Coronavirus Updates November 2020...please add yours.

[Matata]

The governor put us into a "pause" beginning today through the 25th:

• Urging all businesses to mandate work from home to the greatest extent possible.
• Pausing long-term care facility visits to protect staff and residents.
• Reducing maximum restaurant capacity to 50 people (including customers and staff) for indoor dining, with a maximum party size of six. Continuing to encourage outdoor dining and take out.
• Reducing other indoor activity maximums capacity to 50 people (for example: gyms, fitness organizations/studios, bowling alleys, ice rinks, indoor sports, pools, museums).
• Limiting social gatherings to your household, or no more than 6 people if the gathering includes those from outside your household, reducing the frequency of those social gatherings (significantly in a two-week period), and keeping the same 6 people in your social gathering circle.

 

[Karl_K]

ugh very good friends of mine, their son in law is positive with possible exposure for others in the family some of whom are very very high risk. So far 2 negatives thank God.

 

[missy]

My update this morning is there are many people here behaving recklessly. Here we are in November. A full 8 months plus since this began in the USA in earnest and people are still behaving irresponsibly and without care towards others. Please someone tell me what is so hard about being respectful towards others and giving a darn about protecting your fellow human beings and wearing a mask properly in the stores? At Costco yesterday a young adult woman (20s or so) had her mask under her nose. I asked her nicely to put it over her nose and she just grunted and walked away. SMH. That is my Coronavirus update from the jersey shore where some people are m****s.

ugh very good friends of mine, their son in law is positive with possible exposure for others in the family some of whom are very very high risk. So far 2 negatives thank God.

Sorry Karl and I hope your friend's son in law recovers fully and everyone around him remains well.

 

[missy]

On a more formal note.

As U.S. Breaks Hospitalization Records, N.Y. and Other States Add Restrictions (Published 2020)

Starting Friday, New York will limit private gatherings to 10 people and require bars and restaurants to close nightly at 10 p.m. School officials in Philadelphia, San Diego, Minneapolis and several other large cities hit pause on their reopening plans because of surging coronavirus cases.

www.nytimes.com

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As U.S. Breaks Hospitalization Records, N.Y. and Other States Add Restrictions
Last Updated
Nov. 12, 2020, 5:19 a.m. ET
Nov. 12, 2020, 5:19 a.m. ET
Starting Friday, New York will limit private gatherings to 10 people and require bars and restaurants to close nightly at 10 p.m. School officials in Philadelphia, San Diego, Minneapolis and several other large cities hit pause on their reopening plans because of surging coronavirus cases.
This briefing has ended. Follow our latest coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s what you need to know:

• N.Y. will limit private gatherings and require bars and restaurants to close daily at 10 p.m.
• The Ohio governor issues a mask mandate, joining other states that are implementing new restrictions.
• Three more White House staffers test positive, at least one of them after attending an election night event.
• Newark’s mayor imposes new restrictions as the city reaches a positivity rate of 19%.
• Two new studies by the U.S. Navy confirm the need for strict coronavirus testing protocols.
• Disease experts see Covid-19 trends worsening in the U.S.
• South Africa will lift restrictions on all international travel.
• The surging virus in the U.S. finds a federal leadership vacuum.

N.Y. will limit private gatherings and require bars and restaurants to close daily at 10 p.m.

Union Square in Manhattan on Monday.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
With coronavirus cases surging in New York and across the country, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that private indoor and outdoor gatherings statewide would be limited to 10 people and that gyms, bars and restaurants must close daily at 10 p.m.
The restrictions will take effect Friday, and Mr. Cuomo said that local governments will be responsible for enforcing them. The limit on gatherings will apply to private homes. The curfew will apply only to bars and restaurants licensed by the state liquor authority, and restaurants can continue to provide takeout and delivery after 10 p.m., but only for food.
Mr. Cuomo said that officials were moved to announce the new restrictions as they confronted an increase in cases.
“Bars, restaurants, gyms, house parties,” Mr. Cuomo said on a conference call with reporters. “That’s where it’s coming from, primarily.”
After months when the New York City area had seemed to keep the pandemic relatively contained, the virus has again increased sharply in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the region that was once at the center of the U.S. outbreak.
Though cases and hospitalizations are significantly lower than they were at the spring peak, officials in all three states have acknowledged that they are considering additional restrictions that would roll back the slow, cautious reopening process — particularly as cooling weather drives people indoors, where the virus more easily spreads.
In a marked difference from the spring, the wave in the metropolitan area coincides with a surge nationwide. The United States has been shattering daily records for new cases, pushing the seven-day average to more than 123,000 per day, as of Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. For the first time, new cases surpassed 140,000 on Wednesday.
And 65,368 people were hospitalized across the country with Covid-19 on Wednesday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, the largest number at any point during the pandemic.
“And New York is a ship on the Covid tide,” Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday on a conference call with reporters.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that the citywide seven-day average rate of positive test results was at 2.52 percent — a rate last seen in early June, when the city had only just begun reopening nonessential business after a devastating spring that saw thousands die.
“This is our LAST chance to stop a second wave,” Mr. de Blasio wrote on Twitter. “We can do it, but we have to act NOW.”
Cases have since been rising across all five boroughs, including Staten Island, which has long bristled at virus-related limits. Over the past week, New York City has seen an average of 1,142 cases a day, a jump of 77 percent from just two weeks earlier.
Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday that parts of Staten Island would be designated a “yellow zone” in his color-coded tier system of restrictions, which requires more testing in schools.
The state has also designated parts of Port Chester, a suburban community of about 29,000 in Westchester County on the border with Connecticut, as an “orange zone,” which closes schools for at least four days, limits capacity at religious institutions, bans indoor dining and closes high-risk businesses like gyms and hair salons.
In New York State, the seven-day average rate of positive test results was 2.43 percent on Wednesday, the highest the figure has been since late May when the state was doing less testing than it is now. The state also reported 1,628 hospitalizations, its highest total since mid-June, though far short of the peak in April of more than 18,000.
In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy has put new limits on indoor dining that begin Thursday night, in what he said was a bid to avoid the sweeping shutdowns that brought the region’s economy to a standstill in March. New Jersey’s coronavirus hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last month, from 653 to 1,801.
The number of people hospitalized has also surged in Connecticut, to 548, the highest total since May 29, according to state data.
Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut has also limited all private gatherings in the state to 10 people, lowered capacity limits on restaurants and allowed the hardest-hit municipalities to reimpose limits on other businesses.
— Michael Gold
Tracking the Coronavirus ›

	United StatesOn Nov. 11	14-day change	Trend
New cases	142,755	+69%
New deaths	1,431	+36%

WorldOn Nov. 11	14-day change	Trend
618,336	+24%
9,841	+37%

Where cases per capita are highest
N.D.
S.D.
Iowa
Wis.
Wyo.
Neb.
Ill.
Minn.
Kan.
Mont.
Utah
Idaho
Ind.
Alaska
Mo.
U.S. hot spots ›
College cases ›
Worldwide ›


The Ohio governor issues a mask mandate, joining other states that are implementing new restrictions.

Wearing masks are now required at businesses in Ohio as new restrictions to prevent coronavirus infections go into effect.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Some have pleaded. Some cajoled. Some scolded. Some invoked the past, some the future.
Since Election Day, more than one-third of the governors across the United States have issued public appeals for people to take coronavirus prevention measures seriously, as the number of cases and hospitalizations spike in most of the country.
In a televised address, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio invoked the Veterans Day holiday on Wednesday, noting that previous generations had laid down their lives to protect the country.
“Today we all must do something far less dramatic, but very important,” he said. “Wear a mask, so that your friends, neighbors and family members might live.”
To put teeth into that admonition, the governor announced that stores would be closed for 24 hours if a team of inspectors found that workers or customers at any retailer ignored the mask rule two times. In other measures, he banned dancing and games at social gatherings, and said participants in banquets, weddings and funeral receptions could not longer congregate.
If the numbers continued to mount, Gov. DeWine said, there would be new restrictions on bars, restaurants and gyms within a week, and universities would be asked to stick to remote learning in January.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers made a similar prime-time speech on Tuesday night, advising residents to change their lives to help contain the virus.
“It’s not safe to have others over — it’s just not safe,” Mr. Evers said, adding that virtual hangouts were better for the foreseeable future. “So please, cancel the happy hours, dinner parties, sleepovers and play dates at your home. ”
Numerous governors warned that new mandatory measures, which many have avoided, might be coming if mounting case counts put severe pressure on medical facilities.
In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak cautioned residents that they had roughly 14 days to get in line. “Nevadans need to accept and understand this reality now, and change behaviors immediately,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “In the next two weeks, we must see a significant reversal of the current trends, which are deeply concerning now.”
Many governors have pleaded for patience, recognizing that combating Covid-19 has been a difficult slog. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, stressing the positive preliminary results that Pfizer announced on Monday for its experimental vaccine, said, “I hope the good news about a vaccine inspires us to double down on social distancing in Colorado.”
Some governors appealed to patriotism, or unity, or protecting the family.
In Idaho, where virus prevention measures have drawn protests about tyranny, Gov. Brad Little cited Veterans Day too.
“Our veterans bravely encountered bullets and bombs so that you can have the freedom to control your own actions,” the governor wrote in an opinion piece. “And your personal actions are the one and only thing that will defend our veterans from succumbing to the enemy virus.”
Inevitably some, including the governors of North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, have imposed new measures in all or part of their states, often focused on indoor gatherings. In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that private indoor and outdoor gatherings statewide would be limited to 10 people and that gyms, bars and restaurants must close nightly at 10 p.m. starting Friday.
The Federal government got in the act too, with the National Park Service announcing this week that the 98th National Tree Lighting Ceremony would not include a live audience. The ceremony will be streamed at thenationaltree.org on Thursday, Dec. 3, and the tree on display there throughout the season.
California is about to broach the one million case mark, a threshold reached only by Texas so far, with more than 996,000 cases as of Wednesday and a recent average of more than 6,400 cases a day. San Francisco has banned indoor dining again starting next Sunday, paused high school reopenings and limited gyms and movie theaters to 25 percent of capacity.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the state’s numbers “sobering” and predicted that they would probably climb with the onset of winter, in a “twindemic” of Covid-19 and flu.
Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah took some of the most drastic recent measures, declaring a new state of emergency on Sunday and instituting a statewide mask mandate.
One of the bluntest entreaties came in Maryland, which lowered the ceiling on indoor dining capacity to 50 percent of capacity Wednesday and capped indoor gatherings at 25 people. In a news conference last week, Gov. Larry Hogan warned against complacency.
“I mean, it’s simple, it’s not that hard,” he said. “Just wear the damn masks.”
— Neil MacFarquhar



Three more White House staffers test positive, at least one of them after attending an election night event.
Three more White House staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus, including at least one, the political director, Brian Jack, who attended an election night event at the White House, people familiar with the diagnoses said on Wednesday.
Mr. Jack tested positive over the weekend, one of the people said.
Image

The White House political director Brian Jack in January.Credit...Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
Three other people had previously tested positive after attending the election night event: Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief of staff; Ben Carson, the housing secretary; and David Bossie, an adviser to Mr. Trump who is leading the charge on lawsuits and other efforts related to contesting the election outcome in several states.
Several hundred people gathered at the event in the East Room for several hours, many of them not wearing masks as they mingled and watched election returns.
After another event at the White House — a celebration of Mr. Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Sept. 26 — more than a dozen aides, reporters and guests who were in attendance or came into contact with people who were there tested positive for the virus.
— Maggie Haberman


Newark’s mayor imposes new restrictions as the city reaches a positivity rate of 19%.

A line of customers order at Calandra’s Bakery in Newark on Wednesday, as the city operates under new restrictions because of a sharp increase of coronavirus cases.Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
Two weeks ago, as the coronavirus began to spread widely again in Newark, officials imposed New Jersey’s toughest new restrictionssince the spring lockdown, mandating an 8 p.m. indoor closing time for all restaurants, bars and nonessential businesses citywide.
But the number of new cases in Newark, the state’s largest city, kept climbing, with 842 new reported infections over the last four days. Of those people tested in Newark over three days last week, 19 percent were found to have the virus, city and county officials said — more than double the statewide rate, and almost eight times the rate in New York State.
The uptick mirrors a spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations across New Jersey to levels not seen since June.
On Tuesday, New Jersey recorded 3,777 new infections, the most since April — a figure the governor called “devastating.” Hospitals also reported 15 coronavirus deaths, adding to the state’s pandemic death toll of more than 16,400.
Newark sits just a few miles west of New York City, where officials are struggling to contain a spike on Staten Island and bracing for a second wave of cases.
Alarmed by the new data, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, implemented a sweeping set of rules on Tuesday designed to avoid a repeat of the springtime outbreak. Mr. Baraka ordered a 9 p.m. weekday curfew for residents of three ZIP codes, and canceled all team sports activities citywide, effective immediately. He barred Newark’s nursing homes from accepting visitors for two weeks, and capped gatherings — indoors and outdoors — at 10 people until at least Dec. 1.
Aides said Mr. Baraka would not hesitate to shut down businesses, issue fines and suspend liquor licenses if needed.
The tough talk created tension between Gov. Philip D. Murphy and Mr. Baraka, allies and fellow Democrats. Mr. Murphy this week imposed a 10 p.m. closing time on restaurants and bars, among other restrictions, but he has resisted ordering a statewide lockdown.When asked about Newark’s rules, Mr. Murphy’s top lawyer, Parimal Garg, said that state law superseded municipal actions.
Perry N. Halkitis, a dean of biostatistics and urban-global public health at the School of Public Health at Rutgers University,said that an emphasis on quelling indoor drinking during late-night hours, when inhibitions drop, was appropriate. He also said he was equally concerned about private indoor gatherings that are harder to monitor.
“You really love your family?” said Dr. Halkitis. “For Thanksgiving, you should not be with them.”
— Kevin Armstrong and Tracey Tully


Wincing at high community case rates, major districts put off reopening schools.

Princess Bryant, a Boston public school teacher, holds her kindergarten class via video-conference from her apartment.Credit...Brian Snyder/Reuters
School officials in Philadelphia, San Diego, Minneapolis and several other large cities hit pause on their reopening plans this week, joining a number of districts across the United States that have delayed bringing students back to classrooms because of surging coronavirus cases.
Washington and Boston have also reversed course on reopenings recently, and Chicago has not yet set a return date. Any school district that has not already reopened its classrooms is now facing significant headwinds to do so in 2020.
Although research indicates that children are less likely than adults to spread the virus, many health experts say that schools cannot safely reopen while community transmission is rampant — even though remote schooling can carry a heavy social and economic cost.
“Most of the country — when you look at the map, a lot of them have case rates that I would say are too high to open schools,” said Benjamin Linas, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University. “It’s a crisis for public education.”
There are many parts of the United States — including Florida, Texas and New York City — where schools are fully or partially open. Baltimore still plans to bring some students back to classrooms next week, though it has slashed the number of schools that will reopen.
With the country posting record numbers of cases and hospitalizations, the window for reopening is closing rapidly. Much will depend on the course the pandemic takes over the next few months, as colder weather drives people to spend more time indoors, where the virus spreads more easily. Gatherings for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays are also likely to sow new outbreaks.
“If we put a plan in place and really try to control the epidemic, I think it’s possible that schools could stay open or reopen in January or February,” Dr. Linas said. “But that is going to require a national Covid strategy.”
— Amelia Nierenberg and Adam Pasick



These researchers tested positive for the coronavirus, but not because they were infected.

Dr. Timothy Wannier, a researcher at Harvard University, came into contact with the coronavirus’s genetic material, which caused him to test positive for the disease without being infected.Credit...Adam Glanzman for The New York Times
Scientists in at least half a dozen universities and research centers in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus — not because they were infected, but because they were studying the virus’s genetic material and that contaminated their tests.
In recent months, labs around the country have begun research projects that involve the coronavirus’s genes, harmless hunks of molecules that pose no infectious threat. But those genes also happen to be the targets of several widely used coronavirus tests. Researchers who inadvertently inhale or touch the genetic material may be contaminating the swabs used to sample their airways, tricking tests into labeling them as infected, even when they are actually virus-free.
Contaminated positives such as these are extremely rare, health experts said. People outside the research community should not worry about their own test results. Blame also should not be pinned on the test, which did its intended job of rooting out the virus’s genetic material.
“This isn’t the fault of any test,” said Dr. Rosemary She, a pathologist and diagnostics expert at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the contamination events. “This is human error.”
But in a nation with a patchwork approach to testing, and where a great many researchers have rapidly pivoted to studying the coronavirus, contaminations are occurring with unexpected frequency. These issues have struck labs at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, Roger Williams University, Cornell University and elsewhere, delivering puzzling results to anxious scientists, prompting building closures and fueling frustration with tests — which could cause people to avoid taking them altogether, damaging efforts to keep the virus in check.
“We’ve never had a situation where so many labs work on a pathogen” amid a pandemic and had so much asymptomatic testing, said Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the University of California who was not involved in the contamination events. As a result, there are few contingency plans in place to deal with such unusual testing errors.
Guidelines published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend against retesting people within 90 days of a positive result. There are no explicit exceptions for potential contamination. Many individuals whose tests were likely contaminated, across several institutions, stopped getting tested for weeks or months because their positive results had been treated as legitimate, despite the possibility they were still vulnerable to the virus.
Without more flexibility in their policies to account for these unusual testing errors, Dr. Butler-Wu said, states and universities could soon “have an outbreak on their hands.”
— Katherine J. Wu

Two new studies by the U.S. Navy confirm the need for strict coronavirus testing protocols.

Marine recruits training on an obstacle course at Parris Island Recruit Depot, S.,C., in May.Credit...Lolita Baldor/Associated Press
Young, healthy people who contract the coronavirus are often asymptomatic, very rarely need hospital care and can transmit the virus to a roommate unwittingly even when following strict quarantine orders, according to two new studies from the U.S. Navy.
The findings support the need for strong measures, like daily testing, that go beyond the temperature checks and symptom reporting now commonly deployed to prevent transmission in offices, dormitories and other group settings, the authors said.
“These findings all point to the need for ongoing testing strategies,” said Dr. Andrew G. Letizia, a commander and infectious disease specialist at the Naval Medical Research Center, in Silver Spring, Md., and lead author of one of the studies. “We need to augment public health measures and reinforce them with regular testing” in such settings.
The new reports, both posted Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, clarify much of what is known or suspected about the coronavirus’s effect on young adults, while also exposing the limits of quarantine measures.
One study, led by Dr. Letizia, detailed the rate of new infections detected among nearly 2,000 recruits under quarantine near Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot, in South Carolina, over the summer. It was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The other report described an outbreak on the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier on which nearly a quarter of the crew — more than 1,200 seamen and women — tested positive last spring.
“The approaches learned from the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt and Parris Island can be applied, with varying degrees of relevance, to land-based shared living situations,” wrote Dr. Nelson L. Michael, of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in an accompanying editorial, “such as college dormitories, prisons, and residential care facilities, as well as sports training environments, meat-processing facilities, and isolated energy plants.”
— Benedict Carey



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[missy]

"
Disease experts see Covid-19 trends worsening in the U.S.

Tents for patients who tested positive for Covid-19 outside of a hospital in El Paso on Tuesday.Credit...Joel Angel Juarez for The New York Times
Infectious disease experts warned on Wednesday that the surge in coronavirus cases in many parts of the United States is likely to get much worse over the next few weeks. And despite the recent promising news about a vaccine by the drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech, wide distribution of a vaccine will take time.
“It’s helpful to know there is an end in sight, but that end is not going to appear magically in January, February or March,” said Dr. Andrew Pavia, an infectious disease specialist at University of Utah School of Medicine, at a news conference by the Infectious Diseases Society of America on Wednesday about the spread of Covid-19 in rural areas.
“That end is next summer or fall,” Dr. Pavia said. “That’s a hard message to give, but it’s critical.”
On Monday, Pfizer said an early analysis of its vaccine trial found the vaccine to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing Covid-19. But that initial finding could change as the trial goes on.
Dr. Pavia noted that in his region, the Mountain West, the health care system was already strained as the holiday season loomed.
“The situation in the hospitals is going to be quite a bit worse in the next two to three weeks than it is today,” he said. “If Thanksgiving does the same thing to us that Memorial Day did and Labor Day did, and people gather, as we all want to do, without taking precautions, we could see another acceleration going into Christmas.”
He noted that even if a vaccine is approved soon, people must continue to rely on masks and social distancing for months to come, because initial vaccine supplies will be limited and will be reserved for health care workers and other front line workers.
Dr. Pavia and Dr. Daniel McQuillen, who is the president-elect of the association, called for an end to the politicization of the pandemic, and for leaders to send a clear, consistent message backed by scientific data to promote health precautions that can be taken by individuals.
Dr. McQuillen said public health agencies and political leaders, including President Trump, “need to tell the truth, and tell people what the reality is and how we’re going to get out of it, without any sugarcoating.”
Dr. Pavia added: “We have to take politics out of this. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you’re susceptible to the virus, and masks work just as well.”
— Roni Caryn Rabin



Maryland football halts all activities and cancels game against Ohio State after players test positive.


The University of Maryland halted its football-related activities on Wednesday and canceled its game this weekend against Ohio State after eight players tested positive for the virus within the past seven days.
“We realize that this news is disappointing to all of the Maryland fans out there who were looking forward to the Terps taking on an outstanding Ohio State team, but the responsible thing for us to do is pause football activities,” said Damon Evans, Maryland’s athletic director, in the announcement.
Michael Locksley, the team’s coach, said it would continue to meet virtually while in-person activities were on pause.
The cancellation means three out of the top five teams in The Associated Press Top 25 poll will be sidelined this weekend because of the virus.
The University of Alabama, ranked No. 1, was scheduled to play Louisiana State University before positive test results among L.S.U. players prompted the Southeastern Conference to postpone the game. Texas A&M, ranked No. 5, was supposed to play at the University of Tennessee but had to stop practicing after several members of their organization tested positive for the virus on Monday.
In total, four SEC games set for this weekend were delayed because of positive tests across programs.
“Numbers around contact tracing have emerged as one of our biggest challenges to playing,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey in a call with reporters Wednesday. “Adjustments have to continually be made.”
The Big Ten, unlike the SEC and some other conferences, planned to not reschedule games this season that cannot be played because of the pandemic.
— Gillian R. Brassil

South Africa will lift restrictions on all international travel.
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TRANSCRIPT

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South Africa Will Lift International Travel Restrictions
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced Wednesday that the country will open its borders to all international travelers despite an increasing number of coronavirus cases in some parts of the country.
The Covid-19 U.I.F. scheme has already paid out nearly 53 billion to over 4.7 million workers. These relief measures were necessary to protect those who are most vulnerable in a time of great distress. But they will have to come to an end as we do not, as a government, have sufficient resources to continue. As we transition to a new phase in our response, the only way forward is a rapid and sustained economic recovery. We are, therefore, working to enable all parts of our economy to return to full operation as quickly and as safely as possible. We are amending the Alert Level 1 regulations to restore normal trading hours, for instance, for the sale of alcohol at retail outlets. We are also opening up international travel to all countries subject to the necessary health protocols and the presentation of a negative Covid-19 certificate. Now by utilizing rapid tests and strict monitoring, we intend to limit the spread of the infection through importation by those who will be traveling to our country.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced Wednesday that the country will open its borders to all international travelers despite an increasing number of coronavirus cases in some parts of the country.CreditCredit...Nic Bothma/EPA, via Shutterstock
South Africa will open its borders to all international travelers, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Wednesday, even as the number of new coronavirus cases rises in some parts of the country, leaving some officials concerned that a rollback on travel restrictions could invite a second wave.
“We are also opening up international travel to all countries subject to the necessary health protocols and the presentation of a negative Covid-19 certificate,” said Mr. Ramaphosa during an address to the country. He did not say when the new rules would replace a current, lengthy no-fly list that bans tourists from dozens of European countries and the United States.
The announcement came ahead of what would normally be the beginning of peak tourist season, when colder weather in the northern hemisphere starts luring up to 10 million foreigners to the country’s pristine beaches and game safaris.
South Africa has recorded more than 740,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 20,000 deaths since the spring, according to a New York Times database. Cases have dropped from a high of 12,000 new daily infections in July to fewer than 2,000 a day for the past three months.
Still, localized spikes in cases have worried officials for several weeks, including in the Eastern Cape province and in Cape Town, a major tourist destination.
The government also declared five days of mourning for victims of the pandemic and for women and children who are victims of violence. South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of violence against women, which Mr. Ramaphosa called a “second pandemic.”
He said the national flag would fly at half-mast, and urged all citizens to wear black armbands on Nov. 25.
— Monica Mark

A virus testing site in Haret Hreik, south of Beirut, in October.Credit...Xinhua News Agency
Lebanon is imposing a new lockdown that will shut many businesses and limit road traffic as the small Mediterranean country tries to limit a spike in coronavirus cases that has stretched hospital resources.
The new lockdown, which the government announced on Tuesday, will begin Saturday and last until Nov. 30. Many businesses and government offices will close, cars will be allowed on the road on alternate days based on the last number of their license plates and a nighttime curfew will be enforced, although its hours have yet to be decided.
While the measures have been billed as a “total lockdown,” the country’s sea, air and land borders will remain open, as will establishments deemed “essential,” such as pharmacies, bakeries, banks and electricity and communications facilities.
Lebanon, a small, beleaguered country of 5.4 million bordered by Syria and Israel, reported surprisingly low infection numbers early in the pandemic, mostly because of a strict early lockdown that included an airport closure.
But cases have risen steadily in recent months, as have virus-related deaths, a rise that medical workers have blamed on spotty mask-wearing and lax observance of social distancing guidelines.
The new lockdown comes amid an economic crisis that has seen unemployment spike and the currency lose about 80 percent of its value against the United States dollar since last year.
A huge explosion in the Beirut port in August killed nearly 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damages.
Since February, 96,907 people have contracted the virus and 749 people have died in connection to the virus, according to a Times database.
In other developments around the world:

• Spain’s government announced Wednesday that it would require travelers arriving in Spain from high-risk countries to prove they tested negative for the coronavirus within 72 hours before landing. The order, which goes into effect Nov. 23, has long been demanded by some regional politicians, particularly in Madrid, whose regional leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has blamed untested travelers arriving at Madrid’s airport for helping to spread the virus in the capital region.
• Singapore and Hong Kong said that a travel bubble between the two Asian financial centers will begin this month, allowing travelers to bypass quarantine. The arrangement, set to begin on Nov. 22, would allow one designated “bubble” flight into each city every day, each carrying a maximum of 200 passengers. Travelers must test negative for the virus and fly only on the designated flights.
• The European Union’s executive arm proposed a “European Health Union” in a bid to coordinate a patchwork of Covid-19 measures across the bloc and centralize responses to the pandemic. The proposal by the European Commission, which would need to be approved by the European Parliament and member countries, would create an E.U.-wide plan to prepare for future health crises, as well as coordinate Covid-19 testing across the bloc.

— Ben Hubbard, Raphael Minder, Tiffany May and Monika Pronczuk




The risk of dying from Covid-19 is higher for people with intellectual disabilities.

A testing site in Milwaukee last week. People with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable to the virus for several reasonCredit...Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
People with intellectual disabilities and developmental disorders are three times as likely to die from Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, compared with other people who contract the disease, according to a large analysis of insurance claims data.
The finding raises complex questions about how new vaccines should be allocated when they become available in limited supplies.
So far, the guidelines for distributing vaccines in the U.S. have recommended giving first priority to workers in emergency services, health care and other essential roles, as well as people who are at heightened risk for severe disease if they become infected, including some older adults and those with certain chronic illnesses.
The guidelines, which are still evolving, have not specifically emphasized vaccinating children and adults with intellectual disabilities like Down syndrome and developmental disorders.
The new analysis was performed by FAIR Health, a nonprofit group that claims to host the nation’s largest private health insurance claims database, in collaboration with Dr. Marty Makary, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the West Health Institute, a group of nonprofit organizations focused on aging and on lowering health care costs for older people.
The analysis was evaluated only by an academic reviewer, and it has not been published in a scientific journal.
“There has always been some hesitancy to treat people with intellectual disabilities and people who are institutionalized as equal, in terms of consideration for scarce medical resources — and that also includes prisoners, by the way,” said Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “There will be some balking and battling, on grounds that I would consider discriminatory.”
People with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable to the virus for several reasons. Many live in group homes or receive care from aides, therapists or teachers who must be in close physical proximity in order to assist them. And many are medically frail to begin with, with high rates of other underlying health conditions, particularly respiratory problems.
“Historically, it’s been a challenge for this population to receive good medical care,” said Scott Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University. “If you’ve got someone whose cognitive ability is severely reduced, just understanding what’s going on and why they have to wear a mask would be very confusing.”
— Roni Caryn Rabin


Russia’s vaccine proves effective in early trial data, company says.

A nurse giving a volunteer a coronavirus vaccine in Moscow in September.Credit...Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Russia’s coronavirus vaccine has shown strong effectiveness in early data from a clinical trial, according to a statement on Wednesday from the Russian financial company promoting the shot.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund said that the vaccine, called Sputnik V, demonstrated 92 percent efficacy, based on results from 20 people in the trial who developed Covid-19 after getting either the experimental vaccine or a placebo shot. Because few scientific details were given, independent vaccine experts could not fully assess its veracity.
“It’s very hard to say much with 20 cases and no other details,” said Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Georgetown University.
The scientists behind the Russian vaccine have not released the trial blueprints, known as protocols, which are needed for a thorough review of the data. The Russian developer, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, plans to publish details of the interim results in a peer-reviewed article, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said in its statement.
The results are not implausible, especially considering the news from earlier in the week that Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine was “more than 90 percent effective” in preventing the illness. Like all vaccines now in clinical trials, the Pfizer and Sputnik V vaccines present a coronavirus protein called “spike” to the immune system.
Because Pfizer’s data was so strong, “it boosts my confidence in other vaccines as well,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida who specializes in infectious disease outbreaks.
There are now 11 vaccines in late-stage clinical trials worldwide, including three in Russia.
Since August, Russia has sought to get ahead in the global race to market vaccines by announcing its product was effective before clinical trials showed that to be the case, and by approving it for emergency use at home. China has also approved a vaccine for emergency use before its trials are completed. The World Health Organization rebuked Russia for skipping steps in the approval process.
Trial results are based on a statistical analysis of study subjects who come down with Covid-19. If more people receiving the placebo than the vaccine become ill, then the vaccine is effective.
The Pfizer and BioNTech results were based on 94 confirmed cases, making them more statistically compelling than the 20 cases in the Russian data. In the vaccine trial by Pfizer and BioNTech, half of the participants received two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart, and half received a placebo. The first analysis was based on 94 volunteers who had developed Covid-19. To calculate the efficacy rate, an independent board of experts compared how many of those 94 cases were in the placebo group, and how many were in the vaccinated group. (If all 94 had been in the placebo group, for example, the vaccine would be considered 100 percent effective.)
Gamaleya Research Institute plans to test the two-shot vaccine on 40,000 people. So far, about 16,000 people have received both doses. Separately, the Russian Ministry of Health has vaccinated about 10,000 volunteers under the emergency use approval, according to the statement released on Wednesday.

Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker
A look at all the vaccines that have reached trials in humans.
— Andrew E. Kramer and Carl Zimmer

The surging virus in the U.S. finds a federal leadership vacuum.


As President Trump pushes to overturn the results of the election while the pandemic rages on, his only public statements about the coronavirus in the last few days have been to make clear his pique that good news about a vaccine had not come until after Election Day.
Meanwhile, the Strategic National Stockpile, the U.S. emergency reserve, has only 115 million N95 masks, far short of the 300 million the administration had hoped to amass by winter, Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who retired on Monday as the national supply chain commander, said in a recent interview, though he added that the government is continuing to expand its supplies of protective gear.
The pandemic caught the nation flat-footed in March, but epidemiologists have been warning for months of a fall and winter wave as people are driven indoors, schools resume in-person classes and Americans grow tired of months of precautions. Yet shortages of personal protective equipment are back, especially among rural hospitals, nursing homes and private medical practices that lack access to the supply networks that serve larger hospital chains.
Governors are once again competing with one another and big hospital chains for scarce gear. Nursing homes are grappling with staff shortages, which have left hospitals unable to discharge patients to their care.
In the absence of leadership, local officials feel as if they are struggling alone. New weekly cases among nursing home residents jumped fourfold from the end of May to late October, and deaths have more than doubled in 20 states, according to R. Tamara Konetzka and Rebecca J. Gorges, researchers at the University of Chicago who analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Even many large hospital chains, which say they have adequate supplies of medical gear, continue to operate in crisis mode. That often means requiring employees to repeatedly reuse respirator masks that are meant to be discarded after each use.
— Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Noah Weiland, Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew Jacobs

 

[Matata]

CDC projects up to 282,000 Covid-19 deaths by December, a new forecast shows | CNN

The US has set multiple new records this week, and health experts worry the numbers will get worse before the holidays.

www.cnn.com

 

[dk168]

In UK, we are now in our second week of a 4-week second lockdown, fingers firmly crossed that it will not be extended. However, it would not surprise me if it does.

I am feeling hopeful and optimistic about the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine, as it is like a light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train!

DK

 

[missy]

Interesting potential. An OCD drug might help Covid 19 patients. We need more studies but preliminary trials look promising.

Effect of Fluvoxamine vs Placebo on Clinical Deterioration in Outpatients With Symptomatic COVID-19

This randomized trial compares the effects of fluvoxamine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor with immunomodulatory effects vs placebo on a composite of dyspnea or pneumonia and oxygen desaturation among adult outpatients with polymerase chain reaction–confirmed mild coronavirus disease...

jamanetwork.com

OCD Drug Looks Promising for COVID-19 Outpatients

Pilot trial finds lack of clinical deterioration, but larger studies needed

www.medpagetoday.com

 

[missy]

Just received this email from our primary care physician's office.

"

DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN: COVID-19 IS ON THE MOVE As we approach the holidays, ongoing reports of the rise in coronavirus infections — in our area, across the country and around the world — are discouraging. Together, our doctors and staff continue to serve you during this long, difficult journey through this pandemic. While there are still many unknowns about COVID-19, we have learned a lot about exposure to the virus and how to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. We recommend that you do not have large gatherings with people outside your household for Thanksgiving, and recommend that you do not travel for the holiday. We apologize but due to overwhelming demand for testing, we will not be able to provide testing for patients needing travel clearance in its Urgent Care locations. Guidance on Testing: I think I was exposed to someone who has COVID-19: A significant exposure is being less than 6 feet from someone who has COVID-19 without a mask, for more than 10 minutes, and it is worse if the exposure was indoors; If you have a significant exposure, you do not need to be tested. You need to quarantine at home for 14 days; Testing does not get you out of quarantine. If you are exposed, you must quarantine. Your family members and close contacts may also need to quarantine. This should be discussed with your local department of health. REDUCE THE RISK: MASK UP! FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS You may have heard that many people infected with COVID-19 have no symptoms, or only mild symptoms. Please remain vigilant about wearing a mask and remember: Wear masks with two or more layers. Ask your healthcare provider or visit the CDC website to find out which masks work and which ones might not. Wear the mask properly: over your nose and mouth and secure it under your chin. Masks should NOT be worn by children younger than two, people who have trouble breathing, or people who cannot remove the mask without assistance. Follow precautions for mask disposal and for keeping re-usable masks clean. Conserve N95 masks for healthcare workers to keep them safe so that they can be there for you. CDC does not recommend the use of face shields alone. Evaluation of face shields is ongoing but effectiveness without a mask is unknown at this time. USE COMMON SENSE FOR A SAFE HOLIDAY SEASON AND BEYOND! Keep the safety of healthcare and other essential workers in mind: taking precautions to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy, ensures they will be there for you. Remember that many people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. Avoid unnecessary local or long-distance travel. Due to limited testing resources, we may not be able to accommodate travel testing. This allows us to test those who truly have symptoms or known exposure. Avoid large gatherings and limit those with people outside your household. Wear eye protection in stores and around other people you don’t live with. Don’t eat at a party or restaurant if other people are unmasked unless you are outside and separated. "

 

[diamondringlover]

I am in the US in Ohio and our numbers are exploding we have shattered all the records in the last 5 days, I now know 2 people with covid, they are very good friends with my daughter in law, the one is doing ok the other is in the beginning phase (they are room mates) I am now terrified to leave my house, I want to go visit my son, daughter in law and granddaughter and decided against it, I am going to the grocery store when it opens and then I am parking my fat butt at home..it is scary here in the US and this is seriously starting to take a toll on me.

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

In my region the ICU beds are at 99.2 % full.

Reassuring. Not.

Sorry to bash old people again , but they make grocery shopping a sport now, since that's the only "activity" that's allowed.

They could go for a walk of one hour. That's allowed too. And safe if masked and distanced. Yet they linger in every freaking supermarket I frequent. Worst in our nice indoor farmer's market.
I dash in and out and have a full cart when they carefully chose three tomatoes. And chat with strangers... Gahh.

I the media there's a lot of outrage that bookshops, florists etc are CLOSED.

It's because at this point one should avoid to hang out inside stores for fun!!

And given the shortage in ICU beds one should try not to drive a car at 85 y/O...you get into a car accident here now, or any other accident , you're basically screwed!!
Is that so hard to understand??

 

[Modified Brilliant]

We just passed 10,000 deaths in Massachusetts. New statewide mandate requires a mask. Restaurants must serve last guest by 9:30 pm. Gyms must close by 9:30 p.m. Stay-at-home curfew (unenforced) from 10pm until 5am unless working, walking, or other essential tasks. Be well. Be safe.

 

[missy]

November 16 coronavirus news

The coronavirus pandemic has brought countries to a standstill. In many places, as countries reopen, Covid-19 cases are on the rise. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

“

8:22am. ET, November 16, 2020
"This is really a historic day," Health secretary says after Moderna announces vaccine results.


Moderna said today its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, similar to early results released by Pfizer last week, making it the second vaccine in the US to have a stunningly high success rate.
The US surpassed 11 million cases, with 1 million recorded in less than a week, as the virus spreads at an unprecedented speed.


It’s just as good as it gets – 94.5% is truly outstanding," Dr Anthony Fauci, America's top infectious disease expert, said of the Moderna news.

“

 

[Austina]

November 16 coronavirus news

The coronavirus pandemic has brought countries to a standstill. In many places, as countries reopen, Covid-19 cases are on the rise. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

“

8:22am. ET, November 16, 2020
"This is really a historic day," Health secretary says after Moderna announces vaccine results.


Moderna said today its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, similar to early results released by Pfizer last week, making it the second vaccine in the US to have a stunningly high success rate.
The US surpassed 11 million cases, with 1 million recorded in less than a week, as the virus spreads at an unprecedented speed.


It’s just as good as it gets – 94.5% is truly outstanding," Dr Anthony Fauci, America's top infectious disease expert, said of the Moderna news.

“

I really, really hope this vaccine is as good as they think.

 

[dk168]

UK's Prime Minister has to self-isolate (again), after being in contact with a MP in a meeting for more than 15min who has subsequently tested positive for C19.

He was admitted to hospital earlier in March 2020 for having C19, so far he has no symptoms.

DK

 

[dk168]

On a personal note, my campervan will not be ready this side of 2020, more likely to mid January 2021.

The main issue is delay in arrival of a key component sourced outside UK, compounded by further delays due to the second lockdown and a short working month in December (the factory where the conversion is being carried out closes on 17th).

I kind of expected it when the possibility of a second lockdown was branded about.

The upside is that I shall be staying at home and cooking up a storm with the pets for company.

Onwards and upwards they say.

DK

 

[Rons Wolfe]

On the homefront here, the update is no change. My husband is still having fairly serious effects from having had it this spring, and his doctors still don't have any answers about hi having any immunity from getting it again. So we have to be super careful, since him getting it again would be a death sentence. I try to be extra careful when shopping, etc. Some people really don't get the whole social distancing thing, I've given a few harsh reminders when unmasked people try to get hear him.

 

[missy]

On the homefront here, the update is no change. My husband is still having fairly serious effects from having had it this spring, and his doctors still don't have any answers about hi having any immunity from getting it again. So we have to be super careful, since him getting it again would be a death sentence. I try to be extra careful when shopping, etc. Some people really don't get the whole social distancing thing, I've given a few harsh reminders when unmasked people try to get hear him.

I am so sorry @Rons Wolfe, and I hope your husband continues to improve and recovers in full. Sending you and your DH many well wishes and healing vibes.

 

[missy]

On a personal note, my campervan will not be ready this side of 2020, more likely to mid January 2021.

The main issue is delay in arrival of a key component sourced outside UK, compounded by further delays due to the second lockdown and a short working month in December (the factory where the conversion is being carried out closes on 17th).

I kind of expected it when the possibility of a second lockdown was branded about.

The upside is that I shall be staying at home and cooking up a storm with the pets for company.

Onwards and upwards they say.

DK

I just heard that tourism in NYC is not expected to reach pre pandemic levels til 2025.
I expect you will be back to enjoying your travels with your new camper van by next year sometime. Hopefully once a vaccine is out and successful you can do so safely. In the meantime you have good company and we take it one day at a time.

 

[Rons Wolfe]

I am so sorry @Rons Wolfe, and I hope your husband continues to improve and recovers in full. Sending you and your DH many well wishes and healing vibes.

Thank you so much. Unfortunately, he's not getting much better, if at all. His doctors can't seem to do anything that's helping. We both find ourselves wondering if something else may be wrong, but his docs can't find any other issues.

 

[missy]

Thank you so much. Unfortunately, he's not getting much better, if at all. His doctors can't seem to do anything that's helping. We both find ourselves wondering if something else may be wrong, but his docs can't find any other issues.

Oh no, I hope they figure it out. I wish I could help you. Have you tried finding another specialist perhaps? Someone who might be able to help further? I am so sorry and hope it turns around for him. (((Hugs))).

 

[Rons Wolfe]

Oh no, I hope they figure it out. I wish I could help you. Have you tried finding another specialist perhaps? Someone who might be able to help further? I am so sorry and hope it turns around for him. (((Hugs))).

Oh, I do too! You just don't know how much it hurts me to see him feeling so miserable! He's seen a couple docs that all say the same thing. When he asked about a specialist, the answer he gets is that there's really no one yet specializing in post-Covid that they haven't already consulted. I've had words with one doc myself in a Zoom appointment that I was in on.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

This is what a good old Aussie lockdown looks like. It's a circuit breaker. I'm super interested to see how it works for them and if they can nip it to the bud in 6 days.

 

[missy]

This is what a good old Aussie lockdown looks like. It's a circuit breaker. I'm super interested to see how it works for them and if they can nip it to the bud in 6 days.

Wow, not able to leave your house to exercise. That is very strict. I would not care for that because mental (and physical) health depends on getting out and getting some fresh air along with my exercise. IF one wears a mask and social distances I feel not allowing one to go out to exercise is overly strict. :/


Also, elective surgery except for cancer...seems a bit generalized. I mean, there are other necessary surgeries that might be lifesaving that are not just for cancer. I think that needs to be decided on a case by case basis by the medical team and not the government.


I am interested to hear those who are affected by these new rules to weigh in with their thoughts.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

Wow, not able to leave your house to exercise. That is very strict. I would not care for that because mental (and physical) health depends on getting out and getting some fresh air along with my exercise. IF one wears a mask and social distances I feel not allowing one to go out to exercise is overly strict. :/


Also, elective surgery except for cancer...seems a bit generalized. I mean, there are other necessary surgeries that might be lifesaving that are not just for cancer. I think that needs to be decided on a case by case basis by the medical team and not the government.


I am interested to hear those who are affected by these new rules to weigh in with their thoughts.

I think their rationale is that it's only 6 days. Jump in, suffer for 6 days, stop the spread in its tracks, resume a reasonably comfortable life afterwards.

I suspect they are scared of the Victorian lockdown which went on for months (you could go out to exercise but the lockdown went on for aaaages) so they are trying to take short, dramatic action.

I could do 6 days. I suspect after 6 days if they weren't getting the results they wanted they will relax the exercise rule (and a few others).

@Daisys and Diamonds were you guys allowed to go out in your lockdown hun?

 

[missy]

I think their rationale is that it's only 6 days. Jump in, suffer for 6 days, stop the spread in its tracks, resume a reasonably comfortable life afterwards.

I suspect they are scared of the Victorian lockdown which went on for months (you could go out to exercise but the lockdown went on for aaaages) so they are trying to take short, dramatic action.

I could do 6 days. I suspect after 6 days if they weren't getting the results they wanted they will relax the exercise rule (and a few others).

@Daisys and Diamonds were you guys allowed to go out in your lockdown hun?

I could do 6 days too. I didn't realize it was just for 6 days. Let's hope that squelches the infection rate and allows people to get back outside exercising safely.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I think their rationale is that it's only 6 days. Jump in, suffer for 6 days, stop the spread in its tracks, resume a reasonably comfortable life afterwards.

I suspect they are scared of the Victorian lockdown which went on for months (you could go out to exercise but the lockdown went on for aaaages) so they are trying to take short, dramatic action.

I could do 6 days. I suspect after 6 days if they weren't getting the results they wanted they will relax the exercise rule (and a few others).

@Daisys and Diamonds were you guys allowed to go out in your lockdown hun?

we wern't allowed to leave our town unless it was for essential work or some other fully documented reason like Melanie driving into Wellington for chemo
there were everdently police checkpoints
we could go for walks but only 5km from home and we wern't surposed to talk to other people we passed on the street - that was hard
we were only allowed to go out in the car for essential work, to go to hospital, the chemist, the doctor or the super market
all other shops were closed although places like bunnings were open for trade sales only and only construction of builts relevant to essential services
im pretty sure road works were allowed and vets and agricultural supply stores were allowed to be open but the vet collected the animal from the car park
no visitors to old folk homes
only 1 person from a house hold to go super market shopping
and very strict bubble rules
take aways, bars, cafes, butchers, green grocers, restaurants, hair dresses all closed
i think dentist only for emergencies
in areas where supermarkets don't sell beer and wine bottle stores were allowed to open but could only sell beer, wine and cider like the supermarkets, no spirits or RTDs

oh and no surfing, hiking, fishing or hunting or any risky DIY that would require someone else risking exposure to come rescue a lost or injuried person or that would tie up resources needed to fight the pandemic
it was definatly not a holiday

farm work was deemed essential and the alluminum smelter was allowed to keep working becsuse of the scale of the cost to shut it down and start it up again

plumbers, sparkies, washing machine, fridge / freezer repairs ok too

 

[missy]

November 18 coronavirus news

The coronavirus pandemic has brought countries to a standstill. In many places, as countries reopen, Covid-19 cases are on the rise. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

"
What you need to know

• Experts are encouraged by early Covid-19 vaccine findings from Moderna and Pfizer, but warn the world still faces challenging months ahead.
• The US has recorded more than 100,000 daily infections for two weeks straight, prompting more states to announce new restrictions to slow the spread.
• France became the first country in Europe to top 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Berlin police deploy water cannon as protesters march against Covid-19 restrictions
From CNN's Stephanie Halasz


Police officers block a road as people attend a protest rally in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday. Michael Sohn/AP

Police turned water cannon on demonstrators protesting against coronavirus restrictions in the German capital Berlin on Wednesday, television footage showed.
The demonstration is taking place near the Brandenburg Gate, a few hundred meters away from Germany's parliament.
Berlin police first tweeted that the demonstration had to end. A subsequent tweet said that because the protesters "did not fulfil the obligation to leave the location, people were just rained on by our water cannons.”
Parliament is in session and there is a debate going on in the main plenary hall.
Berlin police spokesman Stefan Petersen told CNN that several thousand protesters had gathered near the parliamentary district in central Berlin.
The organizers for several demonstrations asked for permission to demonstrate in the no-protest zone around the German parliament, and that permission was not granted, Petersen said.
TV footage showed many demonstrators without masks and not socially distanced. Some protesters were carrying flags for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, and at least one imperial banner -- a flag now deployed by the far right as the swastika is prohibited in Germany -- could be seen.
The Berlin police force tweeted that requests to wear a mask had not had any effect.
So far there have been no arrests, Petersen said. Around 2,200 police officers will be deployed overall Wednesday, he added.




Pfizer and BioNTech say final analysis shows coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective with no safety concerns
From CNN's Maggie Fox and Amanda Sealy

A final analysis of the Phase 3 trial of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine shows it was 95% effective in preventing infections, even in older adults, and caused no serious safety concerns, the company said Wednesday.
The company counted 170 cases of coronavirus infection among volunteers who took part in the trial. It said 162 infections were in people who got placebo, or plain saline, shots, while eight cases were in participants who got the actual vaccine. That works out to an efficacy of 95%, Pfizer said.
The data show Pfizer's initial claim of a better than 90% efficacy -- a claim that stunned and pleased health officials and vaccine developers last week -- holds up.
"Efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity demographics. The observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%," Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said in a joint statement.
"There were 10 severe cases of Covid-19 observed in the trial, with nine of the cases occurring in the placebo group and one in the BNT162b2 vaccinated group." BNT162b2 is the experimental name for the vaccine.
An independent group has been keeping an eye on results and side-effects. "To date, the Data Monitoring Committee for the study has not reported any serious safety concerns related to the vaccine," the companies said.
"The only Grade 3 (severe) solicited adverse event greater than or equal to 2% in frequency after the first or second dose was fatigue at 3.7% following dose 2," the companies said. Older adults tended to have fewer adverse events and those they had were milder.
Pfizer said it will seek US Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization "within days."
Read the full story here.







UK's 'Test and Trace' chief self-isolating after being pinged by her own app
From CNN's Sharon Braithwaite, in Pisa, Italy


Dido Harding, head of the NHS Test and Trace program, is seen walking in London on November 9. Tolga Akmen,AFP/Getty Images
The head of the UK government's 'Test and Trace' program has been told to self isolate by the app that she is responsible for.
Dido Harding tweeted a screenshot of the notification on Wednesday, adding: "Nothing like personal experience of your own products ....got this overnight. Feeling well. Many hours of Zoom ahead,"
Harding will be in self-isolation until 26th November. She follows British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who is also self-isolating after getting the same message.

The app has a notification feature which alerts the user if s/he's been near another app user who tests positive for coronavirus, if the user's local area (postcode district) has a changed risk status, or if the user has visited a venue which later reports an outbreak while s/he was there, the UK government says on its website.

People in England and Wales were encouraged to download the NHS COVID-19 app when it was launched. There were teething issues with the app, which included it failing to alert people to their need to self isolate.




Iraq's Erbil governor dies from coronavirus
From CNN’s Muwafaq Mohamed and Aqeel Naijm in Baghdad

The governor of Erbil, capital of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, died Wednesday from coronavirus complications, a spokesman for the region's health ministry, Aso Hweizi, told CNN.
Firsat Sofi was infected more than three weeks ago and was transferred for treatment in Turkey, Hweizi said.
Erbil alone recorded 156 cases and nine deaths on Tuesday, the health ministry said. The total number of cases recorded across Iraq that day was 2,961, with 40 deaths.
Iraq is the second worst-hit country in the Middle East with a total of 524,503 recorded cases, according to government data.




With possible vaccine on the horizon, US is likely in "last big surge" of the pandemic's toughest phase
From CNN's Christina Maxouris


medical staff member treats a coronavirus patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on November 14. Go Nakamura/Getty Images

The United States is likely in the "last big surge" before a possible Covid-19 vaccine can start to offer help in the coming months, one expert says. But for now, the country is continuing to set grim case and hospitalization records and the pandemic shows no signs of slowing down.

"The months ahead are going to look better than the weeks ahead," former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan said at a Tuesday event hosted by Duke University.
"Things are going to start gradually getting better," he said. "Won't be past this for still months to come. But it will start getting better by early 2021," he said, with the help of a vaccine.His projection comes at the heels of more good news out of vaccine trials -- with Moderna announcing this week its vaccine is more than 94% effective and Pfizer's CEO saying the company is preparing to file for emergency use authorization for their own vaccine.But it also comes amid a scary time for the country. For at least 15 days straight, the US has reported more than 100,000 daily infections. About 76,830 people are hospitalized with the virus nationwide, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That's the highest number since the pandemic's start. And each day, hundreds of Americans continue to lose their battle against Covid-19, with at least 11 days this month topping a 1,000 daily death toll.



Japan reports nearly 1,700 new Covid-19 casesFrom CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki in TokyoCommuters, mostly wearing face masks, walk through Shinagawa train station on November 18 in Tokyo, Japan. Carl Court/Getty ImagesJapan reported 1,694 new Covid-19 cases for Tuesday, its third highest single-day jump since the pandemic began. The country's daily new cases dipped below 1,000 for the first time in over a week on Monday, but they rose back up on Tuesday, according to the Health Ministry.The total number of confirmed cases nationwide stands at 121,529, including 1,926 deaths.Capital spike: Tokyo reported 493 new Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, the highest daily increase in cases for Japan’s capital since the pandemic began. The last peak was recorded on Aug. 1 with 472 new cases, according to Tokyo’s Metropolitan Government.





https://cat.va.us.criteo.com/delive...57&CID=242057&width=0&height=0&obOrigUrl=true

Fauci wishes he had pushed harder on coronavirus testing early in pandemic
From CNN Health’s Maggie Fox


Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on September 23 in Washington, DC. Alex Edelman/Pool/Getty Images

If there’s one thing he regrets about the pandemic, the US' top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says he wishes he had pushed harder for broader testing early on.
Fauci, who was an early member of the White House coronavirus task force, said he knew the pandemic would be bad when it was clear community spread was happening back in the late winter.

“I thought we should be flooding the system with testing. There weren’t enough tests then,” Fauci said in an interview with STAT News Tuesday.
“It never became a reality because we never really had enough tests to do the tests that you had to do,” added Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Importance of testing: Testing is the first step for contact tracing -- a tried and true public health approach that involves identifying cases quickly, isolating and treating those people, identifying their contacts and testing them to see if they need to be isolated or quarantined.
“But deep down perhaps I should have been much more vocal about saying we have really, absolutely, got to do that,’” Fauci said. “I saw that it went nowhere and maybe I should have kept pushing the envelope on that.”
Testing is important because otherwise cases spread silently, Fauci noted. “What is going on now that you don’t recognize becomes a case a few weeks later,” he said.
“That becomes a hospitalization a few weeks later. That becomes intensive care a few days later. That becomes death a few weeks later.”
Fauci said he was hesitant to talk about his regrets for fear his statements would be taken out of context as sound-bites.




US reports more than 161,000 new Covid-19 cases
From CNN's Tina Burnside

The United States reported 161,934 new coronavirus infections and 1,707 new fatalities on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The country has now reported a total of at least 11,357,322 cases and 248,672 deaths, according to the university's tally.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
CNN is tracking US cases:

RELATEDTracking Covid-19 cases in the US




FDA authorizes first rapid Covid-19 self-test for home diagnosis
From CNN Health’s Shelby Lin Erdman


sign for the Food And Drug Administration is seen outside of its headquarters on July 20 in White Oak, Maryland. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an emergency use authorization for the first self-test for Covid-19 that can provide rapid results at home.
The Lucira COVID-19 All-In-One Test Kit is a molecular single-use test available by prescription for self-diagnosis of the coronavirus, the agency said Tuesday.
It uses a molecular amplification technology to search for signs of the coronavirus’s genetic material.
How does it work? The kit includes a sterile swab, a sample vial, a test unit, batteries and a plastic disposal bag.
A user first needs to self-collect a nasal swab sample and insert it into the vial, which then enters the test unit where it is analyzed. The results are displayed on the test unit by a color change in the LED indicators, according to the FDA.
Who can use it? The new test is authorized for people aged 14 and older with suspected Covid-19 and people under 13 when performed by a health care provider.
It is also authorized for use in point-of-care settings, such as doctor’s offices, hospitals, urgent care centers and emergency rooms for all ages but must be collected by a health care provider, the FDA said.

“While Covid-19 diagnostic tests have been authorized for at-home collection, this is the first that can be fully self-administered and provide results at home,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said in a statement.
“This new testing option is an important diagnostic advancement to address the pandemic and reduce the public burden of disease transmission,” Hahn added.

Washington State sees new daily high in Covid-19 cases
From CNN’s Andy Rose


Metro buses in Seattle post signs saying masks are required on November 12. Elaine Thompson/AP

The state of Washington reported 2,677 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, a new single-day high, according to its health department.
Following the release of the latest numbers, Gov. Jay Inslee said on Twitter: “We need everyone doing their part to stop this virus.”


Washington has recorded a total of 131,444 Covid-19 cases and 2,571 deaths. Currently, 9,573 patients are hospitalized.
Note: These numbers were released by the Washington state Department of Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.




Colorado congressman tests positive for Covid-19
From CNN's Kristin Wilson, Daniella Diaz and Clare Fortinsky


Rep. Ed Perlmutter hands out flyers during an election rally on October 8, in Denver. David Zalubowski/AP

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, announced Tuesday night that he has tested positive for Covid-19.

“I learned today that I have tested positive for COVID-19. As of now, I am asymptomatic and I’m feeling good. I am currently in Washington D.C. and plan to isolate in my apartment while continuing to work and voting remotely," he said in the statement.
“I’ve been taking precautions like so many Coloradans over the past eight months. This serves as an important reminder that this virus is highly contagious and should be taken seriously. As we enter the holiday season, I encourage everyone to continue to heed the warnings of no personal gatherings, social distancing, and wearing a mask.”

Perlmutter was on Capitol Hill during a series of votes Monday.
This brings the number of House members and senators who have tested positive for the coronavirus to 33.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa also announced Wednesday that he had tested positive.




South Australia to shut down for 6 days following Covid-19 cluster
From CNN's Chandler Thornton

The Australian state of South Australia will shut down for six days from midnight Thursday, following a Covid-19 outbreak in Adelaide, the state's capital city.
South Australia Premier Steven Marshall announced Wednesday that the community would "pause" for six days to serve as a "circuit breaker" of the new outbreak.
"We are at a critical point, but we will get through this," Marshall said at a news briefing
The new measures: South Australians will be restricted from leaving their homes, even for outdoor exercise, unless they are an essential worker, South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said.
A mandatory mask mandate will also be enforced, Stevens added.
All facilities such as schools, pubs, coffee shops and outdoor sports will be closed. Only essential services, like supermarkets, medical facilities and public transport will remain open.
There are currently 22 Covid-19 cases linked to the Adelaide cluster, South Australia's Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said. The cases are all considered to be linked to a worker in a medi-hotel, where international arrivals are required to quarantine for 14 days.
On Tuesday, local authorities ordered 4,000 people into quarantine in an attempt to contain the cluster.







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[Austina]

Oxford Covid Vaccine 'Produces Strong Immune Response In Older Adults' — HuffPost UK

The University of Oxford is expected to release data on the effectiveness of its coronavirus jab in the coming weeks.

apple.news

 

[missy]

Oxford Covid Vaccine 'Produces Strong Immune Response In Older Adults' — HuffPost UK

The University of Oxford is expected to release data on the effectiveness of its coronavirus jab in the coming weeks.

apple.news

Promising news. Fingers crossed it produces real results and is successful in providing immunity to Covid 19.


Here is the latest Cover 19 news in the NEJM FYI. Free to all who want to read it so if you don't have a subscription you still can have access to anything Covid related.

https://www.nejm.org/coronavirus?query=main_nav_lg