July continues to resemble April for the United States, and the number of deaths from the new coronavirus reaches more than 1,000 deaths for the second consecutive day as cases continue to rise in much of the south and west of the country.
According to the COVID-19 tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University, 71,695 new cases and 1,195 deaths were recorded yesterday, bringing the national total to 4,007,859 cases and 143,846 deaths today.
The nation first reached 1 million cases in late April, but saw 3 million cases on July 7, just 16 days ago.
Hospitalization rates continue to follow increasing case counts. According to the New York TimesRates are now close to the same numbers seen in mid-April, when New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak. Texas and Florida account for many of the hospitalizations and, to a lesser extent, Las Vegas, Nashville and Tulsa.
The analysis shows that at the peak of the New York City outbreak on April 11, there were 144 hospitalizations per 100,000 people. Currently in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas there are 109 hospitalizations per 100,000.
Yesterday, the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx, MD, warned several state and municipal leaders that Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St. Louis was experiencing notable increases. as a percentage of positive test results, according to an exclusive report from the Center for Public Integrity. Birx relayed this information in a phone call and urged city leaders to take aggressive action against the current outbreaks.
“What started out largely as an epidemic in the south and west is starting to move down the east coast to Tennessee, Arkansas, to Missouri, through Colorado, and we’re obviously talking about increases now in Baltimore,” said Birx. , according to a transcript of the call obtained by the Center. “So it is really critical that everyone follow this and make sure they are aggressive with mitigation efforts.”
Survey: 60% of parents say they wait to open schools
With just a few weeks until school is supposed to start in most parts of the country, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 60% of American parents said it’s better to open schools later to minimize risk, while 34% said that it is better to open schools earlier. so parents can work and children can get services. More than two-thirds (71%) said schools in their area need more resources to open safely.
Parents of color were more likely than white parents to say that it is better for schools to open later and say that their own child’s school lacks the resources it needs to reopen safely.
Despite their hesitation, most American parents are very concerned about the reopening of the school in the fall. Sixty-seven percent said they are concerned that their children will fall behind socially and emotionally if the school doesn’t reopen, and 65 percent worry about falling behind academically. About half worry about losing income if they cannot go to work (51%) or cannot pay enough attention to their children if they work at home (47%).
Eleven of the country’s 15 largest school districts have announced plans to start the 2020-2021 school year online or with a hybrid of online and distance learning in the face of increased cases, according to USA Today. Two of the country’s largest districts, Atlanta and Dallas, said they are putting off reopening plans until later in September.
Eleven of the 15 largest school systems in the US are found in communities that see infections at more than three times the rate in the 2 weeks ending May 1, the newspaper said. And all districts are in worse shape than when they closed in March.
NIH goal: 6 million tests a day
Today in New England Journal of MedicineThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the new Rapid Diagnostic Acceleration (RADx) initiative, with the goal of testing 6 million Americans every day to detect the virus with a low-cost, rapid diagnostic test in the point of attention.
RADx will operate in an “innovation funnel” design, where applications move quickly through multiple review stages with increasing scrutiny, meaning that around 15-20% of RADx Tech applications will qualify for consideration and additional review, the NIH said in a press release.
The project is funded with $ 1.5 billion allocated by Congress on April 24. The NIH said they plan to reach their goal of 6 million tests per day by December this year.
Baseball, jobs, tests
- Major League Baseball begins a shortened 60-game season today, with a socially distanced game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees. Players will play in empty stadiums and will be masked. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will launch the first launch tonight.
- For the first time in 4 months, the number of Americans applying for unemployment increased again last week, a sign that the labor market is stagnating due to the increase in COVID-19 cases. According to the latest unemployment report from the Labor Department, 32 million Americans were collecting unemployment in early July. Unemployment claims last week were 1,416 million.
- Nursing home staff will receive COVID-19 tests weekly, according to a new federal rule that will be monitored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. COVID-19 has killed at least 57,000 residents of long-term care facilities in the US since February.
