Fox News -
August 20, 2020
Federal government employees overwhelmingly feel unsafe about returning to in-person work and those who are already back on-site report inadequate health and safety measures are in place to protect against the coronavirus, according to a new survey conducted by a union for workers. Nearly 8 out of 10 federal employees who have been teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic say they feel unsafe returning to their job sites at this time. And more than 70% of employees who are physically showing up for their jobs say their federal agencies aren't doing enough to keep them safe, according to a survey released Wednesday by the American Federation of Government Employees.
11ALIVE -
August 19, 2020
Kaiser Health News -
August 19, 2020
U.S. News -
August 19, 2020
New York Daily News -
August 19, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hemorrhage 1,000 lives daily in the U.S., COVID-19 now ranks third for cause of death in this country. The leading causes of death in the U.S. are heart disease and cancer, but COVID-19 is gaining fast, CNN reported Monday. “Covid is now the No. 3 cause of death in the U.S. – ahead of accidents, injuries, lung disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and many, many other causes,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told CNN. “Last week, Americans were eight times more likely to get killed by COVID than were Europeans.”
AJC -
August 19, 2020
Georgia reported the highest rate of new cases of the coronavirus in the country in the seven days ending on Friday, President Trump’s coronavirus task force said in its latest report, urging the state again to take stronger action to mitigate spread of COVID-19. Though conditions in some areas of Georgia have improved modestly in recent weeks, the White House Coronavirus Task Force said Georgia remains in the red zone for severity of the outbreak as measured by rate of case growth and test positivity. “Georgia’s small gains are fragile and statewide progress will require continued, expanded, and stronger mitigation efforts, including in all open schools,” according to the White House report, which was dated Sunday.
TODAY -
August 19, 2020
The University of Notre Dame suspended in-person classes on Tuesday, eight days after the school’s fall semester began and after 146 students and a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said. The two-week suspension, which is effective Wednesday for the school’s 12,000 students, came one day after the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill made a similar announcement and as Michigan State University on Tuesday ordered undergrads to stay home for the rest of the fall "effective immediately."
ProPublica -
August 19, 2020
When it comes to COVID-19, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. Las Vegas casinos reopened June 4, and they have become a likely hotbed for the spread of the novel coronavirus, public health experts said. But if tourists return home and then test positive for COVID-19, the limitations of contact tracing in the midst of a pandemic make it unlikely such an outbreak would be identified.
AP -
August 19, 2020
Potential accuracy issues with a widely used coronavirus test could lead to false results for patients, U.S. health officials warned. The FDA issued the alert Monday to doctors and laboratory technicians using Thermo Fisher’s TaqPath genetic test. Regulators said issues related to laboratory equipment and software used to run the test could lead to inaccuracies. … The warning comes nearly a month after Connecticut public health officials first reported that at least 90 people had received false positive results for the coronavirus. Most of those receiving the false results were residents of nursing homes or assisted living facilities.
NBC News -
August 19, 2020
Fever checks have widely become the first level of coronavirus detection as businesses, stores and schools try to reopen, but experts caution that relying on them as a single screening tool could lead to a false sense of security. … While a temperature check can detect people who are showing symptoms, there are a significant number of people who could be contagious that don't develop a fever, said study co-author Peter Kuhn, a professor of biological sciences, medicine and engineering at USC.
NBC News -
August 19, 2020
Coronavirus cases are already surfacing in K-12 schools that have reopened, but the federal government is not tracking these outbreaks, and some states are not publicly reporting them, making it more difficult to determine how the virus is spreading, experts say. Scores of students and staff members have been quarantined because of potential COVID-19 exposure in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Indiana, among other states. But there is no official national tally of school-linked COVID-19 cases, and some states are not reporting how many outbreaks have occurred or how many students and staff members have been infected.
CNN -
August 19, 2020
Getting the flu vaccine this year is important, experts at the World Health Organization said during a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. It appears that the circulation of flu in the Southern Hemisphere -- which includes Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Zimbabwe -- is low. However, making assessments of what will happen in the Northern Hemisphere -- which includes North America, Europe and much of Asia -- needs to be done carefully.
STAT -
August 19, 2020
As potential Covid-19 vaccines speed their way through development, manufacturers and U.S. regulators have largely delayed testing in children and women who are pregnant, raising the possibility that experts will lack critical safety and efficacy data in those populations when there’s a pressing need to inoculate them. Vaccines are always tested first in healthy adults, a population that is most likely to provide a clear picture of whether a vaccine triggers protection. It’s also a population deemed to be at lowest risk should there be side effects from an experimental vaccine.
NPR -
August 19, 2020
The U.S. stock market has come a long way in a short time. The S&P 500 index closed at a record high Tuesday, nearly six months after coronavirus lockdowns that shut down much of the economy sent the markets plunging. … After plummeting 34% from its Feb. 19 peak, the S&P 500 has staged a steady recovery — gaining more than 50% from its low on March 23. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 finished at 3,389.78 — an all-time closing high.
CBS News -
August 19, 2020
The 25 million Americans who are collecting unemployment benefits may see only limited relief from President Donald Trump's move to provide an extra $300 in weekly jobless aid. A new memo from the government agency overseeing the relief says it's planning an initial payment equivalent to three weeks of benefits, less than previous estimates that pegged the money as lasting up to six weeks.