COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Treating the sick and dying isn’t even the toughest part for nurse Amelia Montgomery as the coronavirus surges in her corner of red America. It’s dealing with patients and relatives who don’t believe the virus is real, refuse to wear masks and demand treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which President Donald Trump has championed even though experts say it is not effective against the scourge that has killed over 210,000 in the U.S. Montgomery finds herself, like so many other doctors and nurses, in a world where the politics of the crisis are complicating treatment efforts, with some people even resisting getting tested.

Comparing October 2019 with June 2020, the odds of a person remembering to wash their hands after coughing, sneezing or nose blowing were 2.3 times higher in 2020; before eating at a restaurant were 2.0 times higher; and before eating at home were 1.7 times higher, according to research published in the CDC's Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly.

The study, which was peer reviewed, looked at 36,061 individuals who took a coronavirus test as part of the infection survey between 26 April and 27 June 2020. It found that 86.1% of those who tested positive for the virus did not report “core” symptoms associated with the virus (a cough, fever or a loss of taste and/or smell) on the day they took a test.

A large majority of U.S. adults (86%) say there is some kind of lesson or set of lessons for humankind to learn from the pandemic, and about a third of Americans (35%) say the lessons were sent by God. … Some respondents see lessons in society’s failure to face up to problems like racism, economic inequality and climate change. … Many respondents mention lessons about changes people should make in their personal lives and relationships with others.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would for now continue to allow women to obtain an abortion pill by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. The action came over the dissent of two conservative justices who would have immediately granted a Trump administration request to reinstate the requirement that women must visit a hospital, clinic or medical office to obtain a pill. … The court called for a lower-court judge to take a new look at the issue and rule within 40 days.

Despite decades of warnings, the U.S. and the world were caught off guard by the Covid-19 pandemic, a scathing new report from the bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations concludes. … Among the reasons why things went wrong: inadequate funding for preparedness programs, an uncoordinated patchwork of response measures from different countries, and the U.S. wasting "precious weeks" instead of implementing public health interventions to stave off new infections early on.

Researchers at the University of Oxford in the U.K. have concluded that hydroxychloroquine does nothing to prevent COVID-19-related deaths. The research is a continuation of a major clinical trial that found that the drug — which has previously been touted by President Donald Trump and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — had no clinical benefit.

In a report published Oct. 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers confirmed the benefits of remdesivir for treating people hospitalized for COVID-19. … Among all the participants—both with severe COVID-19 and with more mild symptoms—those given remdesivir were able to be discharged from the hospital on average five days sooner than those receiving placebo.

U.S. states saw another 840,000 jobless claims claims filed last week, as the number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment insurance benefits each week continues to hover at a historically high level. … At 840,000 last week’s new claims remained at a level still handily above the pre-pandemic record high of 695,000 from 1982.

President Donald Trump’s move Tuesday to cut off talks on another government aid package will further weaken an economy straining to recover from an epic collapse, economists say, and deepen the hardships for jobless Americans and struggling businesses. Half of all small businesses expect to need more aid from the government over the next 12 months to survive, according to a survey by the right-leaning National Federation of Independent Business. Sales for about one-fifth of small companies are still down 50% or more from pre-pandemic levels, the NFIB said. For roughly 25 million laid-off Americans who are receiving unemployment aid, weekly payments, on average, have shrunk by two-thirds since a $600-a-week federal benefit expired more than two months ago. Trump did provide an extra $300 for six weeks. But that money has also run out.