COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Nearly 100,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics finds. Just over 97,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus from July 16 to July 30, according to the association. Out of almost 5 million reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S., CBS News' Michael George reports that the group found that more than 338,000 were children. Vanderbilt University's Dr. Tina Hartert hopes increased testing of children will help determine what role they play in transmission, as school districts around the country return to some form of school. She is leading a government-funded study that saw DIY testing kits sent to some 2,000 families. "The kits are shipped to the families, they are taught how to collect these samples, and then the samples are sent back by the families to a central repository," she said. In New York City, home to the nation's largest school district, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a return to in-person schooling in the fall and pledged officials "have worked incessantly to get this right."

While most children who catch the coronavirus have either no symptoms or mild ones, they are still at risk of developing "severe" symptoms requiring admission to an intensive care unit, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report released Friday. Hispanic and Black children in particular were much more likely to require hospitalization for COVID-19, with Hispanic children about eight times as likely as white children to be hospitalized, while Black children were five times as likely. Despite persistent rumors that children are "almost immune" from the virus, the analysis of 576 children hospitalized for the virus across 14 states found that one out of three was admitted to the ICU — similar to the rate among adults. Almost 1 in 5 of those were infants younger than 3 months. The most common symptoms included fever and chills, inability to eat, nausea and vomiting.

Humans have never been particularly good at eradicating entire viruses, and COVID-19 might not be any different. More than 19 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus globally, and at least 722,000 have died. In the U.S., nearly 5 million people have tested positive and more than 160,000 have died. While scientists are racing to find a cure for the virus, there's a chance COVID-19 will never fully go away — with or without a vaccine. But that doesn't mean everyone will have to self-isolate forever. Vineet Menachery, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told NPR's Weekend Edition that one of the more likely scenarios is that the spread of COVID-19 will eventually be slowed as a result of herd immunity. He said that he'd be surprised "if we're still wearing masks and 6-feet distancing in two or three years" and that in time, the virus could become no more serious than the common cold. The first thing to remember is that we haven't been successful at eradicating many viruses at all. Really the lone exception is smallpox, but many of these viruses exist not only in the human population but in animal populations. So coronaviruses may be removed from the human population, like SARS coronavirus in 2002, but we know that those viruses or viruses that are similar to it still exist in nature and at any time they may gain the tools to reemerge in humans again.

New Zealand marked 100 days without a domestic transmission of the coronavirus on Sunday, but warned against complacency as countries like Vietnam and Australia which once had the virus under control now battle a resurgence in infections. New Zealand marked 100 days without a domestic transmission of the coronavirus on Sunday, but warned against complacency as countries like Vietnam and Australia which once had the virus under control now battle a resurgence in infections.

As they struggle to salvage some semblance of a campus experience this fall, U.S. colleges are requiring promises from students to help contain the coronavirus — no keg parties, no long road trips and no outside guests on campus. No kidding. Administrators warn that failure to wear masks, practice social distancing and avoid mass gatherings could bring serious consequences, including getting booted from school. Critics question whether it’s realistic to demand that college students not act like typical college students. But the push illustrates the high stakes for universities planning to welcome at least some students back. Wide-scale COVID-19 testing, quarantines and plexiglass barriers in classrooms won’t work if too many students misbehave.

Schools across New York state will be allowed to open for in-person learning this fall because of low coronavirus infection rates, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. "We've been smart from day one. We do the masks, we do the social distancing, we've kept that infection rate down," Cuomo said during the announcement. "And we can bring the same level of intelligence to the school reopening that we brought to the economic reopening." Last month, the governor announced that schools can reopen if they are in a region that's in Phase 4 reopening and where the 14-day average daily infection rate remains below 5%. That's now true for the whole state. It's up to the discretion of local school districts to decide whether they want to have in-person learning. The choice goes away if infection rates spike, Cuomo said.

It has been seven years since the central air conditioning system worked at the New York City middle school where Lisa Fitzgerald O’Connor teaches. As a new school year approaches amid the coronavirus pandemic, she and her colleagues are threatening not to return unless it’s repaired. Her classroom has a window air conditioning unit, but she fears the stagnant air will increase the chances that an infected student could spread the virus. “Window units just aren’t going to cut it. We don’t want to stay cool, we just want the air to flow properly,” said O’Connor, a science teacher who has worked at the Patria Mirabal School in Manhattan since 2009. “We are really super stressed out about it.” Schools around the country are facing similar problems as they plan or contemplate reopening this fall, dealing with aging air conditioning, heating and circulation systems that don’t work well or at all because maintenance and replacement were deferred due to tight budgets. Concerns about school infrastructure are adding momentum to plans in some districts, even in colder climates, to take classes outdoors for the sake of student and teacher health. Nationwide, an estimated 41% of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation and cooling systems in at least half their schools, according to a federal report issued in June. There is no evidence that the disease can spread through ventilation systems from one classroom to the next, according to Dr. Edward Nardell, a Harvard Medical School professor who specializes in airborne diseases. The danger, Nardell said, is from ineffective systems that don’t remove floating viruses and let them linger in classrooms after they are expelled in an infected person’s breath, sneeze or cough.

The number of daily new coronavirus infections in Italy jumped 38% higher Friday, with 552 confirmed cases registered compared to the previous day. Italy hadn’t seen a such a high daily new caseload since late May. Barely two weeks ago, Italy had been registering roughly 200 new cases a day. The northeastern region of Veneto, which performed nearly 16,500 swab tests in a day, registered roughly a third of those new cases — 183. Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia said the new infections were found in residents who recently returned home from Spain, Peru, Malta, Croatia and Greece.

Demand for convalescent plasma has gone up in recent weeks, following the latest surge in coronavirus cases. Doctors and health officials across the country are desperately urging COVID-19 survivors to donate plasma, the yellowish, watery part of the blood that’s rich in proteins and antibodies. So-called convalescent plasma, from people who have recovered from a particular illness, has been used for more than 100 years to treat patients with all sorts of viruses, including influenza and Ebola. The hope is that plasma from a COVID-19 survivor, filled with antibodies against the virus, could boost the immune systems of those who are now sick, helping them to fight off the illness, too. “There is right now a lot of demand, and not as much supply,” Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told NBC News. One doctor in Florida, for example, told him she’s ordering plasma infusions for COVID-19 patients as soon as they get to the emergency room.

Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast on Thursday, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks. The prediction by the university’s widely cited Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation comes as top White House infectious disease advisors warned that major U.S. cities could erupt as new hot spots if officials there were not vigilant with counter-measures.

The White House coronavirus task force is warning states about an uptick in coronavirus test positivity rates in a number of new cities this week. Task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said there are encouraging signs across the South, a region hit hard by a surging pandemic in recent weeks, but she outlined new areas of concern in a private phone call with state and local officials Wednesday, according to a recording of the call obtained by the journalism non-profit Center for Public Integrity. "We are concerned that both Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a very high level," Birx said on the call. "Kansas City, Portland, Omaha, of course what we talked about in the Central Valley (in California)."