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COVID-19 news update May/27
source:WTMF 2020-05-27 [Medicine]

 

 

Country,
Other

Total
Cases

New
Cases

Total
Deaths

World

5,678,146

+92,060

351,654

USA

1,725,275

+19,049

100,572

Brazil

392,360

+15,691

24,549

Russia

362,342

+8,915

3,807

Spain

283,339

+859

27,117

UK

265,227

+2,004

37,048

Italy

230,555

+397

32,955

France

182,722

 

28,530

Germany

181,288

+499

8,498

Turkey

158,762

+948

4,397

India

150,793

+5,843

4,344

Iran

139,511

+1,787

7,508

Peru

129,751

+5,772

3,788

Canada

86,647

+936

6,639

China

82,992

+7

4,634

Chile

77,961

+3,964

806

Saudi Arabia

76,726

+1,931

411

Mexico

71,105

+2,485

7,633

Pakistan

57,705

+1,356

1,197

Belgium

57,455

+113

9,334

Qatar

47,207

+1,742

28

Netherlands

45,578

+133

5,856

Belarus

38,059

+915

208

Ecuador

37,355

 

3,203

Bangladesh

36,751

+1,166

522

Sweden

34,440

+597

4,125

Singapore

32,343

+383

23

UAE

31,086

+779

253

Portugal

31,007

+219

1,342

Switzerland

30,761

+15

1,915

Ireland

24,735

+37

1,615

South Africa

24,264

+649

524

Indonesia

23,165

+415

1,418

Colombia

23,003

+1,022

776

Kuwait

22,575

+608

172

Poland

22,074

+443

1,024

Ukraine

21,584

+339

644

Egypt

18,756

+789

797

Romania

18,429

+146

1,216

Israel

16,757

+23

281

Japan

16,623

+42

846

Austria

16,557

+18

643

Dominican Republic

15,264

+191

468

Philippines

14,669

+350

886

Argentina

13,228

+600

484

Afghanistan

11,831

+658

220

Panama

11,447

+264

313

Denmark

11,428

+41

563

Serbia

11,227

+34

239

S. Korea

11,225

+19

269

Bahrain

9,366

+195

14

Czechia

9,050

+48

317

Kazakhstan

8,969

+438

37

Algeria

8,697

+194

617

Norway

8,383

+19

235

Nigeria

8,344

+276

249

Oman

8,118

+348

37

Malaysia

7,604

+187

115

Morocco

7,577

+45

202

Armenia

7,402

+289

91

Moldova

7,305

+158

267

 

Source:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

Biden, urging face masks, calls Trump a ‘fool’ for not wearing one.

 

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. wore a face mask while attending a Memorial Day event at Delaware Memorial Bridge Veterans Memorial Park.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Trump on Tuesday denied that he was making fun of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for wearing a mask when he shared a tweet that was clearly mocking Mr. Biden for appearing in public with a black mask covering his face.

Contrary to government guidelines, which recommend wearing face coverings in public settings, Mr. Trump hinted that Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the 2020 election, was being hypocritical by wearing a mask in public but not when he was inside his home, standing near his wife.

“Biden can wear a mask, but he was standing outside with his wife, perfect conditions, perfect weather. They’re inside, they don’t wear masks. And so I thought it was very unusual that he had one on,” Mr. Trump said.

Government guidelines say that people should wear masks when they are out in public near others.

The picture that Mr. Trump retweeted was of Mr. Biden wearing a black mask and sunglasses while laying a wreath during a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday. “I wasn’t criticizing them at all. Why would I ever do a thing like that?” Mr. Trump insisted.

On Tuesday, Mr. Biden responded to the president’s implication during an interview on CNN, saying that “you’re supposed to lead by example” and adding that Mr. Trump was “an absolute fool to talk that way. Every leading doc in the world is saying you should wear a mask when you’re in a crowd.”

Mr. Biden updated his Twitter profile on Tuesday to use the photograph of himself with the black mask that Mr. Trump had retweeted.

 

 

California is in ‘economic free fall’ after its early shutdown.

From: The New York Times

 

California was the first state to shut down to fight the spread of the virus and has avoided the staggeringly high infection and death rates in the Northeast. But the debilitating costs of that aggressive stance are mounting every day.

California has an estimated unemployment rate above 20 percent, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom — far higher than the 14.7 percent national rate. In Los Angeles, with movie productions shut down, theme parks padlocked and hotels empty, things are even worse: The jobless rate has reached 24 percent, roughly equal to the peak unemployment of the Great Depression, in 1933.

“Economic free fall” is how Tom Steyer, the former presidential candidate, described it. He is leading the state’s economic recovery task force, a group of business leaders, labor activists, economists and former governors who have begun plotting a way out.

With a gross domestic product larger than 25 states combined, California’s pace of recovery has significant implications for the future of the United States. After 2008, California helped lead the nation in economic growth and job creation, powered by Silicon Valley, which remains relatively resilient.

But this time the pain is shared across a much broader area of the economy, including rotten strawberries in fields along the Pacific Coast, the empty wine-tasting rooms of Napa Valley and the deserted campuses of the nation’s largest public university system.

“I’d say this will be the most serious economic dislocation that America has faced,” said Jerry Brown, who left the governor’s office in 2019 with billions in the state’s rainy day fund. “The response should be a Rooseveltian intervention and effort to mobilize the economy the best way we can.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Newsom released safety rules that he said would allow hair salons and barbershops in most of the state to reopen while mitigating the spread of the virus.

The new rules direct hair cutters and customers to wear face masks, among other precautions, and the governor urged Californians not to follow his own example. Over the weekend, Mr. Newsom tweeted photos of his own children, barefaced, performing what he said was a “family effort to remove what was described by my wife as a mullet.”

Among the counties not cleared by Mr. Newsom to reopen for haircuts was Tulare County in the politically conservative Central Valley, which has the state’s fourth-highest rate of coronavirus infections and third-highest death rate, but opened for business over Memorial Day weekend.

Tulare is represented in part by Representative Devin Nunes, who in March urged Fox News viewers to go out to restaurants and who this month tweeted an op-ed suggesting that suicide rates would climb if the shutdown continued.

 

 

About a dozen states report upticks in new cases as the U.S. outlook improves.

 

Workers lined up to be tested at the Seaboard Foods hog processing plant in Guymon, Okla., this month.

Workers lined up to be tested at the Seaboard Foods hog processing plant in Guymon, Okla., this month.Credit...Andrew Hay/Reuters

About a dozen states are seeing an uptick in new virus cases, bucking the national trend of staying steady or seeing decreases — and at least half of the states seeing more infections were part of an early wave of reopenings in late April and early May.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee are among the states that have seen recent increases in newly reported cases, several weeks after moving to reopen. Arkansas, North Dakota and Oklahoma, which never had statewide stay-at-home orders but began reopening businesses, are also reporting increases in new cases.

The Washington, D.C., region, which has been locked down for weeks, also saw a jump in new cases as the city approached a planned reopening on Friday.

The new numbers could reflect increased testing capacity in some places, although they are also an indication that the virus’s grip on the country is far from over. Experts have warned that opening too early could lead to a second wave. Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergencies unit, warned at a press briefing on Monday that easing social-distancing measures too soon could allow the virus to bounce back quickly and hit “a second peak” in many nations.

The latest figures came as the overall pace of new cases and deaths slowed in the United States and some Americans began relaxing social distancing, crowding pools and parties over Memorial Day weekend.

Some of the hardest-hit states, like New York and New Jersey, have reported steep downward trends. Other states, such as Oregon and Pennsylvania, are also showing signs of progress.

 

 

The Trump administration signals it may not enforce a ban on aid to undocumented students.

 

The Trump administration appears to be backing off steps to prohibit colleges from granting emergency assistance to undocumented students, even those under federal protection, telling a court this week that it is not enforcing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s initial order.

Responding to a lawsuit filed this month by the California community college system, Justice Department attorneys argued in a filing on Monday that an emergency injunction to block the Education Department from enforcing the secretary’s guidance was unnecessary because it was only “preliminary” and did not have the force of law. That guidance limited virus relief approved by Congress for college students to U.S. citizens.

In April, shortly after doling out billions of dollars to colleges to award cash grants to students for necessities like food and housing, the Education Department told schools that they should only provide relief funding to students who are eligible to participate in federal financial aid programs. The guidance disqualified hundreds of thousands of students, including “Dreamers,” those under the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

It also blocked aid to foreign students attending school in the United States.

The California lawsuit argued that the April guidance was unconstitutional, and “likely excludes more than half of all students in the California community college system, including many identified as economically disadvantaged.”

Justice Department officials wrote that the Education Department was still reviewing the eligibility requirements, and an injunction would “irrevocably cut short the Department’s ongoing consideration of the interpretive issues.”

A hearing is scheduled for June 9.

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus-world&region=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu

 

 

The global death toll has surged past 350,000

 

The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has now reached 350,531, according to a tally by John Hopkins University.

There are now close to 5.6 million cases worldwide.

The United States remains the country with the highest number of cases and deaths. Brazil has the second highest number of cases, while the UK has the second highest number of deaths.

 

 

Germany reports 47 new deaths in the past day

From CNN's Frederik Pleitgen in Berlin 

 

 

Visitors sit in a bar on chairs that are set apart to provide social distance during the coronavirus crisis on May 26, in Berlin.

Visitors sit in a bar on chairs that are set apart to provide social distance during the coronavirus crisis on May 26, in Berlin. Maja Hitji/Getty Images

Germany has reported 47 new deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, said the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Wednesday.

This raises the nationwide death toll to 8,349, according to the RKI, the national agency for disease control and prevention.

The country also confirmed 362 new cases, raising the nationwide count to 179,364 cases.

On Tuesday, the German government announced social distancing restrictions will be extended through June 29. Under the restrictions, no more than 10 people, or two households, are allowed to gather in public places.

 

 

More than 62,000 US health care professionals have had Covid-19, CDC says

From CNN's Jen Christensen

 

 

A registered nurse draws blood to test for Covid-19 antibodies at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on May 14.

A registered nurse draws blood to test for Covid-19 antibodies at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on May 14. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of American doctors and nurses have gotten sick caring for Covid-19 patients, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

Of an estimated 62,344 health care professionals who have contracted the disease, at least 291 have died, said the CDC.

And these numbers are likely higher in reality, since the agency only has death status data for a little over half of cases it has information on. Many reports on cases also don't include whether the person worked in health care, meaning there are probably cases left out of this count.

The last time the CDC highlighted the number of cases among health care workers was on April 15. At that time, the number of infected health care workers was 9,282 -- a fraction of what it is now.

Health care workers around the country have also complained for months that they do not have enough access to protective equipment. 

 

 

Japanese mayor predicts "second wave" of infections as a new spate of cases emerge

From CNN's Kaori Enjoji in Tokyo

 

 

Commuters wearing face masks, walk through ticket gates at a train station in Fukuoka, Japan on May 15.

Commuters wearing face masks, walk through ticket gates at a train station in Fukuoka, Japan on May 15. STR/Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images

Japan may face a second surge of coronavirus infections, said Kenji Kitahashi, the mayor of the southern port city Kitakyushu.

“We are on the doorstep of a second wave,” he warned, pointing to a string of new infections.

The city, home to about 937,000 residents, had had no new cases for 23 days, said Kitahashi. Then, the virus returned; since last Friday, there have been 14 new cases.

One patient showed no symptoms but tested positive after a precautionary test, according to the mayor.

The city is located in Fukuoka prefecture, where the state of emergency order was lifted on May 14.

The nationwide state of emergency was lifted in some low-risk areas earlier in the month, before being fully lifted everywhere on Monday.

 

 

Google plans to reopen some offices in July

From CNN's Brian Fung

 

Even as some tech companies are telling employees they'll be able to work from home "forever," others are already planning to have a portion of their workforces back on site as early as this summer.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees on Tuesday that the company plans to reopen "more buildings in more cities" starting July 6, but did not specify which.

Employees at those locations will be able to return to the office, but each will be limited to about 10% building occupancy at first, with plans to grow to 30% capacity by September.

"We'll have rigorous health and safety measures in place to ensure social distancing and sanitization guidelines are followed," Pichai wrote in a blog post, "so the office will look and feel different than when you left. Our goal is to be fair in the way we allocate time in the office, while limiting the number of people who come in, consistent with safety protocols."

 

 

Antibody tests for Covid-19 are wrong half the time, CDC says

From CNN's Maggie Fox

 

A health worker takes a drop of blood for a Covid-19 antibody test at the Diagnostic and Wellness Center on May 5, in Torrance, California. Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

Antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected in the past with Covid-19 might be wrong up to half the time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance posted online.

Antibody tests, often called serologic tests, look for evidence of an immune response to infection.

"Antibodies in some persons can be detected within the first week of illness onset," the CDC says.

But these tests are not accurate enough to use to make important policy decisions, the CDC said.

"Serologic test results should not be used to make decisions about grouping persons residing in or being admitted to congregate settings, such as schools, dormitories, or correctional facilities ... Serologic test results should not be used to make decisions about returning persons to the workplace," the CDC said.

Health officials or health care providers who are using antibody tests need to use the most accurate test they can find and might need to test people twice, the CDC said in the new guidance.

 

 

How many people have coronavirus? Sometimes, it's just a guess

From CNN's Maggie Fox

 

The young man admitted to the Newton-Wellesley hospital in Massachusetts was clearly very ill -- so ill that he needed the help of a ventilator to breathe.

The doctors treating him were certain he was infected with the new coronavirus. It was mid-April -- the height of the outbreak in the Boston area. The patient had trouble breathing and had other symptoms.

But the first swab test for coronavirus came back negative. A second test, 24 hours later, came up negative, too. So they tried a different approach.

"The clinical team reached out to me for help in testing a tracheal aspirate," Dr. Michael Misialek, a pathologist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital outside Boston, told CNN.

That's a test that takes a sample from deeper in the respiratory system. It uses a different technique, but doctors are increasingly reporting that they cannot find evidence of Covid-19 infection until they perform such tests.

This tracheal secretion came back positive. "That allowed the team to enroll the patient in a clinical trial," Misialek said. He was treated with one of several immune-based drugs being tried out on coronavirus patients, eventually recovered and was discharged from hospital.

Similar cases were taking place around the world. In London, New York, and elsewhere, health workers were seeing patients arrive with severe symptoms -- but then test negative for Covid-19.

Why is this happening? Some studies are beginning to indicate that when patients are severely ill, the virus is replicating deeper in the respiratory system, beyond the reach of the swabs used for most of the testing, experts say.

Dozens of tests are on the market, but their reliability varies greatly. 

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which look for evidence of the virus, are usually reliable -- but not always.

 

 

Peru reports more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases

From Helena DeMoura in Atlanta

 

 

A worker disinfects an area of El Angel crematorium in Lima on May 21.

A worker disinfects an area of El Angel crematorium in Lima on May 21. Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty Images

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Peru rose to at least 129,751 on Tuesday — a jump of 5,772 from the previous day, according to the country's health ministry. 

The country also registered at least 159 new related deaths, raising the national death toll to 3,788, the ministry said in a statement.  

Peru has the second-highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Latin America, behind Brazil.

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced Friday that a national state of emergency, which includes mandatory social isolation measures, will be extended through June 30. 

 

 

Mexico sees largest single-day increase in new cases and deaths

From CNN’s Matt Rivers in Mexico City

 

 

Mexican Red Cross paramedics rush a patient suspected of being infected with the Covid-19 into Venados General Hospital in Mexico City, on May 26.

Mexican Red Cross paramedics rush a patient suspected of being infected with the Covid-19 into Venados General Hospital in Mexico City, on May 26. Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

Mexico has recorded its largest single-day increases in both newly confirmed cases and reported deaths from novel coronavirus since the outbreak began.

Mexican health officials reported an additional 3,455 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to 74,560.

Officials also recorded an additional 501 deaths, bringing the death toll to 8,134. It is the first time Mexico has reported more than 500 deaths in one day.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-05-27-20-intl/index.html

 

 

Summary

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thank you to all of those who got in touch with tips, comments and more. My colleague Nick Ames will be picking up the baton now.

Here are the top developments from the last few hours:

  • Known global deaths pass 350,000. More than 350,000 people have now lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The current toll stands at 350,456. The number of confirmed cases is 5,589,932, after the number of declared cases doubled in a month, with more than one million new cases registered in the last 11 days. There were 500,000 cases registered in just 48 hours, between Sunday, when cases passed 5 million, and Tuesday, when cases passed 5.5 million. True death tolls and cases are likely to be significantly higher due to differing definitions and testing rates, delays and suspected underreporting. The US alone accounts for less than a third of the global toll, with 98,916 deaths.

  • Tory unrest increases pressure on PM to sack Dominic Cummings. There is growing revolt within Boris Johnson’s party over his refusal to fire Dominic Cummings, his chief adviser, over his lockdown breach. A junior minister has resigned, and 30 other Conservative MPs have called for Cummings to go. Eight more Tory MPs were publicly critical of Cummings’ actions and three said privately that he should be forced out, according to the Guardian’s Heather StewartRowena Mason and Kate Proctor.

  • The WHO says the Americas are the new epicentre of the disease. The World Health Organization’s regional director Dr Carissa Etienne said outbreaks were accelerating in countries such as Brazil, where the number of deaths reported in the last week was the highest in the world for a seven-day period since the coronavirus pandemic began. The number of coronavirus infections to accelerate in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, she said.

  • New Zealand expects plan for safe travel with Australia in June. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that a draft blueprint on safely starting travel between New Zealand and Australia will be presented to both governments in early June, Reuters reports. The neighbours have been discussing the possibility of a travel bubble between them as both have slowed the spread of the novel coronavirus to levels well below those in United States, Britain and some other European countries. New Zealand has also reported a fifth consecutive day of no new cases of Covid-19.

  • South Korea reports biggest daily jump in almost 50 days. South Korea South Korea has reported 40 new coronavirus cases for its biggest daily jump in nearly 50 days, causing alarm in a country where millions of children are returning to school. All but four of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where officials have been scrambling to stem transmissions linked to nightclubs, karaoke rooms and an e-commerce warehouse. Three cases were linked to international arrivals. South Korea has also jailed a man for four months for breaking quarantine rules, in the country’s first such prison sentence.

  • Vietnam to readmit foreigners. Vietnam will resume issuing e-visas to citizens from 80 countries from 1 July, the government said, though it was unclear whether quarantine measures would be lifted. The country imposed a blanket ban on foreigners entering the country in March as part of its aggressive response to the pandemic, which has also involved mass quarantines and expansive contact tracing.So far, Vietnam has not reported any coronavirus deaths.

  • Macron unveils €8bn French auto rescue, champions electric cars. President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced an €8bn (US$8.8bn) plan to revive France’s auto industry by making it the European leader in electric cars, boosting a sector brought to its knees by the coronavirus. Macron said the package would include one billion euros in subsidies to encourage purchases of electric and hybrid cars and set a target of France producing a million green cars annually by 2025.The “historic” intervention will aim to turn France’s rechargeable car industry into Europe’s biggest, the president said.

  • Germany extends distancing rules to end of June. Germany has extended social distancing rules aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic to 29 June, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said on Tuesday. Merkel’s government had been embroiled in disagreements with the least-affected states, some of which wanted to ditch the measures and open up entirely. Germany’s virus caseload now tops 181,200 with just over 8,372 deaths - much lower than European counterparts such as Britain, France, Spain and Italy.

  • India backs hydroxychloroquine for virus prevention. India’s top biomedical research body has backed the use of the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine as a preventive against coronavirus, after the WHO suspended clinical trials of the drug over safety concerns. The endorsement from the Indian Council of Medical Research came a week after US President Donald Trump said he was taking the drug as a preventative measure. India - which accounts for 70% of global production of hydroxychloroquine - on Tuesday reported 145,380 cases of the virus including 4,167 deaths.

  • Spain begins 10 days of mourning. Starting on Wednesday, the country will mourn for the nearly 27,000 people who have died from coronavirus in the country. Flags will be hoisted to half-staff in more than 14,000 public buildings across the country and on Spanish naval vessels until 5 June. It marks the longest official mourning period in Spain’s four-decade-old democracy.

Source :https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/27/coronavirus-live-news-spain-begins-10-days-of-mourning-as-global-deaths-near-350000