< BACK TO COVID-19

COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Covid-19 deaths are the highest they’ve ever been — and the more infectious variants could make things much worse
STAT - January 14, 2021
As horrific as the U.S. Covid-19 outbreak looks right now, it is almost certainly about to get worse. They’ve raced through South Africa, the United Kingdom, and, increasingly, elsewhere, and now, new, more infectious variants of the coronavirus have also gained toeholds in the United States. If they take off here — which, with their transmission advantages, they will, unless Americans rapidly put a brake on their spread — it will detonate something of a bomb in the already deep, deep hole the country must dig out of to end the crisis.
Jobless claims: Another 965,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week
Yahoo! Finance - January 14, 2021
New weekly unemployment claims spiked far more than expected last week to a five-month high, as the coronavirus pandemic and stay-in-place orders weighed heavily on the labor market. … At 965,000, new jobless claims hit the highest level since August, ending what had been a tentative start of a downward trend in initial claims. Heading into Thursday’s report, new initial unemployment claims were expected to dip below 800,000 for a third straight week.
Covid infection provides some immunity for at least five months, UK study finds
CNBC - January 14, 2021
The preliminary findings in Public Health England’s SIREN study — which has surveyed thousands of U.K. health-care workers in a bid to establish whether prior infection protects against future infection — found antibodies provide an 83% rate of protection against reinfection, compared with people who have not had the disease before.
Biden to unveil plan to pump $1.5 trillion into pandemic-hit economy
Reuters - January 14, 2021
President-elect Joe Biden will unveil a stimulus package proposal on Thursday designed to jump-start the economy during the coronavirus pandemic with an economic lifeline that could exceed $1.5 trillion and help minority communities. … includes a commitment for $1,400 stimulus checks, according to a source familiar with the proposal, and Biden is expected to commit to partner with private companies to increase the number of Americans getting vaccinated. A significant portion of the additional financial resources will be dedicated to minority communities.
Biden’s Covid-19 team reconsiders pandemic plan in light of more infectious coronavirus variants
STAT - January 14, 2021
[One] major theme in discussions, the advisers said, was the need to massively scale up the government’s genomic sequencing efforts so that public health officials can better monitor emerging new variants of the virus that causes Covid-19. Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board has also discussed the need to dramatically accelerate vaccine distribution in light of the more transmissible variants.
Risky driving: US traffic deaths up despite virus lockdowns
AP - January 14, 2021
The number of people killed on the nation’s highways rose 4.6% in the first nine months of 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns that curtailed driving early in the year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 28,190 people died in traffic crashes from January through September of last year, up from 26,941 in the same period of 2019. Final statistics for the full year won’t come out until fall. Authorities blamed the increase on risky driving behavior that developed when there were few vehicles on the road early in the pandemic.
Calls to reopen classrooms grow as teachers get vaccinated
AP - January 14, 2021
State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter — pressuring them, even — as teachers begin to gain access to the vaccine against the raging pandemic. Ohio’s governor offered to give vaccinations to teachers at the start of February, provided their school districts agree to resume at least some in-person instruction by March 1. In Arizona, where teachers began receiving shots this week, the governor warned schools that he expects students back in the classroom despite objections from top education officials and the highest COVID-19 diagnosis rate in the nation over the past week.
Covid cases remain lowest among younger children, even after schools reopened, study says
CNN - January 14, 2021
A new report from the CDC found that Covid-19 cases among younger children remained low even after schools restarted for in-person learning. To safely reopen schools, however, transmission in communities must be kept in check. … considered more than 2.8 million laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases in people ages zero to 24 from March 1 through December 12. More than 57% of those cases occurred among people ages 18 to 24. Cases among children and teens paralleled cases among adults through the summer and fall -- including spikes in cases in early summer followed by a decline, and then a steep increase in October through December.
Ohio researchers discover new strain of COVID-19
CBS News - January 14, 2021
Researchers at Ohio State University discovered a new variant that carries a mutation identical to the strain found in the U.K., but was likely already present in the U.S. The dangerous strain from the U.K. has been detected in 11 states. Researchers said they also found another U.S. strain with three other gene mutations that were not previously seen. The strain with three new mutations was more prominent in Columbus in recent weeks, they said.
The US has suffered its worst day ever for Covid-19 deaths
CNN - January 13, 2021
The US reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday with more than 4,320 fatalities attributed to the virus. It marked the second time -- both this month and since the pandemic's start -- that the US reported more than 4,000 Covid-19 deaths in a single day. Over the past week, the US has averaged more than 3,300 deaths every day, a jump of more than 217% from mid-November.