COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Two major college conferences — the Big Ten and Pac-12 — each announced Tuesday they were sidelining college football and other fall sports because of the coronavirus, just weeks before schools were scheduled to play their first games. The Big Ten, which includes universities with powerhouse sports programs, such as Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan State, said it will look at holding some competitions in the spring. The Pac-12, which includes elite sports programs Stanford, UCLA, USC and University of Oregon, announced shortly after the Big Ten, adding that officials reached a unanimous decision to call off athletic competition through the calendar year.

As students head back to school, parents and teachers are increasingly concerned about how the coronavirus could spread — especially in buildings with inadequate ventilation. John Lednicky studies viruses at the University of Florida. "There was a lot of controversy about SARS-CoV-2 being transmitted or not being transmitted through airborne routes," Lednicky told CBS News. Analyzing air samples in a hospital room, Lednicky's team found infectious virus can spread through the air — up to 16 feet away from an infected patient — through tiny droplets called aerosols.

Young people who use electronic cigarettes face an increased risk of COVID-19 infection, according to a new study. Teens and young adults who vaped were five times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19. And young folks who vape and also smoke regular cigarettes have a sevenfold higher risk of getting COVID-19, researchers found. The finding -- published Aug. 11 in the Journal of Adolescent Health -- prompted lawmakers in the United States to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to clear the market of all e-cigarettes until the coronavirus crisis is over. "These are really, really high numbers. I really want people to realize that e-cigarettes aren't safe. It's not just harmless, flavored water. There are real, significant, serious harms associated with these products," said the study's senior author, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University in California.

Barely a week after Georgia reopened its public schools amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a school district north of Atlanta has ordered 925 students, teachers and staff to self-quarantine after dozens tested positive for the coronavirus. The district also announced the temporary closing of one of its hardest-hit high schools. Cherokee County School District Superintendent Brian Hightower said in a statement Tuesday that there had been 59 positive COVID-19 tests among students and staff since the Aug. 3 reopening. … At the end of Monday, about 300 of the school's 2,400 students, or 12.5%, were under quarantine, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Texas surpassed 500,000 confirmed coronavirus cases Tuesday as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott suggested family and neighborhood gatherings are behind a sharp rise in the rate of positive tests, which has climbed to record levels just as schools are beginning to reopen across the state. He also continued to say more testing in Texas is likely after dropping off in recent weeks, a trend seen across the U.S. even as deaths mount. Texas has reported more than 1,400 new deaths over the past week, including 220 on Tuesday. Although health officials say there are encouraging signs in Texas — particularly hospitalization levels that have dropped more than 30 percent since July’s peak — infection rates have been on a steady increase.

Florida's number of official Covid-19 cases in children has more than doubled over the past month, data from the state showed Tuesday. Covid-19 cases among children also spiked across the country during roughly the same period. In Florida, the total number of cases in children 17 and under rose from 16,797 on July 9 to 39,735 on August 9 -- an increase of 137%, according to Florida Department of Health data. Covid-19 hospitalizations among children in Florida rose from 213 to 436 during that same period, a 105% increase. Deaths among children rose from four to seven in Florida during that period.

Riverdale Nursing Home in the Bronx appears, on paper, to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with an official state count of just four deaths in its 146-bed facility. The truth, according to the home, is far worse: 21 dead, most transported to hospitals before they succumbed. … New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there. That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.

Governors and state labor department officials are scrambling to determine whether they could implement President Donald Trump's executive order to partially extend federal unemployment benefits to millions of jobless Americans. Mr. Trump's order allocates $44 billion in federal dollars from FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund to boost unemployment aid for the jobless and calls on states to kick in roughly $15 billion. The Trump administration says states can pull from federal coronavirus relief funds already distributed earlier in the crisis, although some states have already fully allocated that money for other needs.

President Trump’s executive order to boost weekly aid for unemployed Americans is meant to alleviate “acute financial distress” for families across the country. However, restrictions on that extra assistance — a $400-a-week increase in benefits — means it likely won’t be available to a big chunk of unemployed workers. It’s difficult to pinpoint the precise number of people who’d miss out, given some confusion around implementation of the measure, according to economists. Estimates suggest at least 1 million workers — disproportionately female, low-wage and part-time workers — wouldn’t get the benefit.

As coronavirus cases surge — and dire shortages of lifesaving protective gear like N95 masks, gowns and gloves persist — the nation’s health care workers are again facing life-threatening conditions in Southern and Western states. Through crowdsourcing and reports from colleagues, social media, online obituaries, workers unions and local media, Lost on the Frontline reporters have identified 922 health care workers who reportedly died of COVID-19 and its complications.

Dental patients and staff need to be protected from any potential infection by aerosol-generating procedures, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, as dentists return to work in areas where the COVID-19 pandemic is easing. There is currently no data on the spread of coronavirus from the dentist’s chair, it said, calling for more research into common procedures that produce tiny floating particles that may cause infection if inhaled. These include three-way air/water spray, ultrasonic cleaning equipment that removes deposits from the tooth surface, and polishing, the WHO said in new guidance.

As US leaders work to control the spread of coronavirus, researchers across the globe are working to answer the mysteries that remain around infections. One of those mysteries: why the experience can be so different from person to person. One expert says the answer may involve looking at previous vaccines individuals have had. "When we looked in the setting of Covid disease, we found that people who had prior vaccinations with a variety of vaccines -- for pneumococcus, influenza, hepatitis and others -- appeared to have a lower risk of getting Covid disease," Dr. Andrew Badley, an infectious disease specialist at Mayo Clinic, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night. It's what immunologists call immune training: how your immune system creates an effective response to fight off infections, Badley says.