COVID19 Daily - Wed., July 1, 2020
Encouraging vaccine news, and discouraging data leads to further shutdowns across the country.
“Masks are good,” President Trump told Fox Business News. However, he said he was not sure they should be mandatory.
As the second half of 2020 begins, the United States stands alone among major nations for its failure to control COVID-19. As a result, Americans are barred from entry into Canada and the European Union, among other places. New cases in the United States are running 30% higher than the rate of new cases in early June, and there are no signs of any slowing. One of the nation’s most respected disease control experts, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, says the virus has spread too much in U.S. communities for control to be achieved:
“There was a lot of wishful thinking around the country that, hey it’s summer. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re over this and we are not even beginning to be over this. There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.”
With reality of accelerated disease setting in, officials in many states are reversing reopening plans and hospitals again postponing non-emergency surgeries. In Houston, paramedics are getting delayed because hospitals do not have enough staff to receive new patients.
One of the first vaccine candidates against COVID-19 appears to generate an immune response in humans, according to a pre-published paper. Not yet known is whether such an antibody response protects against COVID-19. The FDA says that approval for any COVID-19 vaccine will require evidence that it prevents or lessens disease in at least half of people who get the vaccine.
“It is time to be alarmed,” says one Texas hospital administrator, referring to the increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital care throughout the state this week, according to ProPublica. Others agree that the next week will likely see dramatic increases in hospital demand, with an even higher increase likely another week later.
COVID-19 likely accounted for about 1/3rd more deaths than previously counted during the first weeks of the pandemic, according to an analysis of deaths in US cities conducted by researchers at Yale University and Virginia Commonwealth University. The calculation was based on number of deaths this year and comparisons with prior years over time.
Covid-19 outbreaks can be controlled with proactive testing and isolation. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine shows how an outbreak at a Sacramento, Calif., assisted living facility was halted. When two residents were found to be infected with Covid-19, all staff and residents were tested and another 50 infected individuals were identified, most with no or minor symptoms. Each infected person was isolated for at least 14 days, then retested. The Sacramento County Health Director recommends universal testing be adopted as the standard of care in congregate settings such as skilled nursing homes.
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