More than 1,000 health professionals have signed an open letter asking the United States to resume its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The restart would essentially mean another shutdown in critical states, with all spurious businesses closed, universal mask mandates, and a federally controlled response to the new coronavirus.
Similarly, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Safety released a new report yesterday called “Restoring Our Response: Necessary Changes in the United States’ Approach to COVID-19.” Like the letter, the report suggests closing nonessential businesses, including bars, at hot spots, and requiring the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions.
“The basis for the response in each community should be what it has been for so many successful countries in the world: universal masking, individual physical distance, hand hygiene, and avoiding large gatherings, particularly indoors. Without having these measures in place, it will be difficult to maintain control of outbreaks or to turn the corner of an accelerating outbreak, “wrote the authors of the Johns Hopkins report, including former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tom Frieden, MD.
At critical points, which could mean states, cities, or counties, the authors suggest that governors start with a 2-week lockdown when hospital systems are near capacity or cases are increasing.
“The closings need not reflect those implemented in the spring, when less was known about the epidemiology of COVID-19. The closings should include high-risk indoor environments where people congregate, such as bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, gyms and religious interior spaces, and possibly interior offices where the risk of transmission cannot be reduced through mitigation efforts, “the report says.
Today in “Good Morning America,” Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, of Harvard University, said the United States must focus on three key changes to stop the current trajectory of the pandemic: wearing masks, fixing tests, and avoiding meetings in inside.
The daily death toll continues to rise in the US as the economy takes another hit
The United States yesterday reported 70,766 new cases of COVID-19, with 1,403 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Database. Although the number of daily deaths is still below the peak of spring, the numbers are expected to increase.
Overall, the United States has 4,461,585 cases and 151,451 deaths.
Today, new data from the Commerce Department shows that US economic output fell 9.5% in the second quarter, since the pandemic began in March and April, with an annual drop of 32.9%.
According to the New York TimesThis is the largest drop in gross domestic production in the modern history of the United States.
The weekly Labor Department report shows that the number of Americans filing new unemployment claims totaled 1.43 million last week, the second consecutive weekly increase. This is the nineteenth week in a row that the number of Americans applying for unemployment exceeded one million.
And most Americans who lost their jobs due to the pandemic have now received their latest weekly supplemental support check of $ 600 as part of the CARES Act. The weekly payments will expire tomorrow, and lawmakers have yet to agree on future supplemental payments. Republican members of the Senate have suggested $ 200 a week, top white Democrats are pushing to keep the amount at $ 600.
Other news from USA
- Wisconsin is the last state to issue a mandate to cover its face. Governor Tony Evers has said the masks should be worn indoors until the end of September, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
- The Ohio State Board of Pharmacies prohibits pharmacies from dispensing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for use in patients with COVID-19.
- The first human trials for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine candidate begin today in the United States and Belgium. According to Reuters, more than 1,000 healthy adults ages 18 to 55, as well as adults ages 65 and older, will be included in the trial.
