AP -
November 12, 2020
Texas on Wednesday became the first state with more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and California closed in on that mark as a surge of coronavirus infections engulfs the country from coast to coast. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said all restaurants, bars and gyms statewide will have to close at 10 p.m. starting Friday, a major retreat in a corner of the U.S. that had seemingly brought the virus largely under control months ago. He also barred private gatherings of more than 10 people
The Atlantic -
November 12, 2020
Today, states reported that 61,964 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, more than at any other time in the pandemic. For context, there are now 40 percent more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than there were two weeks ago. Seventeen states are at their current peaks for hospitalizations today. According to local news reports, hospitals are already on the brink of being overwhelmed in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin, and officials in many other states warn that their health-care systems will be dangerously stressed if cases continue to rise. The new hospitalization record underscores that we’ve entered the worst period for the pandemic since the original outbreak in the Northeast.
STAT -
November 12, 2020
The consensus among major Covid-19 modelers is that we could see 20,000 to 25,000 deaths in just the next two weeks, and 160,000 more by Feb. 1. That would be a frightening acceleration as winter approaches. … The meteoric rise in U.S. Covid-19 cases and death is not another wave. Experts modeling the coronavirus pandemic may differ on details, but they agree that calling this a second or third wave is incorrect because there was never a significant trough before cases began mounting again.
CNN -
November 12, 2020
Covid-19 can spread quickly among active military members and recruits -- and two new reports detail how this has happened in some past outbreaks. The papers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, reveal that many military personnel and recruits who test positive for coronavirus infection show no symptoms at all, which suggests asymptomatic spread of the disease has likely played a big role in outbreaks.
HealthDay -
November 12, 2020
Overall, babies have a low risk of severe COVID-19 infection, and transmission from mother to newborn is unlikely, new research suggests. For the study, researchers analyzed data from all babies under 29 days old who had COVID-19 and had to be admitted to hospitals across the United Kingdom between the beginning of March and the end of April, at the peak of the first pandemic wave in the United Kingdom. Only 66 babies required hospital treatment for COVID-19 infection in this period, which is the equivalent of one in 1,785 births, or 0.06% of births.
Yahoo! Finance -
November 12, 2020
The Labor Department report showed an eleventh straight week that new jobless claims totaled below 1 million. But new claims have not yet broken back below 700,000 since the start of the pandemic and have held sharply above levels from before the outbreak. Throughout 2019, new initial unemployment claims were coming in at an average of just over 200,000 per week.
STAT -
November 12, 2020
President-elect Biden’s selection on Wednesday of Ron Klain, the former federal “Ebola czar,” as White House chief of staff immediately put a pandemic-response veteran at the highest levels of government. The choice of Klain, a longtime Biden confidant who served as chief of staff to then-Vice President Biden during the Obama administration, is the latest signal that the president-elect is treating the pandemic as his top priority.
PEOPLE -
November 12, 2020
The first cruise ship to set sail in the Caribbean since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has reported that a passenger on board has tested positive for the virus, according to The Points Guy. A reporter for the travel site, Gene Sloan, is aboard the SeaDream 1 and was meant to be documenting the new safety measures on the small vessel, which departed from Barbados on Saturday and is carrying 53 passengers and 66 crew.
AP -
November 12, 2020
The pandemic wrecked more plans across college football on Wednesday, with No. 12 Georgia at Missouri becoming the fourth game postponed in the Southeastern Conference alone and No. 3 Ohio State’s visit to Maryland canceled because of a coronavirus outbreak among the Terrapins.
AP -
November 11, 2020
The U.S. has surpassed 1 million new confirmed coronavirus cases in just the first 10 days of November, with more than 100,000 infections each day becoming the norm in a surge that shows no signs of slowing. The 1 million milestone came as governors across the nation are making increasingly desperate pleas with the public to take the fight against the virus more seriously. … The alarming wave of cases across the U.S. looks bigger and is more widespread than the surges that happened in the spring, mainly in the Northeast, and then in the summer, primarily in the Sun Belt. But experts say there are also reasons to think the nation is better able to deal with the virus this time around.
TODAY -
November 11, 2020
Wearing a mask not only protects others from the spread of COVID-19, but it protects the wearer as well, the CDC said Tuesday in its strongest messaging yet on face coverings. The CDC also said that "adopting universal masking policies can help avert future lockdowns," particularly when combined with a doubling down of mitigation strategies available to virtually every American: physical distancing, hand washing and ventilation.
Reuters -
November 11, 2020
California and several states across the U.S. Midwest tightened restrictions on residents on Tuesday as the nation’s top infectious disease specialist called on Americans to remain vigilant until a vaccine can be approved and distributed. The new clampdowns were announced as the number of COVID-19 infections surged again in the United States with the onset of colder weather, straining hospitals and medical resources in some cities.
CNBC -
November 11, 2020
Dr. Emilio Gonzalez-Ayala told Shepard Smith, “There is no bed available in any hospital in El Paso and there hasn’t been for at least the last couple of weeks.” In El Paso, they’ve brought in six freezer trucks to hold dead Covid-19 victims, and four more are expected by the end of the week because the morgues cannot hold the dead. Dr. Gonzalez-Ayala is seeing patients with both the coronavirus and the flu.
CNN -
November 11, 2020
Nursing homes are still taking days to get back Covid-19 test results as many shun the Trump administration's central strategy to limit the spread of the virus among old and sick Americans. In late summer, federal officials began distributing to nursing homes millions of point-of-care antigen tests, which can be given on-site and report the presence or absence of the virus within minutes. … But as of Oct. 25, 38% of the nation's roughly 15,000 nursing homes have yet to use a point-of-care test, a KHN analysis of nursing home records shows.
HealthDay -
November 11, 2020
Not all face masks are equally effective. New videos show that masks with exhalation valves do not slow the spread of COVID-19. Exhalation valves are intended to make the masks more comfortable and easier to breathe through. However, they're designed to protect the wearer from outside contaminants, not to protect others if the wearer has COVID-19.
ABC News -
November 11, 2020
One in six restaurant and foodservice outlets in the United States has closed since the pandemic began, according to a survey by the National Restaurant Association. With the winter approaching, COVID-19 cases reaching all-time highs and relief talks stalled in Congress, Weinzweig is among the nearly 16 million people who work in the restaurant industry and the food supply chain. Eight months since the country started shutting down, they’ve grown desperate for aid.