COVID-19 News from Around the Web

South American countries on Monday began easing COVID-19 restrictions even as the region hurtles toward its viral peak, disregarding the example set by European nations that were battered earlier by the virus. Some of Brazil’s hardest hit cities, including the jungle metropolis Manaus and coastal Rio de Janeiro, are starting to allow more activity. Bolivia’s government authorized reopening most of the country and the government of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro unwound restrictions. Ecuador’s airports were resuming flights and shoppers returning to some of Colombia’s malls. Rolling back measures runs counter to Europe’s approach of waiting for the worst to pass before resuming activity, and South America trails much further behind on its viral curve. Even European nations that lifted restrictions earliest in their respective outbreaks – the U.K. and Russia - did so only after clearing their initial peaks.

The new study, published in the Lancet medical journal Monday, found people should stay at least three feet apart and more if possible.

At least a quarter of the COVID-19 deaths in the United States were among nursing home residents, a new report said, a disclosure that came as coronavirus restrictions eased Monday even as U.S. protests against police brutality sparked fears of new outbreaks. The Florida Keys welcomed visitors for the first time in two months, the Colosseum opened its ancient doors in Rome, ferries restarted in Bangladesh and golfers played in Greece. But as tourist destinations worldwide reopened for business, new rules were in place to guard against the virus’ spread. Meanwhile, the scope of the devastation in the nation’s nursing homes became clearer in a report prepared for U.S. governors that said nearly 26,000 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19 — a number that is partial and likely to go higher. The data was based on reports received from about 80% of the nation’s 15,400 nursing homes as of May 24.

Around Chicago, Wednesday was one of the most lethal days of the pandemic, with more than 100 deaths. In the Boston area, where an alarming crisis of a month ago has given way to cautious optimism, businesses were reopening that day and new cases numbered in the dozens, no longer the hundreds. Around Rogers and Springdale in northwest Arkansas, which the virus had barely touched in the pandemic’s early weeks, poultry workers spent part of Wednesday planning a protest as outbreaks in at least two plants were driving a sudden surge in infection numbers. The dizzying volatility from city to city and state to state could continue indefinitely, with vastly different policy implications for individual places and no single, unified course in sight.

Nationally, around a third of Americans have reported recent symptoms of anxiety and depression since late April. For comparison, in the first three months of 2019, just 11 percent of Americans reported these symptoms on a similar survey. To be clear: The report isn’t saying a third of Americans have clinical depression or an anxiety disorder. The CDC and Census Bureau data also show some groups of people are suffering more than others. Namely: women, the young, and the less educated. Some ethnic minority groups are also reporting greater mental health strain. The trend is most striking among the youngest people in the CDC survey. Upward of 46 percent of people ages 18-29 are feeling these mental health strains (the highest of any group in the survey). Each successive older age group is less burdened, according to the data.

Across Europe and Asia and especially in the United States, the world has begun to emerge from deep isolation and social distancing designed to help flatten the infection curve. But without a viable vaccine, there is little real chance that this virus can be prevented from re-emerging suddenly and dramatically in the not-so-distant future. A week ago, the World Health Organization said even countries with declining coronavirus rates could still see an "immediate second peak" if they're not careful. Meanwhile, in the U.S., where we recently passed the 100,000 dead mark, videos surfaced over Memorial Day weekend of parties crammed into pools and bars across the country. Add to this mix several sustained days of demonstrations across America, and pandemics experts are bracing for an earlier, rather than later, arrival of a second wave.

Protests erupting across the nation over the past week — and law enforcement’s response to them — are threatening to upend efforts by health officials to track and contain the spread of coronavirus just as those efforts were finally getting underway. Health experts need newly infected people to remember and recount everyone they’ve interacted with over several days in order to alert others who may have been exposed, and prevent them from spreading the disease further. But that process, known as contact tracing, relies on people knowing who they’ve been in contact with — a daunting task if they’ve been to a mass gathering. And the process relies on something that may suddenly be in especially short supply: Trust in government. “These events that are happening now are further threats to the trust we need,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. “If we do not have that, I worry our capacity to control new outbreaks becomes more limited,” he said. Government officials have been hoping to continue reopening businesses, churches and other organizations after months of stay-at-home orders and other infection-prevention measures. But health experts also hoped that any reopening would be accompanied by widespread testing, contact tracing and isolation to prevent new waves of illness from beginning. Over the past week, protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned a knee to his neck, have involved thousands of people gathered tightly together in large crowds in more than 20 cities nationwide. It’s unclear if the protests themselves will trigger large new outbreaks. The protests were outside, where infections don’t spread as readily as indoors. Also, many of the protesters were wearing masks, and much of the contact was likely less-hazardous “transient” moments of people moving around, passing each other, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University. But, still, experts worry that public efforts to contain the disease in the future could be undermined.