Brazil has overtaken Britain as the country with the worlds second-highest Covid-19 death toll after a further 843 deaths pushed its total to 41,901.
The tally was published on Friday night by a coalition of news outlets which has been compiling independent statistics since Brazils health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal the full figures last week.
According to the British government 41,481 lives have been lost in the UK since late January although the number rises to more than 50,000 when suspected cases are included. Brazils death toll is also considered an underestimate.
Only in the US, where the official death toll stands at more than 116,000, have more died.
Medical experts have voiced despair at what they call Jair Bolsonaros calamitous response to the pandemic.
The Trump-admiring former army captain has repeatedly downplayed Covid-19 as media hysteria and a bit of a cold and on 12 April, with the official death toll at 1,223, falsely claimed: This matter of the virus appears to be going away.
Since then more than 40,000 Brazilians have died yet the far-right populist has continued to undermine social distancing by attending rallies and visiting shops. Two health ministers have been forced from government in under a month after clashing with Bolsonaro over coronavirus.
During a live broadcast on Thursday Bolsonaro who has defended his response as designed to protect the economy and jobs again minimized the tragedy.
He accused Brazilian journalists of focusing too much on the dead in order to produce funeral TV and claimed one former health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, had produced ficticious Covid-19 statistics in a bid to keep Brazilians at home. The aim was to disseminate terror.
Bolsonaro also insinuated his rivals were deliberately exaggerating the number of Covid-19 deaths in their states. What do they hope to gain from this? Political benefits, thats all it can be. Theyre taking advantage of people who are dying to profit politically and blame the federal government, Bolsonaro claimed.
Daniel Dourado, a public health expert and lawyer from the University of So Paulo, said the president shouldered overwhelming responsibility for the scale of the catastrophe.
Bolsonaro has played a pitiful role. Ive not heard of a single country whose president has hampered the fight against the epidemic so much. Its as if he still hasnt grasped the danger of the situation. He doesnt even express sympathy to the families Its as if his policies are being driven by a [Freudian] death drive.
Dourado added: If we carry on like this its possible we might even catch up with the US in the number of cases. It seems preposterous to say this now. But if Brazil reopens and does what the federal government wants things could deteriorate very fast. So Im really worried. As incredible as it might seem, with [about] 1,000 deaths a day we could still be underestimating the impact of this pandemic.
The US has recorded more than 2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, while Brazil has registered 829,902.
This week a University of Washington projection found another 100,000 Brazilian lives could be lost by August, meaning Brazil might overtake the US as the country with the highest death toll.
Brazils Covid-19 crisis is playing out against the backdrop of one of the most bitter and bizarre political crises since its return to democracy in the 1980s.
Federal police are investigating at least two of Bolsonaros sons for suspected corruption and links to a fake news racket. Last month investigators raided addresses linked to key Bolsonaristas including a former Femen activist turned anti-abortion-militant and a multimillionaire retail magnate famed for wearing garish yellow and green suits and building Statue of Liberty replicas outside his stores.
In an apparent bid to stave off the threat of Bolsonaros impeachment or the voiding of his 2018 election, loyalists, including top military figures, have played up the threat of military intervention against congress and the supreme court. Last month Bolsonaros politician son Eduardo who is Steve Bannons point man in South America warned Brazil was heading for a moment of rupture.
Lus Francisco Carvalho Filho, the former head of Brazils Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, said he was deeply worried about Bolsonaros authoritarian vision and the long-term threat he posed to Brazilian democracy.
I was born in 1957 and I think this is the most grave moment my generation has faced. Never before has a Brazilian head of state acted with such contempt for the institutional system, Carvalho Filho said.
Even the last presidents of the military regime played by the rules of the game. Bolsonaro is a man who tries every single day to do away with the rules of the game.
From 2015 through 2018, the Missouri Health Care Association PAC gave a total of $423,743 to dozens of candidates and committees, including its only contribution in 2018: $1,000 to Parsons campaign.
Two PACs formed in 2017, DSV and RQC, have made similar donations to dozens of candidates. Both PACs are largely funded by the MHCA, as well as a handful of nursing homes and attorneys contributing $300 or less. Last year, RQC PAC made 48 contributions totaling $84,950, to recipients including Uniting Missouri and American Dream. DSV made 39 contributions totaling $67,600 to many of the same candidates.
The two PACs each contributed $5,000 to Uniting Missouri at the Dec. 11 fundraiser.
While the PACs have given to Republican candidates in greater amounts, theyve also supported Democrats. Galloway for Missouri, for example, received $2,500 from the MHCA PAC in 2016; RQC gave $1,000 to Galloway in 2017; and the DSV PAC contributed $2,600 in 2018.
MHCA reported spending $329,767 in nondeductible lobbying expenditures in 2017, according to federal tax filings of the most recent year in which tax filings were available. The association also listed $39,772 in legislative expenses. The group spent $296,357 on lobbying efforts in 2016.
Another industry group, the Missouri Assisted Living Association, also operates three PACS the Missouri Assisted Living PAC, Residential Care Facility PAC, and the MO Residential Care-PAC that also similarly made contributions. Those three PACs have given a total $29,525 since 2017, including $3,000 to the campaign accounts of Parson and $1,000 to Kehoe.
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New York and Chicago, whichsaw a surge of coronavirus cases at the start of the pandemic, are experiencing a decline in cases and have begun reopening in phases.
But that trend doesn't holdthroughout the rest of the country.
Soaring case numbers in Arizona have diverted lawmakers' attention from protestsafter the death of George Floydback to the public health crisis.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has asked for members of the administration's Coronavirus Task Force, specifically naming Anthony Fauci andDeborah Birx,to conduct a briefing for Democratic senatorsnext week on the spike in cases in Arizona and elsewhere across the U.S., according to his office.
Other states seeing a sudden spike in COVID-19 cases includeSouth Carolina, Florida, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Puerto Rico.
Though experts aren't exactly sure why these states are experiencing an unexpected uptick in cases, they said lifting lockdown restrictions, isolated outbreaksand the virus catching up to communities previously not impacted may each play a role.
This virus is much more spotty, said Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School for Public Health. It is so complicated that when people give you a simple answer to this, its probably not right.
In April, the Trump administration announced guidelines to reopen the country, which included a 14-day decline of confirmed coronavirus cases or a decline of positive tests as a percent of total tests within that period.
However, some states eager to get back to work didnt meet those federal governmentguidelines before reopening.
Floridas first phase began May 18, which reopened restaurants, retail and museums at half capacity. Not only did the state fail to meet a two week decline in cases, but it actually reported an increase in cases per day a week before reopening. According to Johns Hopkins data, Florida reported 594 cases on May 10. Five days later there were more than 800 cases.
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About three weeks later, on June 5,Gov.Ron DeSantiswent on to phase two reopening, even as daily cases have topped the 1,000 mark and have continued to do so for the past seven days.
A record 1,698 cases of COVID-19 were announced Thursday morning by the FloridaDepartment of Health, marking the largest single-day increase in the state since the pandemic began.
In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesdaythat state's recent uptick in coronavirus infections and hospitalizationswas an expected result of the state reopening much ofits economy and urged residents to redouble precautions to prevent the virus from continuing to spread.
Georgia is notably not on the list of states where cases are on the rise, said Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health. Gov.Brian Kemp was heavily criticized when the Peach State became one of the first states to begin reopening in April.
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In the six weeks since Georgia loosened restrictions, its curve has stayed relatively flat. Shaman said this could be due to resident behavior, suggesting peoplecontinued to shelter in place despite the lifting of lockdowns.
It's hard to know for sure because there's no real data on how many businesses truly reopened or what percentage of people actually wear masks, he said.
However, Georgia Public Health reported the results of 7,684 tests Tuesday, of which 9.8%were positive, nearly double the rate from the previous day, according to an analysis by the August Chronicle.
We dont want to be totally caught up in a numbers game, Monto said. What we need to look at is patterns.
Both Monto and Shaman say another reason some states may be experiencing unexpected spikes is because of super spreaders, events or enclosed community outbreaks.
A super spreader is an infected person who can transmit the disease to a large number of people.
Weve got a lot of anecdotes and its hard to define who a super spreader is,you only know after the fact, he said.
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Other states say theirspike is due to a local outbreak in a confined space such as anursing home, prisonor meatpacking plant.
The Texas Department of State Health Services attributes the state'sspike in coronavirus casesto increased testing in prisons.
According to the Texas Tribune, the number of prisoners reported to be infected with the virus jumped from about 2,500 to 6,900 in the two weeks since prisons started reporting test results May 26. Overall cases jumped by 34% from May 25 to June 7, and nearly a quarter of the increase came from 10 counties with prisons and meatpacking plants.
You have clusters, you have nursing homes, meat packing and they add a lot of cases, Monto said. So that has to be factored in as well.
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The number of coronavirus cases tied to meatpacking plants has more than doubled since President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act in late April to compel slaughterhouses and processing plants to stay open.
The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found more than 20,400 infections across 216 plants in 33 states.
Across the United States, some of the highest spikes in coronavirus cases recently occurred in counties with one or more meatpacking plants Buena Vista County, Iowa; Beadle County, South Dakota; Yell County, Arkansas; and Titus County, Texas, for example. All saw their case counts more than double in the past two weeks, a USA TODAY data analysis found.
Not much is known about the viruss seasonality as it has only been presentfor the past six months. But if its anything like the flu, Monto says, it could come in waves.
I think catching up is a phenomenon, he said. If you miss the first wave, you catch up in the second wave.
With the flu, theres a lull in the summer, Monto says. States that arent impacted in the spring by the seasonal virus usually see a spike in flu infections in a second wave.
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However, there is no data to support this hypothesis with the coronavirus. In fact, seasonality doesnt seem to be a factor, as hotsouthern states like Arizona and New Mexicoare now experiencing a spike in cases.
In Greenville County, South Carolina, the percentage of positive cases recently tripled from 2.9% on May 27 to 9.4% on June 3, prompting state health officials to classify it acoronavirus hot spot,according to The Greenville News.
Shaman said a spike in cases could be due to lack of social distancing, face mask wearing and other non-pharmaceutical prevention methods touted by public health experts for the last six months.
Protesters march during a rally at Cesar Chavez Park on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, in Laveen, Ariz., protesting the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 after being restrained by Minneapolis police.(Photo: Ross D. Franklin, AP)
If you look at the protests you can see the difference between communities, Shaman said. In New York, everyone is wearing a face mask and others arent.
While an increase in cases may be caused for multiple reasons, Monto said states should take heed and take preventative measures to prevent a major outbreak.
The take home message to me is that the virus is still around. Its everywhere, its not going to go away, he said. We cant be complacent.
Contributing: Brett Kelman, USA TODAYNetwork
Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
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AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal/KXAN) One of Austins largest apartment developers is scaling back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journeyman Group President Sam Kumar said his company will probably build at least 600 fewer apartment units in Austin this year than it had initially planned.
Despite that, the company is still projected to have 2,100 apartment units under construction this year, he said. Thats about the same or slightly more than Journeyman built last year.
FULL Q&A with Sam Kumar at Austin Business Journal
While construction in Austin has continued through most of the pandemic as construction was considered an essential business Kumar says the pandemic worried many potential investors because of possible rent delinquencies.
In March, the CARES Act was passed by Congress and included a 120-day moratorium on evictions. While evictions were prohibited for eligible renters, it didnt forgive any rent due.
Local renters were also protected when Travis County Justice of the Peace Nicholas Chu signed an order that required landlords to prove their properties dont fall under the CARES Act.
The City of Austin also passed its own COVID-19 rental assistance program.
The Relief of Emergency Needs for Tenants program, according to the City, allowed applicants to have at least a portion of their rent paid. In its first hour that applications were open, over 1,300 people applied.
Modeling recently prepared and presented by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences shows that new COVID-19 cases in Arkansas could reach around 1,350 per day by Sept. 27, with around 3,100 hospitalizations by October.
That modeling follows an update by the closely watched Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington which shows pandemic deaths in Arkansas could reach 1,650 by Oct. 1.
The UAMS numbers, presented during an employee town hall by Dr. Mark Williams, dean of the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, also show the state could have just under 1,000 ICU beds with COVID-19 patients and around 600 ventilators in use. The estimated rise would not exceed capacity. The Arkansas Department of Health has reported 9,111 hospital beds in the state and 896 ventilators. What is unknown is if bed and ventilator capacity will be exceeded in a region in the state.
Active infections in the state could rise to between 170,000-175,000 in early to mid-October, according to the UAMS estimate.
As of Friday (June 12), there have been 2,896 new known COVID-19 cases reported in the previous week (June 5-June 12), which is 33.5% of all reported cases since the pandemic began March 11. Fridays (June 12) COVID-19 report included 731 new known cases, the highest number of new cases in a 24-hour period. Known COVID-19 cases in Arkansas totaled 11,547 on Friday, up from 10,816 on Thursday. The number of deaths rose from 171 to 176. The number of COVID patients hospitalized in Arkansas was 203 on Friday, up from 187 on Thursday. There are 49 patients on ventilators, up from 45 on Thursday.
The IHME modeling estimates 45.12 deaths and 5,587 new cases per day by Oct. 1. The modeling, which has been revised many times since the pandemic began, shows the need for hospital beds peaking Sept. 26 at 1,372 hospitalizations and 360 COVID-19 patients on ventilators. The modeling also shows 397 ICU beds will be needed for COVID-19 patients by Sept. 26, two more than the 395 beds that IHME estimates are in Arkansas.
Joe Thompson, director of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement and former Arkansas Surgeon General, told Talk Business & Politics that modeling is important to follow, but the estimates will change. He said modeling assumptions likely have more to do with about how many people are wearing masks at Walmart or Home Depot or Lowes. The key takeaway from the UAMS, IMHE and other models is that they point to higher deaths and hospitalizations than we are now discussing.
Under almost every model, things will get significantly worse unless we change our individual behavior in public spaces, he said.
Thompson said there are three reasons the public and political leaders are not always willing to discuss or accept the potential for the virus impact escalating. The first is the virus is an invisible threat and hard to understand.
Weve never been faced with a pandemic before. This is a virus thats never been seen by anyones immune system in Arkansas, Thompson said.
Another reason the topic is not always welcome is the independent nature of many in Arkansas, with Thompson noting that this has become a politicized event. The third reason modeling estimates are sometimes not followed or discussed is the uncertainty in trying to predict the future impact of the virus.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he was not aware of the new UAMS modeling, and said previous models from different groups did not mirror reality.
We take this very seriously and we like to get a lot of different information. Historically, the modeling has not been accurate and the modeling is what led us early on to look at War Memorial Stadium as potential hospital expansion opportunity for us. And obviously that has proven to be unnecessary, he said during a brief Saturday interview.
He did say modeling is useful because with the recent spike in new COVID-19 cases, we take worse-case scenarios into consideration and be prepared in terms of capacity building.
The governor also said national politicization of the virus that results in some people not observing health guidelines is not helpful. This is a public health issue first and not a political issue. He reiterated that his key strategy in responding to the virus and keeping the economy open is encouraging Arkansans to wear masks, practice social distancing and follow other health guidelines.
Talk Business & Politics editor-in-chief Roby Brock contributed to this report.
Ill. (KWQC) - The Illinois Department of Public Health today announced 673 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, including 29 additional confirmed deaths.
Those deaths include:- Boone County: 1 male 90s- Cook County: 1 female 50s, 2 females 60s, 1 male 60s, 2 males 70s, 3 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 2 females 90s- DuPage County: 1 female 90s- Jackson County: 1 male 60s- Kane County: 2 males 80s- Kankakee County: 1 female 80s- Lake County: 1 male 80s- Peoria County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 90s- St. Clair County: 1 male 70s, 3 females 80s, 1 male 80s- Whiteside County: 1 female 80s- Will County: 1 male 40s, 1 male 90s
To date, the Illinois Department of Public Helath is reporting a total of 131,871 cases, including 6,289 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois.
Kelly Womochil, an aide at Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan., tries on a poncho that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending to nursing homes to protect against the coronavirus. Pamela Black hide caption
Kelly Womochil, an aide at Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan., tries on a poncho that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending to nursing homes to protect against the coronavirus.
Across the United States, nursing homes trying to protect their residents from the coronavirus eagerly await boxes of masks, eyewear and gowns promised by the federal government. But all too often the packages deliver disappointment if they arrive at all.
Some contain flimsy surgical masks or cloth face coverings that are explicitly not intended for medical use. Others are missing items or have far less than the full week's worth of protective equipment the government promised to send. Instead of proper medical gowns, many packages hold large blue plastic ponchos.
"It's like putting a trash bag on," said Pamela Black, the administrator of Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan. "There's no real place for your hands to come out."
As nursing homes remain the pandemic's epicenter, the federal government is failing to ensure these facilities have all the personal protective equipment, or PPE, needed to prevent the spread of the virus, according to interviews with administrators and federal data.
Cloth masks and ponchos
Despite President Trump's pledge on April 30 to "deploy every resource and power that we have" to protect older Americans, a fifth of the nation's nursing homes 3,213 out of more than 15,000 reported during the last two weeks of May that they had less than a week's supply of masks, gowns, gloves, eye protectors or hand sanitizer, according to federal records. Of those, 946 reported they have had at least one confirmed COVID infection since the pandemic began.
"The federal government's failure to nationalize the supply chain and take control of it contributed to the deaths in nursing homes," said Scott LaRue, president and CEO of ArchCare, the health care system of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which operates five nursing homes.
Widespread equipment shortages continue in some places as the virus rages lethally through nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. More than 217,000 short-term patients and long-term residents in nursing homes have contracted COVID-19, and 43,000 have died.
Some homes still have not received the first of two batches of supplies the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would ship in May. Instead, some got only cloth masks that the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned through a contract with HanesBrands, the apparel company known for its underwear. An HHS webpage says the masks are not intended for caring for contagious patients but can be given to workers for their commutes or to residents when they leave their rooms.
As homes keep scrounging for supplies in a chaotic market with jacked-up prices and continued scarcity, 653 skilled nursing facilities informed the government they had completely run out of one or more types of protective supplies at some point in the last two weeks of May, according to records released last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS.
"The federal government has got to step up," said Lori Smetanka, executive director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. "We're now what? three months into this pandemic, and these facilities still don't have enough PPE to protect themselves and their residents?"
A "relentless commitment"
In April, Trump pledged his administration "will never waver in its relentless commitment to America's seniors." But FEMA's shipments of masks, gloves, gowns and eye protection have had a more modest goal: "to serve as a bridge between other PPE shipments."
In written comments, FEMA defended the quality of the poncho gowns but said that because of complaints, the contractor was creating a "short instructional video about proper use of the gowns" to share with homes. FEMA officials said that, as of June 4, the agency had shipped packages to 11,287 nursing homes, starting at "the soonest possible date in the COVID-19 global supply chain climate."
Yet 67 of the Good Samaritan Society's 147 nursing homes have not received a FEMA shipment, including homes that are fighting the biggest outbreaks in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Greeley, Colo.; and Omaha, Neb., according to Nate Schema, the Good Samaritan Society's vice president of operations. "We have not received a shipment in our six or seven hot spots," he said.
The supplies that did arrive tended to be in one size only, he said, and "the quality wasn't quite up to the same level we've been receiving" through the society's affiliation with Sanford Health, a large hospital and physician system.
The society has enough equipment, but small nursing home groups and independent homes are still struggling, particularly with obtaining N95 masks, which filter out tiny particles of the virus and are considered the best way to protect both nursing home employees and residents from transmitting it.
The CMS records show 711 nursing homes reported having run out of N95 masks, and 1,963 said they had less than a week's worth. But FEMA is not shipping any N95 masks, and nursing homes are having trouble obtaining them from other sources. Instead, the agency is sending surgical masks, but more than 1,000 homes have less than a week's supply of those.
Messiah Lifeways at Messiah Village in Mechanicsburg, Pa., received a FEMA shipment this week that had face shields and gloves, but only three days' worth of surgical masks and "very low, low-grade quality" gowns that lacked sleeves, said Katie Andreano, a Messiah communications specialist.
Only two of ArchCare's five nursing homes have received any FEMA shipments, even though it is based in New York City, the site of the nation's biggest outbreak. The equipment for those two homes lasted less than a week. LaRue tried to procure equipment from abroad, but all of the potential suppliers turned out to be fraudulent. He said ArchCare has had to rely on sporadic supplies from the state and city emergency management offices.
"As we sit here today, I'm still not able to get more than a few days' supply of N95 masks, and I still struggle to a certain extent with gowns," LaRue said. "That doesn't make you sleep at night, because you're not sure when the next delivery comes."
In addition to the supplies, the administration has dedicated $5 billion to nursing homes out of $175 billion in provider relief funds appropriated by Congress. Hospitals are getting much more. Administrators said money doesn't solve the broken private supply chains, where the availability of personal protective equipment is spotty and the equipment is vastly overpriced.
"Too often, the only signs of FEMA's much-hyped promise of PPE are scattershot delivery with varying amounts of ragtag supplies," said Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit nursing homes and other service agencies for older people.
The cloth masks from HHS have been particularly perplexing to nursing home administrators, given the caveats that accompanied them. The instructions for the masks said they could be washed up to 15 times, according to Sondra Norder, president and CEO of St. Paul Elder Services in Kaukauna, Wis.
"I don't know how we would possibly track how many times each mask has been washed," she said. The instructions also said the masks should not be washed with disinfectants, bleach or chemicals, which is how Norder said nursing homes clean their laundry.
Norder said she laundered about 100 masks and they shrank. "The ones that have been washed are tiny, and I certainly wouldn't want to put something on someone's face that hasn't been laundered," she said. "All my colleagues [at other nursing homes] received the same thing and were also baffled by it, wondering, 'How are we going to use these?' "
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. KHN senior correspondent Christina Jewett contributed to this report.
WINNEBAGO COUNTY, Il. (WIFR) -- The Winnebago County Health Department confirms 29 new cases of COVID-19 and no additional deaths.
Winnebago County now has 2,730otal positive cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths as of Saturday. he county death total still stands at 78 deaths.
Areas of concern are the following:
-- Alden Alma Nelson Manor-- Alpine Fireside Health Center-- Amberwood Care Centre-- Bickford Senior Living-- Crimson Pointe-- East Bank-- Fairhaven Christian Retirement Center-- Forrest City Rehab & Nursing-- Highview in the Woodlands-- Lincolnshire Place-- Luther Center-- PA Peterson-- Presence Cor Mariae-- River Bluff Nursing Home-- Rock River Health Care-- St. Anne Ascension Living-- Van Matre-- Wesley Willows-- Winnebago County Jail-- Winnebago County Juvenile Justice Center
51 deaths (65.38 percent) came from in-congregate settings from an area of concern. 27 deaths (34.62 percent) came from non-congregate settings from an area of concern.
Here is the breakdown of cases and deaths in the county by age group:
-- 108 cases: 0-9 age group-- 227 cases: 10-19 age group-- 569 cases: 20-29 age group-- 436 cases: 30-39 age group-- 401 cases and 2 deaths: 40-49 age group-- 378 cases and 8 deaths: 50-59 age group-- 283 cases and 11 deaths: 60-69 age group-- 160 cases and 20 deaths: 70-79 age group-- 168 cases and 37 deaths: 80 and older age group
Here is the breakdown of the cases in the county by race ethnicity:
-- 26%: White, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 24.2%: Black/African American, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 20.2%: Hispanic or Latino-- 2.1 %: Asian, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 27.2%: Unknown-- 0.3%: Other, Not Hispanic or Latino
There have been 2,730 total tests that have come back positive and 26,547 tests that have come back negative.
The county recovery rate is currently 91.3 percent.
The indirect effects of COVID-19 on these groups may be greater than the number of deaths due to the virus itself, agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.
The pandemic has overwhelmed health systems in many parts of the world, which means women may be at greater risk of dying from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
Early evidence also suggests that people in their teens and 20s are at increased risk of depression and anxiety, online harassment, physical and sexual violence and unintended pregnancies.
In response, WHO has published guidelines for health facilities on maintaining essential services during the pandemic, including for newborn care.
Experts have also investigated the risk of COVID-19 being transmitted to babies during breastfeeding.
Based on the available evidence, WHOs advice is that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any potential risks of transmission of COVID-19, said Tedros.
Mothers with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should be encouraged to initiate and continue breastfeeding and not be separated from their infants, unless the mother is too unwell.
So far, experts have not been able to detect live virus in breastmilk, though fragments have been identified in several cases, according to Dr. Anshu Banerjee, Director of WHOs Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing.
So, the risk of transmission from mother, to child therefore, so far, has not been established, he said.
Health experts are working to get a clearer picture of how COVID-19 affects children and adolescents.
Much remains to beknown about the diseases impacts on this population, according to Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and WHOs technical lead on the pandemic.
We have a number of unknowns that were really trying to better understand, she said, responding to a journalists question.
How often are they infected? Do they play a role in transmission and if so, how much are they playing in that role? What roles do schools potentially have?
Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO head of emergencies, added that several studies are underway, including into why some children end up with severe outcomes and needing to be hospitalized from the disease.
Meanwhile, countries coming out of lockdowns to contain COVID-19 spread must strike a careful balance between public safety and the need to avert further damage to their economies.
Dr. Ryan said WHO is concerned that some nations, which have passed the peak of the pandemic, are now seeing an uptick in cases.
There is a careful balance to be struck between keeping everyone at home and continuing to completely suppress transmission of COVID-19, and the untoward effects of that on the economy and the society. And that is not an easy balance, he said.
Dr. Ryan reiterated WHO advice on the need for strong national public health surveillance to determine where the virus is increasing so that authorities can take action.
In the wake of COVID-19, some jobs, especially in retail and services, probably won't return. And have you heard of this business coming to Redding? Redding Record Searchlight
5:35 p.m., Friday June 12
Nail salons, tattoo parlors and other personal services are now allowed to reopen in Shasta County, while outdoor attendance at places of worship and other First Amendment-protected gatherings is now allowed without size restrictions as long as people keep their distance.
The state is recommending June 19 for a reopening date, but the county says as long as businesses have plans to meet its guidelines, they can open now.To see the state guidelines for the latest businesses allowed to reopen, go tohttps://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/expanded-personal-services.pdf.
Besides nail salons, the change applies to estheticians, body art, tattoo parlors, electrology, piercings, massage therapy that's not in a medical setting and cosmetology.
The latest reopening changes for the county also allow people to gather without restriction at outdoor worship services and other First Amendment-protected gatherings as long as they stay at least 6 feet from those not in their own household.
Meanwhile, the county doesn't have any new virus cases today, and its new COVID tracker is available at shastaready.org.
7 a.m., Friday, June 12
Shasta County's newest coronavirus patient is also its youngest yet a girl under 13, the county reported late Thursday.
The girl is in isolation at home. She had symptoms of the illness, while many who have tested positive recently including some elderly residents have been asymptomatic.
No additional details were immediately available.
Christa Blake, left, and other employees at DeVons Jewelers prepare for the store to reopen on Monday morning, May 18, 2020 inside Mt. Shasta Mall. She planned to put on her face mask after placing an item in the display case. It was the mall's first day reopening, about two months since it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. J.C. Penney and Macy's, the mall's anchor stores, remained closed.(Photo: Hung T. Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight)
The county has now had 48 cases with four deaths.
Glenn County was the only otherin the region to record a new case Thursday, bringing its total to 24. But by Friday, Tehama County recorded a whopping eight new cases, bringing its total to 20, while Butte County's caseload rose to 74 and Mendocino's to 38.
In other local virus news, the county on Wednesday announced a new online "COVID alert" that will let residents more easily track the disease as more businesses reopen.
The county's shastaready.org website will soon havegraphs and more showingdisease transmission, impacts on hospitals and other medical providers, and the countys ability to contain the disease.
Health Officer Dr. Karen Ramstrom said the new tracker will be up by the end of the week.
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There also will be a color-coded graphic online to score how the county is doing, Ramstrom said.
A sign at the entrance of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area tells visitors to social distance due to coronavirus concerns on Friday, April 24, 2020.(Photo: Matthew Brannon/Record Searchlight)
In far Northern California, here's where COVID-19 case totals stand, according to reporting from county health departments.
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Coastal counties:
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Here's what the state'snumbers look like as of Friday evening:
Coronavirus testing began at Shasta College on Thursday, April 30, 2020. One of the site's workers, Mckenna Adams, provided a test demonstration for reporters.(Photo: Matthew Brannon/Record Searchlight)
Here's how California's coronavirus cases break down by age and more:
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Here's the caseload nationwide and worldwide as of Friday afternoon:
Source: Johns Hopkins University.
Alayna Shulman covers a little bit of everything for the Record Searchlight. In particular, she loves writing aboutthe issues of this community through long-form storytelling. Her work often centers on localcrime, features and politics, and has won awards for best writing, best business coverage and best investigative reporting in the California News Publishers Association's Better Newspapers Contest.Follow her on Twitter (@ashulman_RS), call her at 530-225-8372 and, to support herwork, please subscribe.
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