases: 359,485
Global deaths: 1,072,712 with 5,856 new deaths
Global recovered: 27,897,001
Mortality rate: 2.89%
Recovery rate: 75.17%

U.S. cases: 7,894,478
U.S. new cases: 60,715
U.S. deaths: 218,648
U.S. recovered: 5,064,300
U.S. Daily fatalities: 910

Texas cases: 829,453 with 4,641 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,992 – 106 Today
Dallas County cases: 89,862
Dallas County new cases: 448
Dallas County deaths: 1,165 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

Ontario faces ‘runaway train’ of COVID-19 cases if families don’t scrap Thanksgiving gatherings

[CBC] Ontario could be “on the brink of disaster,” a Toronto epidemiologist said Wednesday, as officials continued to urge families to scrap Thanksgiving gatherings amid soaring COVID-19 cases.

This week, the province — and public health officials in the hot zones of Toronto and Ottawa — stressed the safest way to celebrate is with only members of your own household.

Should Ontarians not heed those warnings, some weekend gatherings could become superspreading events once infected attendees return to their homes, schools and workplaces, said Dr. Jeff Kwong, a professor of family medicine and public health at the University of Toronto.

“It’s not just about this one transmission event; it’s the onward transmission,” he said. “Ten people gathering, say four or five get infected, then they go on to their social circles and infect another five or 10, and so on.”

The result could be like a “runaway train” given the millions of residents potentially congregating indoors with extended family members from different households, he said.

Rexburg emerges as national hotspot for COVID-19 cases

[REXBURG IDAHO] Rexburg has reached the New York Times’ number one rank for cities with rising active COVID-19 cases within the last two weeks.

According to data compiled by the New York Times, Rexburg has had 766 recent cases with a population of 53,006. This places the city at 100.3 daily cases per 100k, ranking it number one on the Times’ list of metro areas with the greatest number of new cases relative to their population.

Eastern Idaho Public Health reported as of Oct. 6, Madison County has 266 active cases, the most out of any county EIPH tracks. Per 10k cases, 66.7 are active.

Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill said during a Facebook Live video the city will start a new initiative that asks businesses to be more aggressive about notifying people that masks are required to enter their business.

“We’re going to ask all of our businesses to cooperate with us in that so that we can get more of a culture of wearing the masks when we’re out in public.”

Businesses will also be asked to be more thorough about sanitation, Merrill said.

He said most people in the city are recovering. EIPH has reported two deaths in Madison County due to COVID-19 as of Oct. 6.

October 8th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

57,539 New U.S. cases
27,182 New Brazil cases
11,493 Russia cases
70,824 New India cases
5,300 Mexico cases
3,617 New cases in California

Over 36.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.8 million
Over 57k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 36,751,502
Daily new cases: 364,397 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 1,066,856 with 6,438 new deaths
Global recovered: 27,664,655
Mortality rate: 2.90%
Recovery rate: 75.27%

U.S. cases: 7,833,763
U.S. new cases: 57,539
U.S. deaths: 217,738
U.S. recovered: 5,025,193
U.S. Daily fatalities: 954

Texas cases: 824,812 with 4,820 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,886 – 103 Today
Dallas County cases: 89,414
Dallas County new cases: 238
Dallas County deaths: 1,161 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

Is Texas getting it right with their Covid-19 response?

[OBLIVIOTS] I’ve just spent the last hour assembling this so y’all can see what has actually been going on in Texas relative to our Covid-19 growth and responses.

This starts with the beginning of publicly available reported data.

If you want to read all the details, Wikipedia has a very thorough article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Texas

Just to inform everyone who says we should be easing restrictions and that we are doing well in this slow-motion disaster…

this graph illustrates the number of new cases per day over time all the way up to yesterday’s addition of 5,669 new cases. While it is true our deaths per day are fairly low overall, Texas makes up a higher percentage than it should of fatalities per day across the U.S. based on per capita deaths.

For example:

The U.S. reported a total of 962 fatalities yesterday, out of which, Texas contributed 119. or 12.3%

Texas currently comprises 9.03% of the population.

832 deaths in one day is our all time high, reported on August 21st. The current 7 day average is in the low 90s – so on a per capita basis you could say we are about average.

At our peak on August 4th, our 7 day average was 276 fatalities per day.

But this is not as important a factor as many, if not most would like to hang their hat on.

The big factor is the long-term health impact on those who have “survived” hospitalization for Covid-19. We have a lot of growing data documenting long term medical problems that are not abating over time. These people are calling themselves long haulers and there is copious data on this issue.

So let’s all be careful out there, OK?

#MASKUP

#BePartOfTheSolution

#CoronavirusLife

October 7th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

53,478 New U.S. cases
31,404 New Brazil cases
11,115 Russia cases
78,809 New India cases
4,580 Mexico cases
3,445 New cases in California

Over 36.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.7 million
Over 53k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 36,386,805
Daily new cases: 345,022
Global deaths: 1,060,418 with 5,814 new deaths
Global recovered: 27,407,224
Mortality rate: 2.91%
Recovery rate: 75.32%

U.S. cases: 7,776,224
U.S. new cases: 53,478
U.S. deaths: 216,784
U.S. recovered: 4,983,380
U.S. Daily fatalities: 962

Texas cases: 819,992 with 5,669 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,783 – 119 Today
Dallas County cases: 89,176
Dallas County new cases: 222
Dallas County deaths: 1,159 – 5 today

Today’s Headlines

Trump mounts bizarre and misleading White House return despite warnings

(CNN) A strongly medicated President Donald Trump bolted from his VIP hospital bubble Monday, staging a bizarre White House comeback that included an irresponsible mask removal and a reckless pronouncement there is nothing to fear from Covid-19, which has already killed 210,000 Americans.

His actions show him, if anything, entrenched deeper in denial over the virus than ever before and more committed to trashing scientific protocols that could slow the pandemic.

“We’re going back. We’re going back to work. We’re gonna be out front. As your leader I had to do that. I knew there’s danger to it but I had to do it,” Trump says in a strange campaign video whipped up by aides within an hour of his return to the White House, in which the President framed himself as a warrior who took on the virus and won.

“I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger,” Trump said, despite his doctors earlier saying he is still not fully “out of the woods” in his fight with the virus.

October 6th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

43,102 New U.S. cases
30,454 New Brazil cases
11,615 Russia cases
72,106 New India cases
32,943 Mexico cases
2,734 New cases in California

Over 36 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.7 million
Over 43k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 36,041,783
Daily new cases: 343,521
Global deaths: 1,054,604 with 8,662 new deaths
Global recovered: 27,145,526
Mortality rate: 2.93%
Recovery rate: 75.32%

U.S. cases: 7,722,746
U.S. new cases: 43,102
U.S. deaths: 215,822
U.S. recovered: 4,935,545
U.S. Daily fatalities: 790

Texas cases: 814,323 with 4,763 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,664 – 100 Today
Dallas County cases: 88,954
Dallas County new cases: 316
Dallas County deaths: 1,154 – 5 today

Today’s Headlines

Trump mounts bizarre and misleading White House return despite warnings

His actions show him, if anything, entrenched deeper in denial over the virus than ever before and more committed to trashing scientific protocols that could slow the pandemic.

CDC guidelines update on risk of airborne transmission – coronavirus can infect people more than 6 feet away

[USA Today] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its website to warn that the coronavirus can spread through the air, something public health experts have been warning about for months but went unacknowledged by the agency until Monday.

The CDC says people can be exposed to the virus in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours, potentially infecting people who are farther than 6 feet away and even people who come into the area after an infected person has left.

“There is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than 6 feet away,” the CDC says on its website.

The CDC’s previous guidance said the virus spreads primarily among people who are in close contact with one another – within about 6 feet – through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. The current guidance says that’s still the greatest risk.

October 5th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

42,732 New U.S. cases
25,210 New Brazil cases
10,888 Russia cases
59,893 New India cases
0 Mexico cases
3,123 New cases in California

Over 35.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.6 million
Over 42k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 35,698,262
Daily new cases: 301,783
Global deaths: 1,045,942 with 4,142 new deaths
Global recovered: 26,866,678
Mortality rate: 2.93%
Recovery rate: 75.26%

U.S. cases: 7,679,644
U.S. new cases: 42,732
U.S. deaths: 215,032
U.S. recovered: 4,895,078
U.S. Daily fatalities: 421

Texas cases: 809,560 with 4,075 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,564 – 59 Today
Dallas County cases: 88,638
Dallas County new cases: 450
Dallas County deaths: 1,149 – 1 today

Today’s Headlines

Countries across Europe set grim Covid-19 records as restrictions are reimposed

London (CNN)As Europe transitions from summer into fall, countries that claimed to have the coronavirus under control are once again seeing a surge in infections. The United Kingdom, which has the biggest death toll on the continent, reported 12,872 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, more than double the country’s most recent seven-day rolling average, according to official figures.

Although the UK government blamed the spike on a “technical issue” where previously unreported infections from the past week had been added to the total, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Sunday: “This could be a very tough winter for all of us.

“It’s gonna continue to be bumpy through to Christmas,” Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr. “It may even be bumpy beyond,” he said. According to the British government, the UK so far has a total of 480,017 recorded Covid-19 cases and 42,317 deaths.

Other countries have been setting grim records: Europe’s death rate has been rising, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Thursday in its weekly report.

In France, the national health agency recorded a daily record on Saturday, with 16,972 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, surpassing last week’s record of 16,096. On Thursday, heath minister Olivier Véran warned that Paris is in danger of returning to lockdown as soon as Monday, after the government said the situation was worsening in the capital.

October 4th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

36,066 New U.S. cases
8,456 New Brazil cases
10,499 Russia cases
76,767 New India cases
3,712 Mexico cases
3,104 New cases in California

Over 35.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.6 million
Over 36k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 35,396,479
Daily new cases: 263,916
Global deaths: 1,041,800 with 3,839 new deaths
Global recovered: 26,619,926
Mortality rate: 2.94%
Recovery rate: 74.21%

U.S. cases: 7,636,912
U.S. new cases: 36,066
U.S. deaths: 214,611
U.S. recovered: 4,849,038
U.S. Daily fatalities: 334

Texas cases: 805,485 with 3,305 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,505 – 25 Today
Dallas County cases: 88,188
Dallas County new cases: 976
Dallas County deaths: 1,148 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

Trump’s alternate reality of Covid-19 crumbles as the White House obfuscates

CNN) Some seven months into a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, the nation is now facing a grave governing crisis with its commander in chief hospitalized — his condition hinging on his progress over the coming days –as the White House events of the past week serve as a textbook example of how not to handle a deadly virus.

Late Saturday night, the public learned new details about why President Donald Trump was airlifted to the hospital Friday, when chief of staff Mark Meadows said during an interview with Fox News that Trump had a fever on Friday morning and his oxygen level had”dropped rapidly.” Meadows added that Trump has made “unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning.”

A memo from Trump’s physician earlier Saturday night said that Trump had “made substantial progress” since his diagnosis but “is not yet out of the woods.”

Speaking from a White House that already has a huge credibility problem with the public, Meadows’ statement capped a 24-hour period that served as a master class in opacity and contradiction that raised major questions about the President’s health — and renewed questions about this administration’s ability to tell the truth.

The President became furious at Meadows earlier in the day, according to reporting Saturday night by the New York Times, when the chief of staff gave a statement to the press pool as an unnamed official stating that the President’s vitals Friday were “very concerning,” hinting that his condition was more worrisome than his doctors let on.

For much of this year, Trump has spun an alternate reality about the dangers of coronavirus — disputing science and the efficacy of masks, downplaying the risks to the American people, and making false statements about how 99% of coronavirus cases in America are “totally harmless” or that the virus “affects virtually nobody.”

He encouraged his aides and advisers to live in that dangerous fantasy land, pushing his luck to the limits as late as this past week when he again recklessly gathered thousands of unmasked Americans at his political rallies and packed the top officials in government into a Rose Garden ceremony for his Supreme Court nominee. All the while, White House officials embraced the fallacy that administering rapid coronavirus tests frequently at the White House could provide a shield of immunity.

The President’s construct crumbled Friday when he was airlifted to Walter Reed after contracting the virus, while many aides, advisers and allies were testing positive for Covid-19 after interacting with him over the past week.

October 3-4, 2020 Covid-19 Trend Analysis

[OBLIVIOTS] — With two major EU cities going back into lockdown after massive new case spikes, it should be obvious to even the most casual observer, that we are losing the battle with Coronavirus on all fronts. Madrid and Paris both announced this week that they are going back into lockdown due to large new case spikes and hospital resource usage. (see articles below)

Russia was doing very well for an extended stretch (if you believe their data — I don’t). But for a long time they were reporting 5,000-6,000 (under 6,000) cases per day. This was after a startling spike of 11,000 cases per day during their peak in early May. They started bringing it down in mid-May. This trend continued in the 8k-10- per day range until is broke the 8k barrier on June 17th. Their trend continued down until it broke through the 6k barrier a month later. From mid July until September 19th, Russia continued to report daily new cases in the 4.8k to 5.9k range. Then they headed in the wrong direction. Starting on September 19th, they have been slowly reporting more cases every day. In the last week it has gone from the mid 7k range until today, October 4th, where for the first time since May, they broke the 10k barrier. Today’s new case count for Russia is 10,499. Russia, along with most of the EU, seems to have completely lost control. If you look at the Global new case graphs, you will see the trend.

India and Brazil, the two big trouble spots worldwide, are actually trending down in recent weeks. This is a good sign, As India was trending just below 100k new cases a day for some time. And Brazil was over 60k at one point.

The charts below are comparison data ending October 2, 2020. As you can see, we are nowhere near coming to grips with this deadly pandemic. While U.S. daily fatalities are definitely down, new cases are once again on the upswing. Over two dozen states are reporting much higher daily / weekly new cases, and of course our president and first lady + a growing number their closest associates have tested positive. And new cases are coming to light with each passing day. All of this because our poor excuse for “leadership” creates events like the SCOTUS announcement in the recently gutted rose garden with no social distancing or mask wearing. This is the very definition of irresponsibility.

Worldwide, the virus continues its inexorable march to ever higher numbers and if you look at the global daily case graphs, you will note the steady increase. We are currently adding one million new cases every 3-4 days. If this is hard to conceptualize, consider this. Putting this in perspective, it is as if the entire city of Dallas, Texas was infected every 4 days.

Or the following entire cities infected every 3 days:

San Jose, California
Indianapolis, Indiana
Jacksonville, Florida
San Francisco, California
Austin, Texas

Get it?

In the United States, we are now averaging between 40,000 and 60,000 new cases every day. So consider these figures.

This is as if every single living person in each of these cities became infected every WEEK:

Garland, Texas
Scottsdale, Arizona
Irving, Texas
Fremont, California
Birmingham, Alabama
Rochester, New York
San Bernadino, California
Spokane, Washington
Richmond, Virginia
Des Moines, Iowa
Modesto, California

This will continue to get WORSE, rather than better until we ALL get it together and ALWAYS wear a mask and socially distance. At ALL TIMES. This virus is not going away just because we are all “over it”. This virus is here to stay. A vaccine is a year away. Maybe more. Count on that. Act appropriately. I must have said the following a thousand times in my life.

For the one thousand and first time:

In ALL THINGS

You are either PART OF THE SOLUTION

or PART OF THE PROBLEM

How do you want to be remembered?

Because history will judge you harshly if you are part of the problem.

Your children will judge you harshly if you are part of the problem.

Your grandchildren will judge you harshly if you are part of the problem.

(if they survive)

Or if you ARE the problem.

So peruse these graphs. All of the data is in the spreadsheet embedded above.

The 3rd sheet in the spreadsheet calculates the per capita case and fatality percentages for the high growth countries.

You should go look at that, because the U.S. is one of the top 5 worst performers. As of yesterday we are 2.28% cases per capita and .06% deaths per capita.

The only countries with a worse case per capita record are Peru at 2.49% and Israel at 2.99% (recently dropped the ball on this virus)

So the U.S. is number 3 for highest per capita case load.

Fatalities? A lot of people get excited about how we “only” have 200,000+ fatalities. How cavalier…

At .06% fatalities per capita, the U.S. is the same as Mexico, UK and Italy.

The only countries higher are:

Brazil, Spain and Chile at .07%
Belgium at .09%
Peru at .10%

All of this can be dropped directly on the Resolute Desk where our president sat and ignored this problem as the virus raged from sea to shining sea unchecked for two months.

But then the rest of the blame in on you and me.

What are you doing to make this better?

or worse?

I’m not even bothering to discuss Texas today. Our useless excuse for a governor (Governor Greg AbbottAndCostello) makes me nauseous. As our cases continue higher, he opens up more of Texas.

U.S. Covid-19 High Growth States Comparison

U.S. Daily Cases / Fatalities

Covid-19 Global Daily Cases / Fatalities

Global Covid-19 comparison data ending October 2, 2020

Covid-19 Global High Growth Countries

October 3rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

51,523 New U.S. cases
24,602 New Brazil cases
9,859 Russia cases
75,479 New India cases
4,863 Mexico cases
3,054 New cases in California

Over 35.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.6 million
Over 51k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 35,123,563
Daily new cases: 352,549
Global deaths: 1,037,961 with 4,735 new deaths
Global recovered: 26,033,601
Mortality rate: 2.95%
Recovery rate: 74.10%

U.S. cases: 7,600,846
U.S. new cases: 51,523
U.S. deaths: 214,277
U.S. recovered: 4,818,509
U.S. Daily fatalities: 864

Texas cases: 802,180 with 5,036 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,480 – 135 Today
Dallas County cases: 87,212
Dallas County new cases: 712
Dallas County deaths: 1,144 – 5 today

October 2nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

54,652 New U.S. cases
33,002 New Brazil cases
9,412 Russia cases
79,974 New India cases
4,775 Mexico cases
3,997 New cases in California

Over 34.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.5 million
Over 54k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 34,828,807
Daily new cases: 352,549
Global deaths: 1,033,226 with 5,595 new deaths
Global recovered: 25,889,974
Mortality rate: 2.97%
Recovery rate: 74.35%

U.S. cases: 7,549,323
U.S. new cases: 54,652
U.S. deaths: 213,524
U.S. recovered: 4,776,824
U.S. Daily fatalities: 864

Texas cases: 797,144 with 6,677 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,345 – 94 Today
Dallas County cases: 86,500
Dallas County new cases: 0 – NO data from Dallas Today
Dallas County deaths: 1,139 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

Paris at risk of total lockdown as Europe cases rise

(CNN)Paris is in danger of going back into lockdown next week after the French government said the coronavirus pandemic was worsening in the capital.

“Since yesterday, in the last 24 hours, Paris has passed the threshold that would put it in the maximum alert category,” French minister of Health Olivier Véran said Thursday evening.

France’s “maximum alert” threshold is reached when the incidence rate reaches 250 per 100,000 people, at least 30% of intensive care beds are occupied by coronavirus patients, and the rate among the elderly passes 100 per 100,000.

The Paris region had already fulfilled the last two criteria.

Speaking from Bichat-Claude Bernard hospital in the city, Véran said that if the “evolution” was confirmed in the coming days, “we will not have any choice but to place Paris and its closest suburbs in maximum alert category as soon as Monday.”

“We will re-examine indicators on Sunday, with the Paris mayor and elected officials,” he added.

Aurelien Rousseau, head of the Paris region health authority, told radio station France Inter on Wednesday that 34% of intensive care beds were occupied by Covid-19 patients in the region and the incidence rate for people over 65 was more than 100 per 100,000 inhabitants.

He said the rate was also very high for people between the ages of 20 and 30, at 450 cases per 100,000 people.

POTUS, FLOTUS test positive for Covid-19

[OBLIVIOTS] It certainly is nice to see my favorite twin sisters Irony and Karma have been busy this week.

The irony of this headline is palpable. Donald Trump, after 7 months of denial, minimizing, downplaying and outright lying about a virus that has to date killed over one million people, finally contracts the “Kung Fu Flu” himself. Will this become a national holiday? It should. The POTUS FLOTUS Flu day. I think that would be downright poetic.

Today’s headlines on Every.Single.News.Outlet are shouting this fabulously good news from the rooftops. “Trump has Covid” is on everyone’s lips. Let us all send good thoughts to the universe for a speedy and miserable ICU / ventilator experience for our bloviating bad boy in quarantine. Our pestilent world “leader” has continuously flouted mask wearing, made fun of Joe Biden for intelligently and responsibly wearing masks, and generally set a very bad example for the entire country. Now he gets exactly what he deserves. In fact, it is astounding he has not come down with the “Wuhan Flu” sooner. I have commented about this for months. And finally… Our patience is rewarded with a Twofer! Both Donnie Dipshit and Melanoma (did I get that right?) have now come down with Covid. We need to savor this moment. It is truly delicious.

(CNN) President Donald Trump announced early Friday that he and his wife both tested positive for the coronavirus, an extraordinary development coming months into a global pandemic and in the final stretch of his reelection campaign in which he has flouted experts’ guidance on preventing the disease’s spread.

The diagnosis amounts to the most serious known health threat to a sitting American president in decades. At 74 years old and obese, Trump falls into the highest risk category for serious complications from the disease, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans and more than 1 million people worldwide.

His infection with the disease could prove destabilizing in an already fraught political climate, and stock market futures tumbled on news of Trump’s infection.

October 1st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

47,389 New U.S. cases
35,643 New Brazil cases
8,945 Russia cases
81,673 New India cases
5,099 Mexico cases
3,169 New cases in California

Over 34.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.4 million
Over 47k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 34,476,258
Daily new cases: 321,622
Global deaths: 1,027,631 with 8,862 new deaths
Global recovered: 25,666,466
Mortality rate: 2.98%
Recovery rate: 74.45%

U.S. cases: 7,494,671
U.S. new cases: 47,389
U.S. deaths: 212,660
U.S. recovered: 4,736,621
U.S. Daily fatalities: 920

Texas cases: 790,467 with 3,196 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,251 – 119 Today
Dallas County cases: 86,500
Dallas County new cases: 0 – NO data from Dallas Today
Dallas County deaths: 1,133 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

Madrid locks back down as European leaders sound alarm on Covid-19 surges

(CNN) Madrid is going back under city-wide lockdown measures after a surge in coronavirus cases in the Spanish capital, in a dramatic move that illustrates the growing intensity of Europe’s battle against a snowballing surge of infection.

People will not be able to leave or enter their area except for work, education or health reasons, gatherings will be limited to six people and stores, bars and restaurants will have to reduce capacity by 50% and close by 10 p.m.

“Madrid is special because the health of Madrid is the health of Spain,” Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news conference Wednesday as he announced the measures, calling the situation “complex” and “worrying.”

The restrictions will apply to municipalities with more than 500 cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days, where the number of positive cases surpasses 10% of all diagnostic tests or where Covid-19 patients make up more than 35% of occupied ICU beds.

New document reveals scope and structure of Operation Warp Speed

WASHINGTON — When President Trump unveiled Operation Warp Speed in May, he declared that it was “unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.”

The initiative — to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics — lacks the scale, and the degree of secrecy, of the effort to build the atomic bomb. But Operation Warp Speed is largely an abstraction in Washington, with little known about who works there other than its top leaders, or how it operates. Even pharmaceutical companies hoping to offer help or partnerships have labored to figure out who to contact.

Now, an organizational chart of the $10 billion initiative, obtained by STAT, reveals the fullest picture yet of Operation Warp Speed: a highly structured organization in which military personnel vastly outnumber civilian scientists.

The labyrinthine chart, dated July 30, shows that roughly 60 military officials — including at least four generals — are involved in the leadership of Operation Warp Speed, many of whom have never worked in health care or vaccine development. Just 29 of the roughly 90 leaders on the chart aren’t employed by the Department of Defense; most of them work for the Department of Health and Human Services and its subagencies.

Operation Warp Speed’s central goal is to develop, produce, and distribute 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January — and the military is intimately involved, according to Paul Mango, HHS’ deputy chief of staff for policy. It has already helped prop up more than two dozen vaccine manufacturing facilities — flying in equipment and raw materials from all over the world. It has also set up significant cybersecurity and physical security operations to ensure an eventual vaccine is guarded very closely from “state actors who don’t want us to be successful in this,” he said, adding that many of the Warp Speed discussions take place in protected rooms used to discuss classified information.

Operation Warp Speed chart

September 30th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

41,136 New U.S. cases
33,269 New Brazil cases
8,481 Russia cases
86,768 New India cases
5,053 Mexico cases
3,237 New cases in California

Over 34.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.4 million
Over 41k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 34,154,636
Daily new cases: 312,982
Global deaths: 1,018,769 with 6,138 new deaths
Global recovered: 25,426,411
Mortality rate: 2.98%
Recovery rate: 74.44%

U.S. cases: 7,447,282
U.S. new cases: 41,136
U.S. deaths: 211,740
U.S. recovered: 4,699,706
U.S. Daily fatalities: 955

Texas cases: 787,211 with 3,803 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,132 – 109 Today
Dallas County cases: 86,500
Dallas County new cases: 287
Dallas County deaths: 1,133 – 7 today

Today’s Headlines

India’s coronavirus crisis may be more dire than official figures suggest

New Delhi (CNN) More than 63 million people in India may have contracted Covid-19, health authorities said on Tuesday — about 10 times higher than the official reported figures.

A national survey of more than 29,000 people across 700 villages and wards found that about one in 15 people above the age of 10 had antibodies against the coronavirus, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research. The survey was conducted from mid-August to mid-September.

Antibody tests, also known as serology tests, check for proteins called antibodies in the immune system, which indicate if someone has been exposed to the virus.

Of the country’s 1.3 billion citizens, more than 966 million are aged 10 or above, according to the government’s most recent census in 2011. If one in 15 people of this group have been infected with Covid-19, that’s a total of 63.78 million people.

New York sees startling uptick in Covid-19 cases in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods

(CNN) New York neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish communities have seen startling rises in Covid-19 cases and test positivity rate in recent weeks, alarming officials concerned about a new outbreak.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that 20 “hot spot” zip codes, including parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Orange and Rockland counties, had a collective positivity rate of 5.5%, more than five times the statewide rate. One zip code in Orange County, for example, had a positivity rate of 18%.

“If you look at those clusters and you look at those zip codes, you will see there’s an overlap with large Orthodox Jewish communities,” Cuomo said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said he had a “good conversation” with Orthodox Jewish community leaders in hot spot cluster areas that morning. He said those leadersare working with officials to come up with an action plan particularly ahead of the Friday holiday of Sukkot.

September 29th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

44,535 New U.S. cases
31,990 New Brazil cases
8,232 Russia cases
80,500 New India cases
4,446 Mexico cases
3,030 New cases in California

Over 33.8 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.4 million
Over 44k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 33,841,654
Daily new cases: 291,781
Global deaths: 1,012,631 with 6,252 new deaths
Global recovered: 24,893,480
Mortality rate: 2.99%
Recovery rate: 73.56%

U.S. cases: 7,406,146
U.S. new cases: 44,535
U.S. deaths: 210,785
U.S. recovered: 4,648,683
U.S. Daily fatalities: 977

Texas cases: 783,468 with 6,303 new cases
Texas deaths: 16,023 – 100 Today
Dallas County cases: 86,213
Dallas County new cases: 803
Dallas County deaths: 1,126 – 2 today

September 28th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

40,268 New U.S. cases
16,018 New Brazil cases
8,135 Russia cases
69,671 New India cases
3,400 Mexico cases
3,166 New cases in California

Over 33.5 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.3 million
Over 40k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 33,549,873
Daily new cases: 245,207
Global deaths: 1,006,379 with 3,990 new deaths
Global recovered: 24,878,124
Mortality rate: 3.00%
Recovery rate: 74.15%

U.S. cases: 7,361,611
U.S. new cases: 40,268
U.S. deaths: 209,808
U.S. recovered: 4,609,636
U.S. Daily fatalities: 355

Texas cases: 777,165 with 6,935 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,923 – 62 Today
Dallas County cases: 85,410
Dallas County new cases: 311
Dallas County deaths: 1,124 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

‘Everything he says is false’: CDC Chief concerned about Trump’s Covid adviser

(CNN)US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield is concerned that White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Scott Atlas is providing President Trump with misleading information about Covid-19, a federal official told CNN.

NBC News reported Monday that Redfield was overheard during a phone call in public on a commercial airline to say, “Everything he says is false.” NBC News, which heard the comment, said Redfield acknowledged after the flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., that he was speaking about Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist who joined the White House Coronavirus Task Force in August.

NBC said that Redfield, in a conversation with a colleague that took place on Friday, suggested Atlas is providing Trump with misleading data about the efficacy of masks, young people’s susceptibility to the coronavirus and herd immunity.

In a statement to CNN, a CDC spokesman did not deny the conversation took place: “NBC News is reporting one side of a private phone conversation by CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield that was overheard on a plane from Atlanta Hartsfield airport. Dr. Redfield was having a private discussion regarding a number of points he has made publicly about Covid-19.”

September 27th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

33,782 New U.S. cases
14,194 New Brazil cases
7,867 Russia cases
82,767 New India cases
3,886 Mexico cases
2,513 New cases in California

Over 33.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 1 Million
U.S. Cases topped 7.3 million
Over 33k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 33,304,666
Daily new cases: 249,629
Global deaths: 998,721 with 5,286 new deaths
Global recovered: 24,634,343
Mortality rate: 3.01%
Recovery rate: 73.97%

U.S. cases: 7,321,343
U.S. new cases: 33,782
U.S. deaths: 209,453
U.S. recovered: 4,560,456
U.S. Daily fatalities: 276

Texas cases: 770,230 with 1,361 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,861 – 35 Today
Dallas County cases: 85,099
Dallas County new cases: 199
Dallas County deaths: 1,124 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

Global Covid-19 Fatalities Exceed One Million

September 26th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

43,377 New U.S. cases
25,536 New Brazil cases
7,523 Russia cases
89,010 New India cases
5,573 Mexico cases
3,404 New cases in California

Over 337 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 998k
U.S. Cases topped 7.2 million
Over 43k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 33,055,037
Daily new cases: 296,048
Global deaths: 998,721 with 5,286 new deaths
Global recovered: 24,405,921
Mortality rate: 3.02%
Recovery rate: 73.83%

U.S. cases: 7,287,561
U.S. new cases: 43,377
U.S. deaths: 209,177
U.S. recovered: 4,524,108
U.S. Daily fatalities: 737

Texas cases: 768,869 with 2,398 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,826 – 100 Today
Dallas County cases: 84,900
Dallas County new cases: 415
Dallas County deaths: 1,120 – 2 today

September 25th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

58,713 New U.S. cases
32,670 New Brazil cases
7,212 Russia cases
85,468 New India cases
5,401 Mexico cases
6,142 New cases in North Carolina

Over 32.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 993k
U.S. Cases topped 7.2 million
Over 58k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 32,758,989
Daily new cases: 350,485 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 993,435 with 5,711 new deaths
Global recovered: 24,173,040
Mortality rate: 3.03%
Recovery rate: 73.79%

U.S. cases: 7,244,184
U.S. new cases: 58,713
U.S. deaths: 208,440
U.S. recovered: 4,480,719
U.S. Daily fatalities: 902

Texas cases: 766,471 with 5,530 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,726 – 97 Today
Dallas County cases: 83,304
Dallas County new cases: 1,181
Dallas County deaths: 1,118 – 3 today

September 24th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

45,918 New U.S. cases
32,129 New Brazil cases
6,595 Russia cases
85,919 New India cases
4,408 Mexico cases
3,266 New cases in California

Over 32.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 987k
U.S. Cases topped 7.1 million
Over 45k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 32,408,504
Daily new cases: 316,348
Global deaths: 987,724 with 5,771 new deaths
Global recovered: 23,924,977
Mortality rate: 3.05%
Recovery rate: 73.82%

U.S. cases: 7,185,471
U.S. new cases: 45,918
U.S. deaths: 207,538
U.S. recovered: 4,437,575
U.S. Daily fatalities: 945

Texas cases: 760,941 with 4,998 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,629 – 138 Today
Dallas County cases: 83,304
Dallas County new cases: 704
Dallas County deaths: 1,115 – 9 today

Today’s Headlines

September 24, 2020 Graphical Analysis

Just to illustrate how badly this pandemic has gone out of control…

[OBLIVIOTS] Below is a graph of the 2nd tier of high Covid-19 growth countries from Russia through Israel.

You can see the countries that are experiencing unprecedented high virus growth by the upward arc in their trajectory.. Only recently have these countries seen this sudden uptick.
Why do you suppose this is?
Show of hands?
Yes! You in the back!

Because they opened up too soon?
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner, boys and girls!

Yes, they opened up too soon and now they are paying the price. Countries are going back into lockdown because they F’d UP.

The extreme trouble spots in recent weeks are:

Spain
Argentina
France
The UK
Iraq
Israel

Yesterday, Israel reported 11,316 new cases. This is an order of magnitude more than ever before.Israel is the biggest problem currently. In the #22 slot, Israel reported an all time high new case count of 11,316 yesterday. Prior to this time, they have been steadily rising in new reported cases since the end of June. Prior to this time, they were fluctuating between the under 100 and just over 300 new case count range per day. They were in the #29 slot at this time. On June 27th, Israel reported their first >600 new case day with 621. From that point until July 12th, they fluctuated between 300 and 1,400 daily cases. On July 13th, Israel reported 1,962 new cases, up markedly from 1,206 the previous day. They remained in a 1,400-3,000 daily case range until September 7th, when their first >3k case count was reported at 3,331 new cases. At this time they had risen through the ranks to occupy the #22 slot, as other countries did a better job of containing Covid.
Spain reported 11,289 yesterday, which is extremely high, but nowhere near their peak. On September 17th, Spain reported 40,277 new cases. This is their highest ever, and on a par with countries like Brazil and the U.S.
Yesterday, France reported 13,072 new cases. This is not their highest to date. That distinction occurred on September 19th with 13,498 new cases. They have recently been trending in the 10,000+ range. Prior to this, they had been languishing in the under 1,500 range until the end of July, when it started to go off the rails. On August 1st, France reported over 3,000 new cases. From there it started a steady climb out of obscurity to become the EU poster child for dropping the ball just ahead of the end zone. France continued to trend in the 3,000-5,000 range for most of the month of August until they hit their stride with over 6,000 cases on August 27th. They they were OFF! (the track, that is)Don’t be like France.
Argentina. What can we say about Argentina…
Stay the Hell Away!
Yesterday, Argentina reported 12,625 new cases. Not quite their all time high, as this distinction fell on September 17th with 12,701 new cases. They continue to trend in the 8,000 – 12,000 range daily.
The UK had been doing an admirable job of keeping Covid-19 growth under control. For the longest time, they were reliably trending under 2,000 new cases per day. Right up until they weren’t. This distinction occurred on September 6th when they jumped from the previous day’s count of 1,813 to a new high of 2,988. They continued to trend in the 2,000 range until 9/11 when they reported 3,539 new cases and have been trending upward ever since. Yesterday’s count is and all time high of 6,178 new cases in the UK.
Iraq was doing a fairly decent job of controlling Covid-19 and maintaining relatively low growth (under 2,000 per day) until early July. On July 7th, Iraq reported their first over-2k update of 2,426 and that’s when they lit up my radar. From that point, Iraq stayed in the 2,000-3,000 range through the month of July. On August 16th, they were reporting solidly in the 4,000 range at 4,348 new cases. They have not fallen below 3,000 cases since then and have moved up the list of high case count countries as other countries get the virus under control. They are now in the #16 slot. In July, they occupied the #23 position.

All this data is in the spreadsheet above. Subscribe to this blog to stay informed.

Will Europe’s second wave of Covid-19 cases mean a second huge death toll?

London (CNN) At first glance, the outlook doesn’t seem too grim. While reported coronavirus cases are reaching record highs as Europe endures a “second wave,” deaths are still well below their peak in April.

But experts warn the signs point to more tragedy ahead this winter.

Europe’s hospitals are now better equipped for treating Covid-19. Measures such as social distancing and mask-wearing have become the norm and the latest spread of infection has been primarily among younger people, who are less likely to die if they contract the virus.

Yet colder weather is beginning to set in and the flu season is approaching. The infection is spreading to older populations, and there are signs that people are growing tired of adhering to the restrictions.

“Obviously we don’t really have any ways of preventing Covid from going around, other than the lockdowns or social distancing measures and so on; we don’t yet have a vaccine,” Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the UK’s University of Southampton, told CNN.

While he does not expect deaths to reach the levels seen in the first wave, Head added: “We’ll see a lot of spread of cases, we will see a lot of hospitalizations, and a lot of burden on our health service.

“There will also be a big death toll.”

September 23rd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

41,616 New U.S. cases
32,445 New Brazil cases
6,431 Russia cases
89,688 New India cases
4,786 Mexico cases
3,230 New cases in California

Over 32 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 981k
U.S. Cases topped 7 million
Over 41k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 32,092,156
Daily new cases: 314,385
Global deaths: 981,953 with 6,483 new deaths
Global recovered: 23,675,955
Mortality rate: 3.06%
Recovery rate: 73.77%

U.S. cases: 7,139,553
U.S. new cases: 41,616
U.S. deaths: 206,593
U.S. recovered: 4,398,907
U.S. Daily fatalities: 965

Texas cases: 755,943 with 4,372 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,491 – 130 Today
Dallas County cases: 82,600
Dallas County new cases: 348
Dallas County deaths: 1,106 – 15 today

September 22nd #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

51,721 New U.S. cases
35,252 New Brazil cases
6,215 Russia cases
80,391 New India cases
4,683 Mexico cases
2,921 New cases in California

Over 31.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 975k
U.S. Cases topped 7 million
Over 51k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 31,777,771
Daily new cases: 296,472
Global deaths: 969,090 with 6,178 new deaths
Global recovered: 23,394,844
Mortality rate: 3.07%
Recovery rate: 73.62%

U.S. cases: 7,097,937
U.S. new cases: 51,721
U.S. deaths: 205,471
U.S. recovered: 4,346,110
U.S. Daily fatalities: 965

Texas cases: 751,571 with 18,398 new cases – ALL TIME RECORD
Texas deaths: 15,361 – 107 Today
Dallas County cases: 82,252
Dallas County new cases: 173
Dallas County deaths: 1,091 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

September 22, 2020 Graphical Analysis

The U.S., if you believe the data coming from Washington (and I don’t), is trending lower in both new cases and fatalities. So theoretically, that is good news. Europe, however, has completely lost control and India continues to be the global problem child, trending at just under 100,000 new cases per day.

Texas is trending much higher lately in new case additions, which makes Governor AbbottAndCostello’s relaxing of restrictions even more sycophantic and borderline criminal than before.

And I thought I could not detest him more…)

All this data is from the live spreadsheet

Global Comparison Graphs:

The top graph here illustrates the daily new cases contributed by the top 3 high growth countries, India, the U.S. and Brazil.

The second graph illustrates the 2nd tier high growth countries from Russia through Pakistan and their daily contributions.

The third graph illustrates daily reported fatalities among the 15 highest ranking countries in terms of total case counts.

As you can easily see, Spain has been reporting ridiculously high new case numbers over the last month. Their 4 highest count days have reported 24,974 on 8/27, 28,620 on 9/4, 28,610 on 9/10, 17,033 on 9/14, 40,277 on 9/17 and most recently 12,134 yesterday.

U.S. Growth Comparison Graphs:

The U.S. Growth charts on the left illustrate data through 9/21.

The first graph compares the highest growth states’ daily new cases.

The second graph illustrates high growth states case totals.

The third graph indicates daily new cases for the U.S. overall.

The fourth graph is daily fatalities for the U.S. overall. Deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. are trending lower, but not by a significant amount. As I have said numerous times, fatalities should not be the metric we use for our litmus test for success. There is a rapidly growing group of “long haulers” who, having survived Covid-19 hospitalization, are now suffering long term ill effects.

Texas Growth Comparison Graphs:

The last series is for the state of Texas.

The first graph is new cases per day. As you can see, we are trending noticeably upward again. By quite a bit.

The second graph is overall case growth shown as total cases over time. There is only minimal flattening of the curve

Lastly, we have fatalities per day for the state of Texas. In this regard, Texas is doing much better and overall new fatalities are going down significantly.

September 21st #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

41,448 New U.S. cases
15,454 New Brazil cases
6,196 Russia cases
74,493 New India cases
2,917 Mexico cases
4,238 New cases in California

Over 31.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 969k
U.S. Cases topped 7 million
Over 41k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 31,481,681
Daily new cases: 250,472
Global deaths: 969,292 with 4,229 new deaths
Global recovered: 23,109,715
Mortality rate: 3.08%
Recovery rate: 73.41%

U.S. cases: 7,046,216
U.S. new cases: 41,448
U.S. deaths: 204,506
U.S. recovered: 4,299,525
U.S. Daily fatalities: 388

Texas cases: 733,173 with 7,789 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,254 – 48 Today
Dallas County cases: 82,079
Dallas County new cases: 327
Dallas County deaths: 1,085 – 0 today

Today’s Headlines

COVID-19 safety measures couldn’t contain Cowboys fans’ comeback passions

[Dallas Morning News] Greg Zuerlein spent years training to control his emotions for the sort of moment that came on Sunday afternoon.

The fans in Section 448 of AT&T Stadium did not.

So when the Cowboys kicker methodically converted a 46-yard field goal as time expired, completing a dramatic 40-39 comeback win over the Atlanta Falcons, many of those fans attending an NFL game during the COVID-19 pandemic celebrated organically.

Like there was no pandemic at all.

… Victor Griffith, 25, flew in Sunday morning from Atlanta for the game. He spent much of the early part of the game — as the Falcons forced four fumbles and built a lead of 20-0 in the first quarter — cheering loudly while not wearing a mask.

As part of the stadium’s seat layout, no fans were seated directly in front of or behind him.

“If there is a place to catch corona, it is right now,” said Griffith, who was not approached by stadium personnel when at his seat. “I will catch it for Atlanta any day.”

Updated CDC guidance acknowledges coronavirus can spread through the air

(CNN) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated guidance on its website to say coronavirus can commonly spread “through respiratory droplets or small particles, such as those in aerosols,” which are produced even when a person breathes.

“Airborne viruses, including COVID-19, are among the most contagious and easily spread,” the site now says.

Previously, the CDC page said that Covid-19 was thought to spread mainly between people in close contact — about 6 feet — and “through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.”

The page, updated Friday, still says Covid-19 most commonly spreads between people who are in close contact with one another, and now says the virus is known to spread “through respiratory droplets or small particles, such as those in aerosols, produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes.”

But WAIT!

Not so fast CDC!

Hours after this last CDC statement, they retracted it. Obviously it did not fit the narrative of our dictator in the White House.

I CALL BULLSHIT!

CDC abruptly removes guidance about airborne coronavirus transmission, says update ‘was posted in error’

(CNN)The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday abruptly reverted to its previous guidance about how coronavirus is transmitted, removing language about airborne transmission it had posted just days earlier.

“A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website. CDC is currently updating its recommendations regarding airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Once this process has been completed, the update language will be posted,” Jason McDonald, a CDC spokesman, said in a response emailed to CNN.

The guidance had been quietly updated on Friday, according to the CDC’s website. CNN was first to report the change on Sunday. The CDC responded to CNN just before noon on Monday to say it was reverting to the previous guidance.

Despite several studies that have shown the novel coronavirus can spread through small particles in the air, the CDC page now says that Covid-19 is thought to spread mainly between people in close contact — about 6 feet — and “through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.” This is the same language it posted months ago.

September 20th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

37,365 New U.S. cases
16,282 New Brazil cases
6,148 Russia cases
87,382 New India cases
3,542 Mexico cases
2,784 New cases in California

Over 31 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 965k
U.S. Cases topped 7 million
Over 37k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 31,231,209
Daily new cases: 247,251
Global deaths: 965,063 with 3,663 new deaths
Global recovered: 22,822,258
Mortality rate: 3.09%
Recovery rate: 73.08%

U.S. cases: 7,004,768
U.S. new cases: 37,365
U.S. deaths: 204,118
U.S. recovered: 4,250,140
U.S. Daily fatalities: 294

Texas cases: 725,384 with 5,103 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,206 – 34 Today
Dallas County cases: 81,752
Dallas County new cases: 835
Dallas County deaths: 1,085 – 2 today

Today’s Headlines

Coronavirus can spread on airline flights, two studies show

(CNN)The young woman and her sister had traveled across Europe just as the coronavirus pandemic was taking off there, visiting Milan and Paris before heading to London.

When the woman left London on March 1, she had a sore throat and cough as she boarded a flight home to Vietnam, but no one noticed.

By the time she got off the flight in Hanoi 10 hours later, 15 other people who had been on the plane with her were infected, researchers reported Friday.

This story is one of two published Friday demonstrating how coronavirus can spread on airline flights, and suggesting that simply spacing people out a little will not fully protect them.

In another incident, passengers on a flight from Boston to Hong Kong appear to have infected two flight attendants.

Both cases involved long flights early in the pandemic, before airlines began requiring face masks.

A team from Vietnam tracked down a cluster of cases linked to the flight that arrived in Hanoi from London on March 2.

“A 27-year-old businesswoman from Vietnam, whom we identified as the probable index case, had been based in London since early February,” Nguyen Cong Khanh of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi and colleagues wrote.

How it all went wrong (again) in Europe as second wave grips continent

London (CNN) After successfully tamping down the first surge of infection and death, Europe is now in the middle of a second coronavirus wave as it moves into winter — raising questions over what went so wrong.

Daily case numbers in the European Union and United Kingdom this week reached record highs of more than 45,000 on a 14-day notification rate, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and new restrictions are being imposed in places that were well into reopening. Leaders have raised fears over the pressure that hospitals could face in coming months and the looming prospect of new national lockdowns.

Europe’s death rate has been stable for 72 days, according to the ECDC, although Bulgaria, Croatia, Malta, Romania and Spain are seeing death rate increases.

There are trends that may explain the deterioration. The surge comes just after the summer vacation season, as workers return to city centers and children go back to school. The World Health Organization has suggested the increase could be partly down to the relaxation of measures and people dropping their guard, and evidence indicates young people are driving the second surge in Europe.

Despite the rising numbers of cases, and recent deaths in Europe, the continent still compares favorably to the United States. Europe has reported 4.4 million cases and 217,278 deaths among a population of 750 million, while the US has reported 6.7 million cases and 198,000 deaths in a population of 330 million.

September 19th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

41,462 New U.S. cases
30,913 New Brazil cases
6,065 Russia cases
92,755 New India cases
5,167 Mexico cases
3,712 New cases in California

Over 30.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 961k
U.S. Cases topped 6.9 million
Over 41k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 30,983,958
Daily new cases: 290,484
Global deaths: 961,400 with 4,978 new deaths
Global recovered: 22,583,338
Mortality rate: 3.10%
Recovery rate: 72.89%

U.S. cases: 6,967,403
U.S. new cases: 41,462
U.S. deaths: 203,824
U.S. recovered: 4,223,693
U.S. Daily fatalities: 653

Texas cases: 720,281 with 2,107 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,172 – 94 Today
Dallas County cases: 80,917
Dallas County new cases: 181
Dallas County deaths: 1,083 – 10 today

Today’s Headlines

Yesterday’s New Case Count Set an All-Time Record

[OBLIVIOTS] Yesterday’s global Covid-19 numbers set a new record of over 343,000 new cases in a single day. The previous record was 327,012 on September 4th. We have been averaging between 280 and 320k in the last couple of weeks.

Prime contributors are:

India at nearly 100k per day
U.S. at 40-50k per day
Brazil at 30-40k per day
France at 9-40k per day
Spain at 4-12k per day
Argentina at 9-12k per day

And a host of other countries reporting in the 3-6k per day of new cases.

Embedded charts show the current trend of new cases and deaths globally

And The top contributors of cases in two charts:
Top tier
and 2nd tier
Because there is such a disparity of totals that on one graph, the 2nd tier is unreadable.

U.S. numbers have been surprisingly low since the end of July where we were trending in the 70k per day range for weeks. Then suddenly the numbers dropped. On July 31st, the U.S. reported 70,904 new cases. Within two weeks we were down to 36,843 per day. We have been trending between 25k and 48k per day ever since. Until yesterday when the U.S. reported 51k new cases. On August 16th we had a sudden drop off to 37k. In between we were trending in the 50s and 60s. Does anyone but me find this to be suspicious? Is it actually possible that the scads of willfully ignorant mask haters suddenly wised up and started complying with CDC recommendations that we all wear masks and socially distance at all times? Why do I find this implausible? Because Every.Single.Day there are news reports of mobs of unmasked morons invading Target, “Karens” screaming at store employees because they have to wear a mask, and block parties where no one is in compliance with ANY recommendations. So no. I don’t see any sign of a paradigm shift in awareness by the obliviots causing this virus to run amok.

So that leaves only two possibilities:

A: The virus is bored with this and has headed to Bermuda for a much needed rest.

Or

B: Our administration is cooking the books.

What to you think?

September 18th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

51,345 New U.S. cases
39,991 New Brazil cases
5,905 Russia cases
92,789 New India cases
4,841 Mexico cases
4,408 New cases in California

Over 30.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 956k
U.S. Cases topped 6.9 million
Over 51k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 30,693,474
Daily new cases: 343,883 – ALL TIME RECORD
Global deaths: 956,422 with 5,867 new deaths
Global recovered: 22,334,560
Mortality rate: 3.12%
Recovery rate: 72.77%

- U.S. cases: 6,925,941
U.S. new cases: 51,345
U.S. deaths: 203,171
U.S. recovered: 4,191,894
U.S. Daily fatalities: 958

Texas cases: 718,174 with 4,294 new cases
Texas deaths: 15,078 – 120 Today
Dallas County cases: 80,736
Dallas County new cases: 492
Dallas County deaths: 1,073 – 14 today

September 17th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

46,295 New U.S. cases
35,757 New Brazil cases
5,762 Russia cases
96,793 New India cases
3,182 Mexico cases
3,561 New cases in California

Over 30.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 950k
U.S. Cases topped 6.8 million
Over 46k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 30,349,591
Daily new cases: 315,156
Global deaths: 950,555 with 5,469 new deaths
Global recovered: 22,038,587
Mortality rate: 3.13%
Recovery rate: 72.62%

- U.S. cases: 6,874,596
U.S. new cases: 46,295
U.S. deaths: 202,213
U.S. recovered: 4,155,039
U.S. Daily fatalities: 865

Texas cases: 713,880 with 4,654 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,958 – 84 Today
Dallas County cases: 80,244
Dallas County new cases: 458
Dallas County deaths: 1,059 – 3 today

Today’s Headlines

Trump’s not bothering to hide his political interference in vaccine push

(CNN)President Donald Trump’s political interference in the scientific and ethical process underwriting the quest for a Covid-19 vaccine — on stunning display on a chaotic Wednesday — is deepening the damage of his disastrous pandemic response.

In a breathtaking spell of propagandizing, a President who has no medical expertise and has incessantly downplayed the emergency bulldozed into the White House Briefing Room to kneecap one of the nation’s top health officials, Dr. Robert Redfield. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had told lawmakers it could be fall 2021 before there are sufficient vaccine stocks to allow normal life to resume. He also said masks work.

“I think he got the message maybe confused,” the President said of the vaccine comments and added that Redfield “didn’t understand the question” on masks — even though the doctor’s answers had been clearly considered and carefully worded.

September 16th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

40,154 New U.S. cases
33,387 New Brazil cases
5,670 Russia cases
97,859 New India cases
4,444 Mexico cases
3,375 New cases in California

Over 30 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 945k
U.S. Cases topped 6.8 million
Over 40k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 30,034,435
Daily new cases: 310,318
Global deaths: 945,086 with 5,946 new deaths
Global recovered: 21,800,991
Mortality rate: 3.15%
Recovery rate: 72.59%

- U.S. cases: 6,828,301
U.S. new cases: 40,154
U.S. deaths: 201,348
U.S. recovered: 4,119,158
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,151

Texas cases: 709,226 with 4,413 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,874 – 144 Today
Dallas County cases: 79,786
Dallas County new cases: 312
Dallas County deaths: 1,056 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

COVID-19 Drug Breakthrough: Tiny Antibody Component Completely Neutralizes the SARS-CoV-2 Virus

[SCITECHDAILY] University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists have isolated the smallest biological molecule to date that completely and specifically neutralizes the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the cause of COVID-19. This antibody component, which is 10 times smaller than a full-sized antibody, has been used to construct a drug — known as Ab8 — for potential use as a therapeutic and prophylactic against SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers report today (September 14, 2020) in the journal Cell that Ab8 is highly effective in preventing and treating SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice and hamsters. Its tiny size not only increases its potential for diffusion in tissues to better neutralize the virus, but also makes it possible to administer the drug by alternative routes, including inhalation. Importantly, it does not bind to human cells — a good sign that it won’t have negative side-effects in people.

Ab8 was evaluated in conjunction with scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, as well as the University of British Columbia and University of Saskatchewan.

“Ab8 not only has potential as therapy for COVID-19, but it also could be used to keep people from getting SARS-CoV-2 infections,” said co-author John Mellors, M.D., chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UPMC and Pitt. “Antibodies of larger size have worked against other infectious diseases and have been well tolerated, giving us hope that it could be an effective treatment for patients with COVID-19 and for protection of those who have never had the infection and are not immune.”

September 15th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

38,858 New U.S. cases
33,755 New Brazil cases
5,529 Russia cases
91,120 New India cases
4,771 Mexico cases
2,822 New cases in California

Over 29.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 939k
U.S. Cases topped 6.7 million
Over 38k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 29,724,117
Daily new cases: 282,265
Global deaths: 939,140 with 6,402 new deaths
Global recovered: 21,538,547
Mortality rate: 3.16%
Recovery rate: 72.46%

U.S. cases: 6,788,147
U.S. new cases: 38,858
U.S. deaths: 200,197
U.S. recovered: 4,068,086
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,197

Texas cases: 704,813 with 7,078 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,730 – 148 Today
Dallas County cases: 79,474
Dallas County new cases: 211
Dallas County deaths: 1,050 – 4 today

Today’s Headlines

NIH ‘very concerned’ about serious side effect in AstraZeneca vaccine

(Kaiser Health News)The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to follow British regulators in resuming a coronavirus vaccine trial that was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, even as the National Institutes of Health has launched an investigation of the case.

“The highest levels of NIH are very concerned,” said Dr. Avindra Nath, intramural clinical director and a leader of viral research at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an NIH division. “Everyone’s hopes are on a vaccine, and if you have a major complication the whole thing could get derailed.”

A great deal of uncertainty remains about what happened to the unnamed patient, to the frustration of those avidly following the progress of vaccine testing. AstraZeneca, which is running the global trial of the vaccine it produced with Oxford University, said the trial volunteer recovered from a severe inflammation of the spinal cord and is no longer hospitalized.

AstraZeneca has not confirmed that the patient was afflicted with transverse myelitis, but Nath and another neurologist said they understood this to be the case. Transverse myelitis produces a set of symptoms involving inflammation along the spinal cord that can cause pain, muscle weakness and paralysis. Britain’s regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, reviewed the case and has allowed the trial to resume in the United Kingdom.

Austria reports rising cases after leader said it is starting second wave

Austria has reported a moderate rise in cases in parts of the country, including the capital Vienna.

Under Austria’s pandemic traffic light system, the affected regions have been classified as “yellow,” meaning that there is a slight increase in virus clusters.

Outbreaks in yellow zones can be largely controlled by official measures, according to the Austrian health authority’s website.

The country’s leader, Sebastian Kurz, has previously warned that Austria is on the brink of a second Covid-19 wave.

CDC has been in “trench warfare” with US administration, infectious disease specialist says

CNN — The people responsible for a weekly report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been in “trench warfare” with Washington officials over the report’s scientific integrity, infectious disease specialist Dr. William Schaffner said Monday.

Schaffner said he was “very disturbed” by the news that Trump-appointed officials at the Department of Health and Human Services pushed the CDC to change its weekly science reports so they would not undermine President Donald Trump’s political messages.

“I’ve since learned that the people who run that program, who put out that bulletin, have been in trench warfare with the folks in Washington,” Schaffner told CNN. “They have struggled and succeeded, I think, in maintaining the scientific integrity of those reports, but that struggle continues.”

Conflicting Virus Data in Texas Raises Distrust of the Government

Delays, discrepancies and abrupt leaps in coronavirus case and death counts in Texas have baffled residents and frustrated local officials. Here is what has gone awry.

[NYT] — Inconsistencies and problems with Covid-19 data collection in Texas have clouded the picture of the pandemic’s trajectory in the state, to the point that some residents and officials say they cannot rely on the numbers to tell them what is really going on.

The state has overlooked thousands of cases, only to report them weeks after infection. It has made major adjustments to its case and death counts, defining them one way and then another, suddenly reporting figures for some counties that were vastly different from those posted by the local health department.

“The changing of gears and data reporting at the state has a lot of public health departments feeling a significant case of whiplash,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio said.

The daunting task of reporting coronavirus cases and deaths in real time has strained public health departments across the country. But none have shown more repeated cracks than Texas.

Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest

UK — Mask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic

Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in one of the most respected medical journals in the world.

The commentary, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, advances the unproven but promising theory that universal face mask wearing might be helping to reduce the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic.

If this hypothesis is borne out, the academics argue, then universal mask-wearing could become a form of variolation (inoculation) that would generate immunity and “thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere” as the world awaits a vaccine.

It comes as increasing evidence suggests that the amount of virus someone is exposed to at the start of infection – the “infectious dose” – may determine the severity of their illness. Indeed, a large study published in the Lancet last month found that “viral load at diagnosis” was an “independent predictor of mortality” in hospital patients.

Continue reading

September 14th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

40,831 New U.S. cases
19,089 New Brazil cases
5,509 Russia cases
81,911 New India cases
3,335 Mexico cases
3,764 New cases in California

Over 29.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 932k
U.S. Cases topped 6.7 million
Over 40k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 29,441,852
Daily new cases: 259,247
Global deaths: 932,738 with 4,457 new deaths
Global recovered: 21,276,210
Mortality rate: 3.17%
Recovery rate: 72.27%

U.S. cases: 6,749,289
U.S. new cases: 40,831
U.S. deaths: 199,000
U.S. recovered: 4,027,826
U.S. Daily fatalities: 480

Texas cases: 697,735 with 6,182 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,582 – 65 Today
Dallas County cases: 79,263
Dallas County new cases: 462
Dallas County deaths: 1,046 – 1 today

Today’s Headlines

Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest

UK — Mask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic

Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in one of the most respected medical journals in the world.

Continue reading

U.S. case growth rapid decline seems unlikely.

[OBLIVIOTS] — Here’s a graph of the top 3 countries for Covid-19 high growth. This shows the number of new cases per day since July 1st. The blue line is USA. Note where the Trump administration implemented the order for hospitals to bypass the CDC and send all case info to Washington DC.

I find this to be very suspicious that we have such a marked case decline since shortly after this took place. The peaks and valleys are what we have come to expect as cases spike from the middle to end of each week and drop off drastically on weekends. This is illogical, in that I don’t think Coronavirus takes weekends off. So this is apparently an administrative reporting issue. This is a global phenomenon, as you can see with this chart of USA, India and Brazil.

This is the global analysis of new cases and new deaths per day as of yesterday, September 13, 2020:

The biggest global contributors of new cases are (with yesterday’s addition:

U.S. – 31,857
India – 93,215
Brazil – 14,597
Russia – 5,449
Columbia – 7,355
Mexico – 4,408
Spain – 0 (a reporting anomaly)
Argentina – 9,056
France – 7,183
UK – 3,330
Iraq – 3,531
Israel – 2,882
Ecuador – 2,143

All of these are posting 2,000 or more cases a day. As you can see, India is contributing the lion’s share.

So why is the U.S. showing such a large decrease in daily new cases when the rest of the world is losing control? Have we done a vastly better job of behaving well in this pandemic? Not based on my observations. Look at the Republican rallies as the best indicator of ZERO social distancing and sporadic mask compliance at best. Then there is the Sturgis motorcycle event, where the CDC is projecting as much as 260,000 related infections. We are seeing none of these additions in the latest reports. Something smells very fishy here and it sure as hell isn’t dinner.

Here is a bar graph of U.S, daily reported new cases and fatalities to better illustrate the trend before and after the CDC was cut out of the loop.

The blue bar graph is reported new cases per day.

The black bar graph is reported fatalities per day.

Supporting Article:

Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data

Hospitals have been ordered to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington, raising questions about transparency.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

Officials say the change will streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.

Israel to impose three-week national lockdown as cases surge

Israel is to impose a new national lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus – with tough restrictions coming into effect on Jewish new year.

The country’s second lockdown begins on Friday and lasts at least three weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the measures would “exact a heavy price on us all”, but the country faced a surge with 4,000 new daily infections.

A minister has resigned to protest against the restrictions that overlap with important Jewish festivals.

Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman, who leads an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party, said the measures would prevent Jewish people from celebrating their religious festivals, including Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, on 27 September.

September 13th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

31,857 New U.S. cases
14,597 New Brazil cases
5,449 Russia cases
93,215 New India cases
4,408 Mexico cases
2,831 New cases in California

Over 29.1 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 928k
U.S. Cases topped 6.7 million
Over 31k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 29,182,605
Daily new cases: 242,382
Global deaths: 928,281 with 3,712 new deaths
Global recovered: 21,027,161
Mortality rate: 3.18%
Recovery rate: 72.05%

U.S. cases: 6,708,458
U.S. new cases: 31,857
U.S. deaths: 198,520
U.S. recovered: 3,974,949
U.S. Daily fatalities: 392

Texas cases: 691,553 with 2,505 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,517 – 67 Today
Dallas County cases: 78,801
Dallas County new cases: 290
Dallas County deaths: 1,045 – 2 today

September 12th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

40,354 New U.S. cases
31,880 New Brazil cases
5,488 Russia cases
94,409 New India cases
5,674 Mexico cases
3,470 New cases in California

Over 28.9 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 924k
U.S. Cases topped 6.6 million
Over 40k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 28,940,223
Daily new cases: 284,098
Global deaths: 924,569 with 4,866 new deaths
Global recovered: 20,807,121
Mortality rate: 3.19%
Recovery rate: 71.90%

U.S. cases: 6,676,601
U.S. new cases: 40,354
U.S. deaths: 198,128
U.S. recovered: 3,950,354
U.S. Daily fatalities: 707

Texas cases: 689,048 with 2,577 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,450 – 105 Today
Dallas County cases: 78,511
Dallas County new cases: 220
Dallas County deaths: 1,043 – 12 today

Today’s Headlines

The tourists are leaving Italy. Now catastrophe looms

Rome (CNN) — For all too brief a time, the Italian summer offered a glimmer of hope. After emerging from what was in early 2020, one of the world’s harshest coronavirus lockdowns, the country managed to dust itself down in time to welcome visitors.

But as the sun begins to cool, so do hopes of a full recovery for Italy’s decimated 2020 tourism season. Winter is coming, and with it what is expected to be a full-blown economic catastrophe.

The Italian government, like many across the world, has been doling out cash to help support many ailing businesses and individuals, but with many global travel restrictions still in place, lost revenues from the country’s faltering tourism industry leaves a gaping financial hole that must now be filled.

“Tourists are what we need to keep going,” says Cassandra Santoro CEO and founder of travel planning service, Travel Italian Style. “Our guides, drivers and workers from Piedmont to Sicily who thought they would be out of work for a season, are now exploring other jobs and income sources.”

Why experts are concerned about India’s low death toll

(CNN) For months, India has been struggling to control the coronavirus pandemic with limited success.

The country of 1.3 billion people has the second-highest number of cases globally (more than 4.4 million), and the third highest number of deaths (over 75,000), according to Johns Hopkins University — and the outbreak shows no sign of abating.

But India’s reported mortality rate — calculated by the number of deaths per 100 confirmed cases — is surprisingly low compared to other countries with high infection rates.

India’s Covid-19 mortality rate stands at 1.7%. For context, the same rate is about 3% in the US, 11.7% in the UK, and 12.6% in Italy, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Indian government claims India’s lower death rate is a sign of its success in handling the crisis, and has used the figure to support its decision to lift some coronavirus restrictions.

“The average fatality rate in the country is … continuously going down,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a press release in August. “The target of bringing down the fatality rate below 1% can be achieved soon.”

But some scientists in India warn that the numbers are incomplete and misleading — and that relying on them to reopen the country could make matters worse.

September 11th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

48,087 New U.S. cases
44,215 New Brazil cases
5,504 Russia cases
97,654 New India cases – ALL TIME HIGH
5,935 Mexico cases
3,967 New cases in California

Over 28.6 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 919k
U.S. Cases topped 6.6 million
Over 48k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 28,656,125
Daily new cases: 320,317 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 919,703 with 6,413 new deaths
Global recovered: 20,332,627
Mortality rate: 3.21%
Recovery rate: 71.82%

U.S. cases: 6,636,247
U.S. new cases: 48,087
U.S. deaths: 196,327
U.S. recovered: 3,917,962
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,094

Texas cases: 686,471 with 4,485 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,345 – 146 Today
Dallas County cases: 78,291
Dallas County new cases: 343
Dallas County deaths: 1,037 – 12 today

September 10th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

38,685 New U.S. cases
40,431 New Brazil cases
5,363 Russia cases
96,760 New India cases – ALL TIME HIGH
4,857 Mexico cases
3,756 New cases in California

Over 28.3 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 913k
U.S. Cases topped 6.5 million
Over 38k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 28,335,808
Daily new cases: 314,948 – ALL TIME HIGH
Global deaths: 913,290 with 5,315 new deaths
Global recovered: 20,332,627
Mortality rate: 3.22%
Recovery rate: 71.76%

U.S. cases: 6,588,160
U.S. new cases: 38,685
U.S. deaths: 196,327
U.S. recovered: 3,879,960
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,088

Texas cases: 681,986 with 4,096 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,199 – 165 Today
Dallas County cases: 77,948
Dallas County new cases: 214
Dallas County deaths: 1,025 – 4 today

September 9th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

35,244 New U.S. cases
34,208 New Brazil cases
5,218 New Russia cases
95,529 New India cases – ALL TIME HIGH
4,647 Mexico cases
3,096 New cases in California

Over 28 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 907k
U.S. Cases topped 6.5 million
Over 35k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 28,020,860
Daily new cases: 292,731
Global deaths: 907,975 with 6,796 new deaths
Global recovered: 20,098,070
Mortality rate: 3.24%
Recovery rate: 71.73%

U.S. cases: 6,549,475
U.S. new cases: 35,244
U.S. deaths: 195,239
U.S. recovered: 3,846,095
U.S. Daily fatalities: 1,207

Texas cases: 677,890 with 5,271 new cases
Texas deaths: 14,034 – 126 Today
Dallas County cases: 77,734
Dallas County new cases: 408
Dallas County deaths: 1,021 – 10 today

Today’s Headlines

AstraZeneca pauses coronavirus vaccine trial after unexplained illness in volunteer

[CNN] Drug giant AstraZeneca said Tuesday it had paused a trial of its coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

It’s a standard precaution in vaccine trials, meant to ensure experimental vaccines don’t cause serious reactions among volunteers.

“As part of the ongoing randomized, controlled global trials of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine, our standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data,” the company said in a statement sent to CNN.

“This is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials,” the statement added.

The virus moves off campus

[NYT] The problem with college during the coronavirus pandemic is not just what’s happening on campuses and in college towns. It’s also that colleges may end up spreading the virus to dozens of other communities.

In recent weeks, as students have returned to campus, thousands have become infected. And some colleges have responded by sending students home, including those known to have the virus.

Last week, after hundreds of students came down with the virus, the State University of New York at Oneonta ended in-person classes and sent students home. Colorado College, North Carolina State, James Madison (in Virginia) and Chico State (in California) have taken similar steps.

At Illinois State, Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, administrators have encouraged some students who have tested positive to leave campus, so they don’t infect other students, and return home.

These decisions to scatter students — rather than quarantine them on campus — have led to widespread criticism. “It’s the worst thing you could do,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s leading infectious-disease expert, said on NBC. “When you send them home, particularly when you’re dealing with a university where people come from multiple different locations, you could be seeding the different places with infection.”

September 8th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

25,656 New U.S. cases
17,330 New Brazil cases
5,099 New Russia cases
89,852 New India cases
5,351 Mexico cases
3,409 New cases in California

Over 27.7 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 901k
U.S. Cases topped 6.5 million
Over 28k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 27,728,129
Daily new cases: 242,235
Global deaths: 901,179 with 4,335 new deaths
Global recovered: 19,821,586
Mortality rate: 3.25%
Recovery rate: 71.49%

U.S. cases: 6,514,231
U.S. new cases: 28,656
U.S. deaths: 194,032
U.S. recovered: 3,796,760
U.S. Daily fatalities: 498

Texas cases: 672,619 with 3,832 new cases
Texas deaths: 13,908 – 89 Today
Dallas County cases: 77,326
Dallas County new cases: 181
Dallas County deaths: 1,011 – 1 today

Today’s Headlines

Sturgis Rally Linked to More Than 250,000 Covid-19 Cases

One study estimates the public health cost of the super-spreading event is near $12 billion.

The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim.

According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments.

September 7th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

25,325 New U.S. cases
10,188 New Brazil cases
5,185 New Russia cases
75,022 New India cases
3,486 Mexico cases
2,332 New cases in California

Over 27.4 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 896k
U.S. Cases topped 6.4 million
Over 25k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 27,485,894
Daily new cases: 210,458
Global deaths: 896,844 with 4,169 new deaths
Global recovered: 19,587,108
Mortality rate: 3.26%
Recovery rate: 71.26%

U.S. cases: 6,485,575
U.S. new cases: 25,325
U.S. deaths: 193,534
U.S. recovered: 3,758,629
U.S. Daily fatalities: 284

Texas cases: 668,787 with 1,137 new cases
Texas deaths: 13,819 – 42 Today
Dallas County cases: 77,145
Dallas County new cases: 287
Dallas County deaths: 1,010 – 2 today

September 6th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

29,098 New U.S. cases
14,606 New Brazil cases
5,205 New Russia cases
91,723 New India cases – NEW RECORD
4,614 Mexico cases
3,076 New cases in California

Over 27.2 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 887k
U.S. Cases topped 6.4 million
Over 29k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 27,290,137
Daily new cases: 227,393
Global deaths: 887,551 with 3,811 new deaths
Global recovered: 19,374,017
Mortality rate: 3.25%
Recovery rate: 70.99%

U.S. cases: 6,460,250
U.S. new cases: 29,098
U.S. deaths: 193,250
U.S. recovered: 3,725,970
U.S. Daily fatalities: 432

Texas cases: 667,650 with 2,268 new cases
Texas deaths: 13,777 – 81 Today
Dallas County cases: 76,858
Dallas County new cases: 359
Dallas County deaths: 1,008 – 6 today

Today’s Headlines

Coronavirus cases tied to a Maine wedding reception hit 147, with 3 deaths

(CNN) At least 147 Covid-19 cases are now linked to an August wedding reception in Maine, a state CDC spokesman said Saturday.

Three people connected to the outbreak have died of the virus, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Robert Long told CNN.

The wedding was held in Millinocket on August 7. Since then, the cases have spread to a nursing home and a prison, both more than 100 miles away from the venue.

The wedding outbreak investigation as of Thursday was still at 56 cases among the guests and their secondary and tertiary contacts. Secondary contacts are people who had close contact with someone who attended and tertiary contacts are people who had close contact with a secondary.

September 5th #COVID19 Status

Highest Growth Zones:

42,095 New U.S. cases
31,199 New Brazil cases
5,205 New Russia cases
90,600 New India cases – NEW RECORD
6,319 Mexico cases
4,625 New cases in California

Over 27 million Global cases
Global Deaths topped 883k
U.S. Cases topped 6.4 million
Over 42k new U.S. cases

Details, Details, Details…:

Global cases: 27,062,744
Daily new cases: 279,231
Global deaths: 883,740 with 4,782 new deaths
Global recovered: 19,162,6910
Mortality rate: 3.27%
Recovery rate: 70.81%

U.S. cases: 6,431,152
U.S. new cases: 42,095
U.S. deaths: 192,818
U.S. recovered: 3,707,000
U.S. Daily fatalities: 707

Texas cases: 665,382 with 3,877 new cases
Texas deaths: 13,696 – 135 Today
Dallas County cases: 76,499
Dallas County new cases: 418
Dallas County deaths: 1,002 – 11 today

Today’s Headlines

The latest Covid-19 statistics and trend analysis

[OBLIVIOTS] — Below are the comparison graphs for Global, United States, Texas and Dallas Covid-19 cases / fatalities as of September 4th, 2020

While overall, some numbers are heading in the right direction, there are still too many countries that have lost complete control of this pandemic. Yesterday, September 4th, 2020, we recorded the highest ever daily new case additions at the global level. We added 327,012 new cases yesterday. The previous record of 294,757 was on July 29th. Since then, we have been trending slightly down, but never below 200,000 new cases per day. To put that in perspective for Texans, that is like the entire city of Frisco, Texas coming down with Covid-19 EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. And now we have seen a spike that exceeds everything before it by a significant amount.

What is contributing to this?

There are several countries that have lost control.

The United States has been trending lower in recent weeks. Down from a high of over 78,000 new cases on July 16th, we have been trending downward (3rd graph set) ever since. Lately we have been reporting from the low 30,000 to mid 40,000 range of new cases per day. Until yesterday, when we reported over 53,000 cases. For the first time since August 15th. It is too soon to tell if this is a trend (read below).

Countries that are contributing far more than their share of cases include (with last day additions):

India – 87,115 (ALL TIME HIGH)
United States – 53,813
Brazil – 45,651- Leveling off
Spain – 28,620 – WAY Out of Control
France – 8,975 – Out of Control
Peru – 6,703
Mexico – 6,196
Russia – 5,110 – Leveling off
Iraq – 5,036
Chile – 1,968
Israel – 1,964 – Trending Up
The UK – 1,940
Bangladesh – 1,929
Italy – 1,732
Turkey – 1,612
Germany – 1,467 – Trending Up

In the last week, Spain has reported over 20,000 cases on two separate days. Their overall average has gone up considerably, from 1,000-2,000 per day in mid-July to what you see now. They lost control of the pandemic around mid-August when they reported a 23,299 case day after one day of zero new cases.

Brazil has had some days recently when they were reporting new cases in the low 20,000 range, but overall they they have been averaging in the mid-to-high 40,000 range.

India has completely lost control, reporting an all-time high yesterday of over 87,000 new cases. You do have to put their population into the equation to get perspective, though. With over 1.3 BILLION people, they are still doing a better job than the United States on a per capita basis.

Peru. What can we say about Peru… They are currently trending slightly down from their peak of over 18,000 cases reported on August 22nd (after a day of zero cases), but they are still reporting over 6,000 cases per day and recently ousted South Africa for the #5 spot of highest Covid-19 count countries at 676,848 reported cases.

France. France was doing well, reporting less than 1,000 new cases per day until mid-July, when they started trending up. Since then they have lost control entirely. France now occupies the #14 spot, recently ousting Pakistan for that position at 309,156 reported cases. They are now averaging over 7,000 new cases per day.

Mexico remains in the number 7 slot with just over 623,000 reported cases and averaging around 4,000-6,000 new cases per day.

Israel had great numbers through the end of June, averaging in the 300-600 case per day range. Then they lost control, and recently have been averaging 2,000-3000 cases per day.

In the United States, we have far too many states now averaging over 1,000 new cases per day:

In order of highest total case count:

California
Texas
Florida
New York
Georgia
Illinois
North Carolina
Tennessee
Alabama
Ohio
Virginia
Iowa

Feel free to analyze the graphs below. These are the latest stats EOD yesterday. All of this information is contained in the embedded spreadsheet above.

Global Covid-19 Comparison 9-4-2020