COVID-19 News from Around the Web

The top U.S. public health agency stirred confusion by posting — and then taking down — an apparent change in its position on how easily the coronavirus can spread from person to person on small droplets in the air. The CDC has said that the virus spreads primarily through small airborne droplets, like those that fly through the air when someone coughs or sneezes. Most CDC guidance about social distancing is built around that idea, saying that 6 feet is a safe buffer between people who are not wearing masks. In interviews, CDC officials have also acknowledged growing evidence that the virus can sometimes spread on even smaller, aerosolized particles or droplets that spread over a wider area. That’s one reason public health experts urge people to wear masks, which can stop or reduce contact with both larger droplets and aerosolized particles.

Americans’ household wealth rebounded last quarter to a record high as the stock market quickly recovered from a pandemic-induced plunge in March. Yet the gains flowed mainly to the most affluent households even as tens of millions of people endured job losses and shrunken incomes. The Federal Reserve said Monday that American households’ net worth jumped nearly 7% in the April-June quarter to $119 trillion.

The US CDC has issued its first guidance for the holidays, including Halloween, amid the raging coronavirus pandemic in a new posting on its website Monday night. Door-to-door trick-or-treating and costume masks and parties are discouraged this year due to the pandemic, the CDC said. "Many traditional Halloween activities can be high-risk for spreading viruses," the agency said in its posting. "There are several safer, alternative ways to participate in Halloween."

With eight in 10 American virus victims age 65 and older, it’s easy to view the young as having been spared its wrath. But among the dead are an untold number of parents who’ve left behind children that constitute another kind of victim. … No authoritative count of parents of minors lost to the coronavirus has been tallied, but it appears certain to run into the thousands in the U.S. Some children are now landing in the homes of grandparents like Anadelia Diaz, whose 29-year-old daughter, a single mother of three, died of COVID-19.

As the U.S. closed in on 200,000 coronavirus deaths Monday, the crisis deteriorated across Europe, with Britain working to draw up new restrictions, Spain clamping down again in Madrid and the Czech Republic replacing its health minister with an epidemiologist because of a surge of infections. … British Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned that cases are doubling every seven days and could lead to a rise in deaths in the coming weeks.

About 125,000 Californians died from March through July, up by 14,200, or 13%, from the average for the same five months during the prior three years, according to a review of data from the state Department of Public Health. By the end of July, California had logged about 9,200 deaths officially attributed to COVID-19 in county death records. That left about 5,000 “excess” deaths for those months — meaning deaths above the norm not attributed to COVID-19. Deaths tend to increase from year to year as the population grows, but typically not by that much.

Using a computer model, the researchers concluded that infection rates of only 2% could cause a drop in life expectancy in countries where average life expectancy is high (about 80 years). At higher infection rates, the decline would be greater, especially in Europe and North America, according to the study published online Sept. 17 in the journal PLOS One.

"We are in such a divisive state in society that it tends to get politicized," the country's leading infectious disease expert said Monday night on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah." "It's almost the one side versus the other," Fauci said.… "People take sides, like wearing a mask or not is a political statement and that's really unfortunate, totally unfortunate because this is a purely public health issue. It should not be one against the other," Fauci said.

At least 8.7 million or more Americans could be at risk of losing out on $1,200 coronavirus stimulus checks due to incomplete IRS and Treasury Department records, according to a Monday report from Congress’ auditing arm, which examined the unprecedented $2.6 trillion lawmakers passed in emergency support as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

David Usher, chief financial officer for a 12-bed rural hospital in western Kansas, is sitting on $1.7 million he's scared to spend. The money lent from the federal government is meant to help hospitals and other health care providers weather the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet some hospital administrators have called it a payday loan program that is now brutally due for repayment at a time when the institutions still need help.

Three NFL teams are being fined $250,000 each because their coaches were not wearing face coverings during games on Sunday, a league source told CNN Monday. The teams facing sanctions are the Seattle Seahawks, the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers. The three head coaches of those teams -- Seattle's Pete Carroll, Denver's Vic Fangio and San Francisco's Kyle Shanahan -- were each fined $100,000, the source said.