Category: Breaking News

WASHINGTON — On the eve of a new coronavirus reporting system this week, data disappeared from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website as hospitals began filing information to a private contractor or their states instead. A day later, an outcry — including from other federal health officials — prompted the Trump administration to reinstate that dashboard and another daily CDC report on the pandemic. On Thursday, the nation’s governors joined the chorus of objections over the abruptness of the change, asking the administration to delay it for 30 days. In a statement, the National Governors Association said hospitals need the time “to learn a new system, as they continue to deal with this pandemic. Meanwhile, the disappearance of the real-time data — the CDC dashboard was taken down Tuesday night before resurfacing Thursday morning — was a ripple effect of the administration’s new hospital reporting protocol that took effect Wednesday, according to a federal health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. On Thursday evening, the nation’s governors objected to the abruptness of the change, asking the administration to delay the altered requirements for 30 days. In a statement, the National Governors Association said hospitals need the time “to learn a new system, as they continue to deal with this pandemic. In addition, governors urge the administration to make this information publicly available.” The disappearance of the real-time data from the CDC dashboard, which was taken down Tuesday night before resurfacing Thursday morning, was a ripple effect of the administration’s new hospital reporting protocol that took effect Wednesday, according to a federal health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Without receiving the data firsthand, CDC officials were reluctant to maintain the dashboard — which shows the number of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and hospital bed capacity — and took it down, the federal health official said. The CDC dashboard states that its information comes directly from hospitals and does not include data submitted to “other entities contracted by or within the federal government.” It also says the dashboard will not be updated after July 14.

The dashboard “was taken down in a fit of pique,” said Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. “The idea CDC scientists cannot rely upon their colleagues in the same department for data collection, or any other scientific work, is preposterous.”

This week, the CDC, the government’s premier public health agency whose medical epidemiologists analyze the hospital data, also stopped producing reports about trends in the pandemic that had gone twice a week to states, and six days a week to officials at multiple federal agencies. Adm. Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary in the HHS who oversees coronavirus testing, was unhappy that the CDC hospital report stopped Wednesday and Thursday mornings, according to the federal health official. Caputo said that the goal is to maintain transparency, adding that conversations were still taking place between HHS officials and the CDC on a plan to keep producing the dashboard updates and the reports. “We expect a resolution,” he said.

July 16 (Reuters) – Florida reported on Thursday the largest one-day increase in deaths from the novel coronavirus since the pandemic began and its second-largest increase in cases ever. Florida announced 13,965 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases in the state and the center of the latest outbreak to over 315,775, according to the state health department. Florida’s COVID deaths rose by 156 to a total of 4,782, surpassing its previous one-day record of 133 new deaths on July 12. Hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 was the highest ever reported at 8,626 currently hospitalized, up 321 in the past 24 hours, according to a state agency.

About a third of the country’s renters are protected by an eviction moratorium that covers properties with federally insured mortgages. That expires July 25. Many renters are jobless and depend on supplemental weekly unemployment benefits of $600 that are due to end on July 31. A number of cities and states have broader protections that will remain in place longer. Boston has banned evictions from public housing through the end of the year. Pennsylvania recently extended its moratorium against evictions for nonpayment of rent until Aug. 31. The White House is negotiating with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to pass another round of economic relief during the last week of July. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said supplemental jobless benefits have created a disincentive to return to work as the economy starts to reopen and should be reduced. House Democrats voted in May to expand the eviction moratorium to cover all residential dwellings and extend it by a year. The bill included an extension of enhanced jobless benefits and $100 billion in rental assistance. The office of Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, declined to comment on any GOP plan to keep people in their homes because negotiations are under way. Paying rent is a struggle for Americans whose jobs evaporated when government-imposed lockdowns closed businesses ranging from barber shops and restaurants to stores and fitness centers. More than 18 million people were receiving unemployment insurance during the last week of June.

“They all had jobs, and they had economically viable jobs, (Nick Bit: What everyone fails to understand with the global plague many jobs of a should we say lower skill levels are no more) but we told them they couldn’t work—to protect us—and now we’re going to kick them out of their houses,” said Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project.

Depending on the jurisdiction, landlords must give notice if they plan to evict tenants, often 30 days in advance. Housing experts say some landlords are willing to offer flexibility to tenants in financial distress, given the difficulty of finding new tenants in a downturn, and about 1.5 million adults had their last rent payment deferred, according to census data. But such help isn’t always available. Homelessness rises with unemployment, according to a model by White House economist Kevin Corinth, based on data from the 2007-09 downturn. He found that each percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate forces about 21,500 people nationwide into homelessness. The U.S. jobless rate in June was 11.1%, up from 3.5% in February. Evictions have begun to creep up in cities where state moratoriums have expired, the group’s data show. Eviction filings in Milwaukee shot up to 1,447 in June, after Wisconsin’s moratorium expired, from 61 in May. “Milwaukee may be the canary in the coal mine,” said Alieza Durana, a spokeswoman for Eviction Lab. Even with eviction protection and unemployment benefits, Americans have fallen through the safety net.

Though some public health experts expected coronavirus transmission to wane in the summer as temperatures rise and the air becomes more humid, cases have actually skyrocketed in some of the hottest and stickiest parts of the country.\ Engineers and ventilation experts said this may be in part because residents escape the heat by retreating indoors where heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems could exacerbate airborne transmission with unplanned air currents. “The main way (air conditioning) can contribute to spreading coronavirus is by creating strong air currents that can move the droplets … and contribute to increase risk,” said William Bahnfleth, chair of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ Epidemic Task Force (ASHRAE) and professor at Penn State University.

Even in bars and restaurants where social distancing is observed, air ventilation can carry respiratory droplets or aerosols that contain virus, said Len Horovitz, pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published initial findings of an outbreak linked to the airflow in a Guangzhou, China, restaurant. Over the course of 12 days, nine people who dined at the restaurant Jan. 24 fell ill as a result of another patron with a COVID-19 infection, the authors determined. Within five days, three people sitting at the infected patron’s table were infected along with another below the air conditioner. Of the 91 people in the restaurant during that hour, only those at tables in the way of the air conditioner’s airflow contracted the virus. The World Health Organization only recently recognized that aerosolized droplets can lead to infection after more than 200 medical experts wrote an open letter urging the agency to react to mounting evidence and go a step further with its recommendations. “Ventilation is the key control point for an airborne virus,” said Dr. Julian Tang, one of the authors of the paper. “Based on multiple studies done by the authors, we believe that optimized ventilation is the way to move forward, removing the virus from the air before people inhale it. We think that’s one of the main ways it’s transmitted.” The best ventilation will always be outside. In hot Southern states where people want to stay indoors and enjoy the air conditioning, ventilation is dependent on HVAC systems. Though Bahnfleth said it’s possible to increase outside air through these systems, experts are not sure how much outside air is enough to diffuse virus particles as the dose of infection is unclear.

“Even if you try to increase the ventilation rate, HVAC systems have not been designed to prevent transmission of these infectious airborne diseases,” said Dilip Goswami, president, co-founder and CTO of Molekule, an indoor air purification company.

After ventilation, the next line of defense in an HVAC system is filtration. Most commercial and residential HVAC systems have a MERV 6 or 8 filter, which takes care of the basic pollen, dust, dust mites, mold and bacteria. It’s unable to capture small particles that contain virus, which can be about 1 micron.

More air-quality-conscious establishments boast a MERV 13 filter that can partially capture virus carriers, but some HVAC systems aren’t equipped to handle it. Though ventilation from the outside is able to diffuse virus particles in the air, filters can capture the virus only when it comes into the system. “Most air conditioning systems won’t filter (virus) out, and if it did filter it out, it probably went right by and right into your face first,” said Wendell Porter, senior lecturer at the University of Florida. Which brings us back to air currents. Goswami said it’s possible to manipulate air currents to make it safer for people indoors, but most establishments don’t think that far ahead. ASHRAE’s task force was established to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and provide guidance to ensure buildings are prepared for epidemics. Its recommendations include ventilation control, filtration and maintenance.

WHO agrees with more than 200 medical experts that COVID-19 may spread via the air

ASHRAE is a professional society, not a formal legal body. It’s up to states, localities and building codes to adopt recommendations to ensure a safe return to work, school and leisure. Goswami said it’s important for people to take these recommendations seriously, especially in bars and restaurants where patrons need to remove their masks to eat and drink. Many establishments enforce social distancing and mask wearing, but few take a second look at their HVAC systems to see whether they go above the minimum standards. “We knew something like this could have happened and that airborne transmission is a major problem to contain,” he said. “We need to be aware of it and make sure we do everything possible instead of the minimum of what’s possible.”

Almost half of new infections are from Texas, Florida and California

• There were 67,417 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 3.4 million infections across the US
• More than 136,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 after 900 additional fatalities were added to the death toll
• Texas reported a record 10,745 cases on Tuesday, while Florida reported 10,181 and California hit 7,346 new infections
• Meanwhile, 46 states reported more new cases of COVID-19 last week compared to the previous week
• Nationally, new COVID-19 cases have risen every week for six straight weeks
• Cases are only falling on a weekly basis in New York, Tennessee, New Jersey and Delaware

The United States has set yet another record for new coronavirus cases after hitting a single-day spike of 67,400 with almost half of those infections coming from Texas, Florida and California. Daily cases have been spiking in hot spot states in recent weeks and the US is now averaging about 60,000 infections per day. There were 67,417 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 3.4 million infections across the US.

More than 136,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 after 900 additional fatalities were added to the death toll.

Texas reported a record 10,745 cases on Tuesday, while Florida reported 10,181 and California hit 7,346 new infections. Florida also surpassed its daily record for coronavirus deaths on Tuesday with 132 additional fatalities.

There were 67,417 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 3.4 million infections across the US

More than 136,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 after 900 additional fatalities were added to the death toll. Deaths related to COVID-19 have been rising in the last week with about a dozen states reporting increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks, including California, Florida and Texas. Meanwhile, 46 states reported more new cases of COVID-19 last week compared to the previous week, according to a Reuters analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project. Nationally, new COVID-19 cases have risen every week for six straight weeks. Cases are only falling on a weekly basis in New York, Tennessee, New Jersey and Delaware. With the virus is spreading quickly in the southern and western states, one of the country’s top public health officials offered conflicting theories about what is driving the outbreak. CDC director Robert Redfield says the current spike in COVID-19 infections in the South may have been caused by people from the Northeast traveling there for vacation and not due to states reopening too quickly. Addressing the alarming surge in coronavirus cases, Redfield said on Tuesday that infections in Sun Belt states ‘simultaneously kind of popped’ in the second week of June after reopening in various phases. Redfield compared it to the initial outbreak in the Northeast in March, which he says spread out to various states from epicenter New York.

TEXAS CASES: Texas reported a record 10,745 new cases on Tuesday

 

TEXAS DEATHS: 87 new deaths were reported in Texas on Monday, down from the record 105 on July 9

CALIFORNIA: The state reported 7,346 new cases on Monday and 47 new deaths

FLORIDA CASES: The number of cases in Florida increased by 9,194, bringing the total to 291,629

FLORIDA DEATHS: Florida added a record 132 fatalities to its death toll on Monday

‘We tried to give states guidance on how to reopen safely. I think the guidance we put out was really sound,’ he said in an interview with Dr Howard Bauchner of The Journal of the American Medical Association. ‘I think if you look critically, few states actually followed that guidance, although I don’t think the reopening’s actually what’s driving the current Southern expansion right now. ‘If you look at the South, everything happened around June 12 to June 16. It all simultaneously kind of popped. ‘We’re of the view that there was something else that was the driver. Maybe the Memorial Day, not weekend, but the Memorial Day week, where a lot of Northerners decided to go South for vacations.’ Redfield said some states in the South didn’t take social distancing measures as seriously as other parts of the country when they reopened because they didn’t have huge outbreaks. This allowed the virus to spread rapidly once it was introduced and take hold in southern states, according to Redfield. ‘Something happened in mid-June that we’re now confronting right now. It’s not as simple as saying it was related to the timing of reopening and no reopening,’ he said.

New cases have been spiking in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California in recent weeks and the US is now averaging about 50,000 to 60,000 infections per day. 46 states reported more new cases of COVID-19 last week compared to the previous week CDC director Robert Redfield said on Tuesday the current spike in COVID-19 infections in the South may have been caused by people from the Northeast traveling there for vacation and not due to states reopening too quickly. Redfield did not provide any data to back up his claim that Northeast vacationers may be partly to blame for the current surge in cases. CDC officials said that there are various possible explanations and that Redfield was offering just one. Redfield said that he believes the US could get COVID-19 under control with four to eight weeks if all Americans wear a mask and continue to social distance. ‘I think if we can get everyone to wear masks right now, we can bring this under control within four, six, eight weeks,’ Redfield said. ‘I am glad to see the president and vice president wear a mask. Clearly, in their situation they could easily justify they don’t need to… but we need for them to set the example.’

He said he was ‘worried’ about the fall and winter given it coincides with the flu season.

‘I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are probably going to be one of the most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health because of… the co-occurrence of COVID and influenza,’ he said.

The Trump administration is instructing hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in reporting their COVID-19 data to the government each day, effective Wednesday. “As of July 15, 2020, hospitals should no longer report the Covid-19 information in this document to the National Healthcare Safety Network site,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a document providing guidelines for hospitals on how to submit coronavirus data. The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) site is managed by the CDC. The administration says that it’s changing the way data is reported because it’s trying to streamline the process, stating that there are “many separate” government entities asking for duplicate information. According to guidance issued by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the federal government will use the data to calculate how resources, treatment and supplies are allocated. The daily data reporting it demands from hospitals will be “the only mechanism” used to make the government’s calculations. In the past it has made “one-time requests for data” for use in determining how treatments like Remdesivir should be distributed. In the document, HHS directs hospitals and health care providers to submit data about their handling of the pandemic every day — including information about patients, the number of beds and ventilators available, and staffing shortages — through a portal on the HHS website that was launched on April 10. “The completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of the data will inform the COVID-19 Task Force decisions on capacity and resource needs to ensure a fully coordinated effort across America,” the document says.