COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Here’s a bit of good news: Since late July, the number of new coronavirus cases has steadily declined across most of the country. That’s not to say the US is beating the coronavirus. Reported cases are still higher than they were in the spring (partly, but likely not entirely, the result of more testing). More than 700 people are still dying from Covid-19 on average every day — more daily new Covid-19 deaths than in any other developed country in the world. There are still large epidemics in some states, especially in parts of the Midwest and South. Still, the decline in America’s Covid-19 cases is real and significant, translating to fewer illnesses and deaths in the next few weeks and, hopefully, months.

First, the good news: In 24 states, the number of new coronavirus cases decreased this past week compared to the previous week. Now, the bad news: In many of those states, testing has also decreased. And the overall number of daily new cases is still way too high as the US faces a trio of major challenges this fall. ... On Sunday, 34,450 new cases were reported nationwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That's better than the summer peak in late July, when the US had more than 60,000 new cases a day. But nationwide, testing is down 10% this past week compared to the previous week, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project. And of the confirmed cases we do know about, 34,450 is still an enormous number, health experts said Monday.

Overall, 3% of U.S. adults say they have personally tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the survey. … Another 11% of adults say they are pretty sure they have had the virus even though they were not officially diagnosed.

An increase in searches for symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19 may help predict emerging hotspots, according to a recent study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. To determine whether there was a link between an increased volume of online queries for gastrointestinal symptoms linked to the novel coronavirus — vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea — as well ageusia, or loss of taste, and a rise in confirmed coronavirus cases, researchers compared data compiled by Google Trends with case incidence information collected by Harvard University.

Blacks account for 12% of the U.S. population but 21% of COVID-19 deaths, the researchers noted. The study found that compared to whites, Blacks are nearly three times more likely to work in health care support jobs such as nursing assistants or orderlies. And they are nearly twice as likely to have transportation jobs such as bus drivers, movers and taxi drivers. Blacks are also more likely to have jobs deemed essential during the pandemic: … When they compared these job classifications with COVID-19 deaths in 26 states and Washington, D.C., the researchers found that all of these jobs put workers at higher risk of infection and death from COVID-19.

As athletes recover from Covid-19, taking images of their hearts to screen for inflammation may help doctors determine when it could be safe to get back in the game, new research suggests. The small study -- conducted by researchers at Ohio State University -- found in cardiac magnetic resonance images, or MRIs, that among 26 of the university's competitive athletes who were recovering from Covid-19, four showed signs of inflammation of the heart muscle, called myocarditis.

Rigorous COVID-19 testing of children and adults admitted to a hospital in Milan for reasons other than coronavirus found that just over 1% of kids tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to more than 9% of adults. That suggests a very low rate of asymptomatic infection among children, and does "not support the hypothesis that children are at higher risk of carrying SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatically than adults," the researchers reported in the Sept. 14 online edition of JAMA Pediatrics.

It's not clear how COVID-19 outbreaks at three Salt Lake City child day care centers began, but a new report finds that 12 infected youngsters enrolled at two of the facilities easily passed SARS-CoV-2 to at least 12 family members. In one case, an infected child with no symptoms of COVID-19 transmitted the illness to their mother, who became so sick she needed to be hospitalized. The tale of these day care-linked clusters illustrate how efficient children are as vectors for COVID-19 infection -- and what steps can be taken to minimize the risk, experts say.

A forthcoming study from genetic testing giant 23andMe shows that a person’s genetic code could be connected to how likely they are to catch Covid-19 — and how severely they could experience the disease if they catch it. It’s an important confirmation of earlier work on the subject. People whose blood group is O seemed to test positive for Covid-19 less often than expected when compared to people with any other blood group, according to 23andMe’s data; people who tested positive and had a specific variant of another gene also seemed to be more likely to have serious respiratory symptoms. The study, which was released on a preprint server and which has not yet been peer-reviewed … Experts who aren’t affiliated with 23andMe praised the study design and the work.

While rural hospitals have been closing at a quickening pace over the past two decades, a number of inner-city hospitals now face a similar fate. And experts fear that the economic damage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic on safety net hospitals and the ailing finances of the cities and states that subsidize them are helping push some urban hospitals over the edge.

From the shores of Long Island to the resorts of the Rocky Mountains, traditional vacation destinations have seen a major influx of affluent people relocating to wait out the pandemic. But now as summer vacation season has ended, many families realize that working from home and attending school online can be done anywhere they can tether to the internet, and those with means are increasingly waiting it out in the poshest destinations.