Coronavirus Alert: U.S. Cases Top 1 Million, Lockdowns Ease, Resurgence Concerns Loom
Coronavirus Alert: U.S. Cases Top 1 Million, Lockdowns Ease, Resurgence
Concerns Loom
The
Latest Numbers (as of April 28, 2020, at 6 p.m. EDT)
Cases have surpassed 1 million in the United States and 3.1
million worldwide. With more than one million confirmed cases out of more
than three million worldwide, and more than 58,000 deaths, the United States
has the highest number of infections and fatalities in the world.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center maintains
an ongoing count of the COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States and
worldwide. As of April 28, the tally is:
·
Total cases worldwide: 3,110,219 (up from 3,034,801 Monday)
·
Total deaths worldwide: 216,160 (up from 210,551 Monday)
·
Total recoveries: 923,724 (up from 891,548 Monday)
·
Total cases in the United States: 1,010,717 (up from 985,374
Monday)
·
Total deaths in the United States: 58,365 (up from 55,906
Monday)
New York’s single-day death toll remains low. In his Tuesday
briefing, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters that
the single-day death toll had fallen to 335 — a significant drop from 422 on
Friday, and the lowest count since the end of March. For the first time in more
than a month, less than 1,000 people were admitted to hospitals for coronavirus
treatment on Monday.
There are signs worldwide that the virus is slowing. The Wall Street Journal indicated that the spread of the
virus appears to be slowing. Japan had its lowest daily level of new infections
in three weeks on Monday with just 39 new cases in Tokyo. The daily infection
rate has fallen to 1.5 percent from a high of about 12 percent. Vietnam reported
having just two infections in the past 10 days. New Zealand confirmed one new
case on Monday. “There is no widespread undetected community transmission in
New Zealand,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. “We have won that battle.”
Britain is seeing a downward trend in hospitalizations, and Spain is easing its
lockdown as the country recorded its lowest death toll on Saturday of 288, according to the BBC.
Still, some countries are
experiencing significant increases in infections. Aljazeera News said Turkey on Monday
recorded 2,357 new cases. Canada's daily death toll reached
2,489 from 2,350 the previous day. An analysis in The New York Times on Friday showed that the number of
coronavirus-related deaths in Ecuador may be far higher than officially
reported. President Trump pledged on Friday to send more ventilators to the
country, according to Reuters. On Tuesday, Russia
extended its nonworking period until May 11 and announced a record 6,411 new
cases, according to The Washington Post.
More than 5.7 million Americans have been tested so far. A total of 5,776,829
individuals have been tested in the United States for the detection of
SARS-CoV-2 as of April 28, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource
Center.
Alaska, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas have set policies in motion to
allow some businesses to reopen over the next two weeks.
In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine is letting
offices reopen on May 4 and retail business can resume operations on May 12 as
part of his Responsible Restart Ohio Plan.
Governor Greg Abbott’s Strike Force to Open Texas will allow his
stay-at-home order to expire this week, with certain businesses permitted to
reopen on Friday. Retail businesses, restaurants, cinemas, and malls can reopen
but must limit capacity to 25 percent.
NPR said that as Tennessee restaurants
open their doors to dine-in customers today for the first time in almost a
month, the state has reported 478 newly confirmed COVID-19 infections, its
highest single-day jump.
Macy’s, Gap, TGI Friday's,
and other national chains say they will pass on the early phase of reopening in
states such as Georgia and South Carolina, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Anthony Fauci, MD,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has
cautioned that returning too quickly to life as it was before the pandemic
could backfire, according to The Los Angeles Times.
On Monday, Colorado and Nevada joined California, Oregon, and
Washington in the Western States Pact committing to work
together to slow the spread of the virus and share information. “We must have a
multifaceted and bold approach in order to slow the spread of the virus, to
keep our people safe and help our economy rebound,” said Colorado Governor
Jared Polis.
With the New York State
lockdown set to expire on May 15, Governor Andrew Cuomo said that construction
and manufacturing might begin to reopen. On Tuesday, he outlined a 12-step plan
to reopen parts of the state while trying to keep the coronavirus pandemic from
flaring up again.
Italy and France have announced plans to ease the nationwide
lockdown. In an interview on Sunday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe
Conte shared plans for Italy to reopen its economy and daily life beginning on
May 4, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Conte advised citizens to remain vigilant with social distancing measures or
the infection rate could resurge.
On Tuesday, French Prime
Minister Édouard Philippe unveiled plans to let shops and markets resume
operations starting May 11 but not bars and restaurants, the BBC reported. A gradual reopening of
schools in France will begin as well.
On Monday, Dr. Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, warned that
lifting restrictions means “balancing lives against livelihoods,” according to The New York Times.
The transmission rate rises in Germany as restrictions ease. Deutsche Welle said that figures from the Robert
Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control showed Monday that the infection rate
has ticked up to 1.0, meaning each infected person is passing the virus on to
one other. When Germany began to reopen the country in mid-April, the infection
rate had dropped as low as 0.7. Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that if
infection rates increase it may push the limits of the country’s health system.
Certain cancers may triple the risk of dying from coronavirus, a
study says. Research published Tuesday in Cancer Discovery suggests
that cancer patients with blood or lung malignancies, or tumors that have
spread throughout the body, face a threefold higher risk of death from the
coronavirus. The study out of China included 105 cancer patients and 536
age-matched non-cancer patients. Patients with hematological cancer, lung
cancer, or metastatic cancer (stage 4) had the highest frequency of severe
events, noted the investigators.
Poison center calls spiked after Trump commented on
disinfectants. Poison control centers in a number of states have reported a
rise in calls about exposure to household cleaners since President Trump made
remarks suggesting that disinfectants should be looked into as a possible
treatment for the coronavirus, reported The Hill on Sunday. The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution on Tuesday
published an account of two men in Georgia drinking liquid
cleaning products over the weekend in an attempt to ward off COVID-19.
Dr. Birx sees encouraging signs, but social distancing will
probably remain through summer. On Sunday’s "Meet the Press," Deborah Birx, MD, the White House coronavirus
task force coordinator, said that many social distancing measures that have
been established will most likely keep going through the summer to keep the
outbreak under control. She stressed that a “breakthrough” on coronavirus
testing is urgently needed to get a more accurate view of how and where the
virus is spreading. The latest trends in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths
nationwide, however, have given her “great hope” that there will be slow
reopenings over the next months.
Tyson, in a full-page ad, warned that the food supply chain is
breaking. A full-page ad published in Sunday
editions of The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, penned by Tyson Foods Chairman of the Board John
Tyson, said that “the food supply chain is breaking” due to recent closures of
meat processing facilities. Outbreaks at major meatpacking plants in
Logansport, Indiana; Waterloo, Iowa; Sioux Falls, North Dakota; and elsewhere
around that country have forced these operations to shutter. Tyson cautions
that there will be a limited supply of products available in grocery stores
until the processing facilities are able to reopen.
The CDC added six new symptoms of COVID-19. Since the
coronavirus epidemic began, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) has told people to watch for fever, cough, and shortness of breath. The CDC has now expanded the list of possible
virus indicators to include chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain,
headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell. Symptoms usually appear
within 2 to 14 days of exposure.
The first U.S. dog tested positive for coronavirus. North Carolina’s WRAL-TV reported that
the first dog in the country has tested positive with COVID-19. Winston, a pug
belonging to a family in Chapel Hill, was found to have the illness during a
test conducted by Duke University. Family members also tested positive for
COVID-19, and it is suspected that they got the virus through the father, who
works in the emergency room at UNC Hospitals.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that two cats in New York
had tested positive for the novel coronavirus after showing respiratory
symptoms. According to a joint statement from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the CDC, the cats “were the first pets in the United States to
test positive.”
An ER doctor on the front lines in New York City has died by
suicide. Lorna
Breen, MD, the medical director of the emergency department at
NewYork–Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died by suicide on Sunday, according to The New York Times.
Dr. Breen had been caring for coronavirus patients and recently recovered from
the virus herself. Her father told the media that his daughter and her
colleagues were putting in 18-hour days and sleeping in hallways, and that
ambulances at her hospital couldn't get in because it was so busy. At the time
of her death, Breen was visiting her family in Virginia, where she had been
treated for exhaustion at a local hospital and was recuperating.
Scientists are exploring a link between COVID-19 and childhood
inflammatory illness. Earlier this week, Britain’s Paediatric Intensive Care Society issued
an alert to doctors noting that in the past three weeks the number of children
with “a multisystem inflammatory state requiring intensive care” has increased.
The organization indicated a “growing concern” that either a COVID-19-related
syndrome was emerging in children or that a different, unidentified disease
might be responsible. Similar cases identified in Italy and Spain appear to be
Kawasaki disease.
“Doctors need to be aware
that COVID infection may be triggering this inflammation,” says Marc Eisenberg, MD, a cardiologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in
New York City. “Doctors can then initiate early treatment to hopefully prevent
these long-term complications, such as aneurysms of the coronary arteries. The
treatment usually consists of aspirin and an IV [intravenous] immunoglobulin
treatment.”
The Olympics chief says the Games could be canceled. The Tokyo Olympics,
which are currently rescheduled for July 23 through August 8, 2021, may be
“scrapped” if the pandemic is not over by next year, said Tokyo 2020
Olympic Games Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori in an interview
Tuesday, according to Forbes magazine. Still, Mori underscored that
he expected the Games to take place as rescheduled. “The Olympics would be much
more valuable than any Olympics in the past if we could go ahead with it after
winning this battle. We have to believe this, otherwise our hard work and
efforts will not be rewarded,” Mori said.
The NBA eyes May 8 to reopen practice sites for players. The NBA, which had planned on reopening some
practice facilities as early as Friday, has pushed that date to May 8 at the
earliest. The organization wants to make sure that these areas are safe before
allowing some select workouts. Current restrictions will limit activity to no
more than four players at a facility at any one time.
Could heartburn medication offer relief from coronavirus? The journal Science reported that New York City
hospitals have been conducting trials of famotidine, the active compound in the
over-the-counter heartburn drug Pepcid, as a possible coronavirus treatment.
The article says that the research has been kept secret for fear that the drug
supply would be snatched up before investigators could secure a research
stockpile.
The study, conducted by
Northwell Health, has enrolled 187 COVID-19 patients in critical status so far
and is aiming for about 1,200. Reports from China suggest that the drug could
have a positive effect on severe respiratory illness because it may inhibit a
key enzyme that helps the virus replicate. Scientists indicate that they should
have a better idea if the drug may work or not in a few weeks after initial
results are analyzed.
President Trump approved the $4.8 billion stimulus package, and
the SBA website crashed. As the Small Business Administration (SBA) opened form
request for emergency aid on Monday, its computer system for processing loans
crashed, according to The New York Times.
On Friday, President Trump signed into law a $4.84
billion relief package approved by the House and Senate. The measure will
increase funding for small businesses, hospitals, and COVID-19 testing.
At least 47 tested positive aboard a Navy warship. CNN reported Monday that close to 50
sailors have tested positive for COVID-19 aboard the U.S. Navy warship USS
Kidd; the vessel has a crew of about 330. This follows the news of an ongoing outbreak aboard the San Diego-based
aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. A total of 955 of that crew tested
positive.
The FDA has warned of hydroxychloroquine use outside of a
hospital setting. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday
cautioned against the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine
for COVID-19 outside of a hospital setting or clinical trial. The consumer
health agency cited serious heart rhythm problems in patients with coronavirus
who received the medication often in combination with azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pak). The heart
rhythm problems include QT interval prolongation (a condition
that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats) and a dangerously rapid heart rate
called ventricular tachycardia.
Matthew G. Heinz, MD, hospitalist and
internist at Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, told Everyday Health,
“Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are not benign substances and can have
serious adverse effects on COVID-19 patients, especially the elderly and those
who suffer from cardiac disease.”
You can read more about
the latest coronavirus research in our article on fast-track research.
How to Help
Blood Donors Needed
The American Red Cross is seeking people who
have fully recovered from the coronavirus to sign up to donate plasma to help
current COVID-19 patients. You may qualify to donate plasma if you meet
specific convalescent plasma and regular blood donation requirements. The FDA
offers more information about plasma donations on its website.
Help the Hungry
As the
result of job losses, school closures, and health concerns related to the
COVID-19 pandemic, many communities and individuals are in need across America. Feeding America is seeking donations to
support food banks nationwide.
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