NPR -
January 18, 2021
Biden's incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, on Saturday laid out in a memo the executive orders the new president will issue on Jan. 20 and in the early days of the new administration. … Biden will sign an order requiring masks on federal property and for interstate travel. Biden has said he'll use part of his inaugural address to urge Americans to commit to wearing masks for at least 100 days to help slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has now killed almost 400,000 Americans.
NBC News -
January 18, 2021
Before the pandemic there were an estimated 5.8 million hungry seniors nationwide. Since the onset of the pandemic in March that number is believed to have increased rapidly. National statistics have not yet been compiled, but there are numbers for New York City. Prior to the pandemic, one in 10 older New Yorkers was food insecure, but now that number has soared to one in five, according to a study done by FoodBank NYC.
Fox News -
January 18, 2021
The findings appeared in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. The Stanford University researchers compared the spread of COVID-19 in Sweden and South Korea to the spread in eight countries that did implement more restrictive mandatory lockdowns: Britain, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United States. They found that nonpharmaceutical interventions were effective in nine out of 10 countries, but there was "no clear, significant beneficial effect of [more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions] on case growth in any country."
11ALIVE -
January 18, 2021
WSB-TV -
January 18, 2021
Chattanooga Times Free Press -
January 18, 2021
AP -
January 15, 2021
President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan Thursday to end “a crisis of deep human suffering” by speeding up vaccines and pumping out financial help to those struggling with the pandemic’s prolonged economic fallout. Called the “American Rescue Plan,” the legislative proposal would meet Biden’s goal of administering 100 million vaccines by the 100th day of his administration, and advance his objective of reopening most schools by the spring. On a parallel track, it delivers another round of aid to stabilize the economy while the public health effort seeks the upper hand on the pandemic.
CNN -
January 15, 2021
At the current rate of daily fatalities, the US death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic may surpass 400,000 before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Wednesday. Another 14,400 Americans are projected to die from the virus over the next six days, according to an ensemble forecast published by the CDC. This comes as the nation's health care system scrambles to keep up with the influx of new patients, with more than 128,000 people hospitalized across the country, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
AP -
January 15, 2021
The rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccinations to senior citizens across the U.S. has led to bottlenecks, system crashes and hard feelings in many states because of overwhelming demand for the shots. Mississippi’s Health Department stopped taking new appointments the same day it began accepting them because of a “monumental surge” in requests. … In California, counties begged for more coronavirus vaccine to reach millions of their senior citizens. Hospitals in South Carolina ran out appointment slots within hours. Phone lines were jammed in Georgia.
HealthDay -
January 15, 2021
Between March 2 and June 2, 2020 (the first peak of the pandemic), 15,453 patients underwent cancer screening, compared to 64,269 in the previous three months and 60,344 in the same three months of 2019. There has been a healthy rebound in screening: According to the researchers, screening levels in the three months after the first pandemic peak period rose to nearly 52,000.
CNN -
January 15, 2021
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences projects that Covid-19 will reduce US life expectancy in 2020 by 1.13 years, with a disproportionate number of deaths occurring among Black and Latino populations. When combined with provisional estimates of US death rates for the first half of the year, the data show a clear rise in the mortality rate as the pandemic took hold of the nation.
Pew Research -
January 15, 2021
Amid some of the darkest months of the coronavirus pandemic, Americans believe that the U.S. government can learn a lot from other countries around the world about handling the outbreak and improving health care domestically. … While large majorities among both men and women think the U.S. can learn a great deal or fair amount about handling the coronavirus outbreak, women are more likely than men to express this view (78% vs. 70%, respectively).
WSB-TV -
January 15, 2021
Georgia Recorder -
January 15, 2021