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COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Book: Trump said of virus, ‘I wanted to always play it down’
AP - September 10, 2020
President Donald Trump talked in private about the “deadly” coronavirus last February, even as he was declaring to America it was no worse than the flu and insisting it was under control, according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. Trump said Wednesday he was just being a “cheerleader” for the nation and trying to keep everyone calm. His public rhetoric, Trump told Woodward in March, was part of a strategy to deliberately minimize the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said. “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump, according to the book, acknowledged being alarmed by the virus, even as he was telling the nation that it would swiftly disappear.
Jobless claims: Another 884,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week
Yahoo! - September 10, 2020
Initial jobless claims, week ended Sept. 5: 884,000 vs. 850,000 expected and 884,000 during the prior week … The past couple weeks of jobless claims appeared to improve considerably from the more than 1 million new weekly claims reported in mid-August. However, this was due to a technical change in the way the Labor Department made its seasonal adjustments, which applied for the first time to claims counted during the week ended August 28. Previous weeks’ claims were not revised to reflect the new counting method.
Pandemic Financially Imperils Nearly Half of American Households, Poll Finds
NPR - September 10, 2020
In a new survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The poll finds nearly half the households in America — 46% — report facing serious financial pain during the pandemic — a problem that is more acute in the four largest U.S. cities, and among Latino and Black households. Hundreds of billions in government stimulus and other support did not make an apparent dent in their struggles. In addition, over half, or 54%, of those with household incomes below $100,000 reported serious financial problems, compared to only 20% of those with incomes above that threshold.
Colleges in all 50 states report coronavirus cases as clusters linked to social gatherings grow
CNN - September 10, 2020
As schools begin their fall semester, universities and colleges are struggling to contain coronavirus outbreaks with cases reported at campuses in all 50 states. There have been more than 40,000 cases of Covid-19 among students, faculty and staff at colleges and universities nationwide. The number represents cases that CNN has reported so far -- and is likely higher due to a lag from schools that update their data every few days. With social life trickling back to life on campuses, coronavirus outbreaks have hit places students congregate such as fraternities and sororities, where some have continued to gather despite remote learning.
Teacher deaths raise alarms as new school year begins
AP - September 10, 2020
Teachers in at least three states have died after bouts with the coronavirus since the dawn of the new school year, and a teachers’ union leader worries that the return to in-person classes will have a deadly impact across the U.S. if proper precautions aren’t taken. AshLee DeMarinis was just 34 when she died Sunday after three weeks in the hospital. … A third-grade teacher died Monday in South Carolina, and two other educators died recently in Mississippi.
Emails show HHS official trying to muzzle Fauci
Politico - September 10, 2020
A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children. Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews.
Kids’ lead testing plummets due to missed doctor visits in pandemic
CNN - September 10, 2020
Critical testing for lead poisoning has plummeted in many parts of the country. In the Upper Midwest, Northeast and parts of the West Coast — areas with historically high rates of lead poisoning — the slide has been the most dramatic, according to the CDC. In states such as Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota, testing for the brain-damaging heavy metal fell by 50% or more this spring compared with 2019, health officials report.
Some Hospitals Fail To Set COVID-19 Patients Apart, Putting Others at Risk
NPR - September 10, 2020
Nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Calif., were on edge as early as March, when patients with COVID-19 began to show up in areas of the hospital that were not set aside to care for them. The CDC had advised hospitals to isolate COVID-19 patients to limit staff's exposure and help conserve high-level personal protective equipment that's been in short supply. Yet COVID-19 patients continued to be scattered through the Oakland hospital, according to complaints to California's Division of OSHA. The concerns included the sixth-floor medical unit where veteran nurse Janine Paiste-Ponder worked.
Scarcity of key material squeezes medical mask manufacturing
AP - September 10, 2020
White House officials say U.S. hospitals have all the medical supplies needed to battle the deadly virus, but frontline health care workers, hospital officials and even the FDA say shortages persist. Critical shortfalls of medical N95 respirators — commonly referred to as N95 masks — and other protective gear started in March, when the pandemic hit New York. Pressure on the medical supply chain continues today, and in “many ways things have only gotten worse,” the AMA’s president, Dr. Susan Bailey, said in a recent statement.