Coronavirus: US extends travel limits at borders with Canada and Mexico - as it happened Financial Times
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(Washington, DC) The Districts reported data for Tuesday, July 20, 2021 includes 31 new positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall positive case total to 49,858.
The District reported no additional COVID-19 related deaths.
Tragically, 1,146 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.
Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.
Below is a summary of the Districts current ReOpening Metrics.
Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.
Patient Gender
Total Positive Cases
%
Female
%
Male
%
Unknown
%
All
49,858*
100
25,974
100
23,719
100
165
100
Unknown
64
<1
21
<1
38
<1
5
3
0-18
6,476
13
3,221
13
3,233
14
22
13
19-30
13,434
27
7,383
29
5,998
25
53
32
31-40
9,931
20
5,103
20
4,790
20
38
23
41-50
6,376
13
3,209
12
3,154
13
13
8
51-60
5,865
12
2,885
11
2,966
13
14
9
61-70
4,220
9
2,121
8
2,092
9
7
4
71-80
2,118
4
1,148
5
965
4
5
3
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Coronavirus Data for July 20, 2021 | mayormb - Executive Office of the Mayor
Taylor Crabb, shown here in a 2019 tournament, is widely reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan. Justin Casterline/Getty Images hide caption
Taylor Crabb, shown here in a 2019 tournament, is widely reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan.
The first U.S. athlete expected to compete in the Tokyo Summer Olympics has tested positive for the coronavirus while in Japan.
USA Volleyball confirmed to NPR that a member of the team received a positive test and has been transferred to a hotel.
The team is not confirming the identity of the athlete, though it has been widely reported in southern California local media to be men's beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb.
Teams of two play beach volleyball at the Olympics. Crabb, 29, and his partner, Jake Gibb, have been scheduled for their first game early Sunday morning ET, against a pair from Italy.
The positive test makes it unlikely that Crabb will be able to play.
"As for a potential replacement, there is a protocol for an alternate athlete to join the team," USA Volleyball said. "We are working through that process."
Crabb was getting ready to make his Olympic debut. Gibb, 45, has competed in three other Games. Last month, the pair secured their spot to Tokyo.
Crabb's brother Trevor, who is also a professional beach volleyball player, told a local NBC affiliate that he thought the situation was "terrible." He said Crabb is "fine and healthy and should be allowed to play in my personal opinion."
It's not clear what the positive test means for Gibb. The COVID-19 protocols for the Games leave the door open for officials to determine on a case-by-case basis whether a close contact of a positive case can compete.
A U.S. gymnastics alternate, Kara Eaker, also tested positive in Japan, although she was not expected to compete at the Games. U.S. tennis star Coco Gauff received a positive test while she was still in the U.S.
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1st U.S. Athlete Set To Compete In Olympics Tests Positive For Coronavirus In Japan - NPR
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Indonesia has converted nearly its entire oxygen production to medical use just to meet the demand from COVID-19 patients struggling to breathe. Overflowing hospitals in Malaysia had to resort to treating patients on the floor. And in Myanmars largest city, graveyard workers have been laboring day and night to keep up with the grim demand for new cremations and burials.
Images of bodies burning in open-air pyres during the peak of the pandemic in India horrified the world in May, but in the last two weeks the three Southeast Asian nations have now all surpassed Indias peak per capita death rate as a new coronavirus wave, fueled by the virulent delta variant, tightens its grip on the region.
The deaths have followed record numbers of new cases being reported in countries across the region which have left health care systems struggling to cope and governments scrambling to implement new restrictions to try to slow the spread.
When Eric Lam tested positive for COVID-19 and was hospitalized on June 17 in the Malaysian state of Selangor, the center of the countrys outbreak, the corridors of the government facility were already crowded with patients on beds with no room left in the wards.
The situation was still better than in some other hospitals in Selangor, Malaysias richest and most populous state, where there were no free beds at all and patients were reportedly treated on floors or on stretchers. The government has since added more hospital beds and converted more wards for COVID-19 patients.
Lam, 38, recalled once during his three weeks in the hospital hearing a machine beeping continuously for two hours before a nurse came to turn it off; he later learned the patient had died.
A variety of factors have contributed to the recent surge in the region, including people growing weary of the pandemic and letting precautions slip, low vaccination rates and the emergence of the delta variant of the virus, which was first detected in India, said Abhishek Rimal, the Asia-Pacific emergency health coordinator for the Red Cross, who is based in Malaysia.
With the measures that countries are taking, if people follow the basics of washing the hands, wearing the masks, keeping distance and getting vaccinated, we will be seeing a decline in cases in the next couple of weeks from now, he said.
So far, however, Malaysias national lockdown measures have not brought down the daily rate of infections. The country of some 32 million saw daily cases rise above 10,000 on July 13 for the first time and they have stayed there since.
The vaccination rate remains low but has been picking up, with nearly 15% of the population now fully inoculated and the government hoping to have a majority vaccinated by years end.
Doctors and nurses have been working tirelessly to try to keep up, and Lam was one of the fortunate ones.
After his condition initially deteriorated, he was put on a ventilator in an ICU unit filled to capacity and slowly recovered. He was discharged two weeks ago.
But he lost his father and brother-in-law to the virus, and another brother remains on a ventilator in the ICU.
I feel I have been reborn and given a second chance to live, he said.
With Indias massive population of nearly 1.4 billion people, its total number of COVID-19 fatalities remains higher than the countries in Southeast Asia. But Indias 7-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per million peaked at 3.04 in May, according to the online scientific publication Our World in Data, and continues to decline.
Indonesia, Myanmar, and Malaysia have been showing sharp increases since late June and their seven-day averages hit 4.17, 4.02 and 3.18 per million, respectively, on Thursday. Cambodia and Thailand have also seen strong increases in both coronavirus cases and deaths, but have thus far held the seven-day rate per million people to a lower 1.29 and 1.74, respectively.
Individual countries elsewhere have higher rates, but the increases are particularly alarming for a region that widely kept numbers low early in the pandemic.
With the Indian experience as a lesson, most countries have reacted relatively quickly with new restrictions to slow the virus, and to try to meet the needs of the burgeoning number of people hospitalized with severe illnesses, Rimal said.
People in this region are cautious, because they have seen it right in front of them 400,000 cases a day in India and they really dont want it to repeat here, he said in a telephone interview from Kuala Lumpur.
But those measures take time to achieve the desired effect, and right now countries are struggling to cope.
Indonesia, the worlds fourth most populous nation with some 270 million people, reported 1,383 deaths on Wednesday, its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic.
Daily cases through about mid-June had been about 8,000, but then began to spike and peaked last week with more than 50,000 new infections each day. Because Indonesias testing rate is low, the actual number of new cases is thought to be much higher.
As hospitals there began to run out of oxygen, the government stepped in and ordered manufacturers to shift most production from industrial purposes and dedicate 90% to medical oxygen, up from 25%.
Before the current crisis, the country needed 400 tons of oxygen for medical use per day; with the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, daily use has increased fivefold to more than 2,000 tons, according to Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono.
Though the production of oxygen is now sufficient, Lia Partakusuma, secretary general of Indonesias Hospital Association, said there were problems with distribution so some hospitals are still facing shortages.
In Indonesia, about 14% of of the population has had at least one vaccine dose, primarily Chinas Sinovac.
There are growing concerns that Sinovac is less effective against the delta variant, however, and both Indonesia and Thailand are planning booster shots of other vaccines for their Sinovac-immunized health workers.
In Myanmar, the pandemic had taken backseat to the militarys power seizure in February, which set off a wave of protests and violent political conflict that devastated the public health system.
Only in recent weeks, as testing and reporting of COVID-19 cases has started recovering, has it become clear that a new wave of the virus beginning in mid-May is pushing cases and deaths rapidly higher.
Since the start of July its death rate has been climbing almost straight up, and both cases and fatalities are widely believed to be seriously underreported.
With little testing capacity, low numbers in the country vaccinated, widespread shortages of oxygen and other medical supplies, and an already beleaguered health care system under increasing strain, the situation is expected to get increasingly worse in the coming weeks and months, said ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a regional advocacy group.
Meanwhile, the juntas confiscation of oxygen, attacks on health care workers and facilities since the coup, and the lack of trust in any services they provide by the majority of the population, risks turning a crisis into a disaster.
On Tuesday, the government reported 5,860 new cases and 286 new deaths. There are no solid figures on vaccinations, but from the number of doses that have been available, its thought that about 3% of the population could have received two shots.
Officials this week pushed back at social media postings that cemeteries in Yangon were overwhelmed and could not keep up with the number of dead, inadvertently confirming claims that hospitals were swamped and many people were dying at home.
Cho Tun Aung, head of the department that oversees the cemeteries told military-run Myawaddy TV news on Monday that 350 staff members had been working three shifts since July 8 to ensure proper cremations and burials of people at Yangons seven major cemeteries.
He said workers had cremated and buried more than 1,200 people on Sunday alone, including 1,065 who had died at home of COVID-19 and 169 who had died in hospitals.
We are working in three shifts day and night to inter the dead, he said. It is clear that there is no problem like the posts on Facebook.
___
Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.
More here:
Death rates soar in Southeast Asia as virus wave spreads - Associated Press
At the Democratic convention last summer, Ms. Urquiza very publicly denounced Mr. Trump. But her group is nonpartisan, and with Mr. Biden now six months into his term and squarely in charge of the response, she and other activists are training their sights on him. She wrote to the president asking him to meet with her groups board; the White House offered other officials instead.
For the record, I feel ignored, she said. We all do.
Many survivors and family members view the president as too eager to declare independence from the virus, as he did on July 4, and not attentive enough to the plight of long haulers who are desperate for financial and medical help.
Ms. Bishof, the former firefighter from Florida, said members of her long-haulers group cheered out loud when Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, described himself as a Covid long hauler during a Senate Health Committee hearing in March. We were like, Contact him now! she exclaimed.
Ms. Bishof was also instrumental in forming the Long Covid Alliance, a coalition of health and coronavirus-related groups, which scored a preliminary victory in April when Representatives Donald S. Beyer Jr., Democrat of Virginia, and Jack Bergman, Republican of Michigan, introduced bipartisan legislation authorizing $100 million for research and education into long-haul Covid.
Others have had a harder time getting buy-in from either side.
After her father died of Covid-19, Tara Krebbs, a former Republican from Phoenix who left the party before Mr. Trump was elected, reached out to Ms. Urquiza on Twitter. She was frustrated and angry, she said, and feeling alone. There was a lot of silent grieving at first, she said, because Covid is such a political issue.
Read more:
Scarred by Covid, Survivors and Victims Families Aim to Be a Political Force - The New York Times
July 20 (Reuters) - Two-thirds of India's population have antibodies against the coronavirus, according to data released on Tuesday from a survey of 29,000 people across the nation conducted in June and July.
The fourth national blood serum survey which tests for antibodies, known as a sero survey, included 8,691 children aged 6-17 years for the first time. Half of them were seropositive.
The survey showed 67.6% of adults were seropositive, while more than 62% of adults were unvaccinated. As of July, just over 8% of eligible adult Indians had received two vaccine doses.
About 400 million of India's 1.4 billion people did not have antibodies, the survey showed.
India's daily cases have fallen to four-month lows after a second-wave that crippled the healthcare system. But experts have warned the authorities against swiftly reopening cities and voiced concerns about overcrowding at tourist sites.
"The second wave is still persisting. The danger of new outbreaks is very much there," Vinod Kumar Paul, a top government adviser, told a news conference.
"One out of three, wherever you are, ... is still vulnerable and therefore the pandemic is no way over," he said.
The study also surveyed 7,252 healthcare workers and found 85% had antibodies, with one in 10 unvaccinated.
Last month, data showed at least half of under-18s in India's financial capital of Mumbai were exposed to COVID-19 and had antibodies against it. read more
Some experts have said a third wave could hit children. Mumbai has joined other cities in building huge paediatric wards in preparation.
Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru and Neha Arora in New Delhi; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Edmund Blair
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Two-thirds of Indians have coronavirus antibodies, survey shows - Reuters India
In a statement on Sunday, the South African Football Association confirmed that three people associated with the mens Olympic soccer team had tested positive: one official and two players, Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi. It was unclear whether those were the cases reported by Olympic officials, who did not disclose any names or nationalities.
In addition, the British Olympics Association confirmed on Sunday that six British track and field athletes and two staff members are in quarantine at the teams preparation camp after being identified as close contacts of an individual who tested positive on their flight to Japan. The group all tested negative at the airport and have continued to test negative upon arrival into the country, the association said.
Summer Olympics Essentials
Olympic officials defended their safety protocols on Sunday, saying a strict testing regimen minimized the risk of outbreaks. At a news conference, Pierre Ducrey, operations director for the Olympic Games, said that since July 1, more than 18,000 participants had arrived in Japan from overseas and more than 30,000 tests had been conducted.
This is probably the most controlled population at this point in time anywhere in the world, he said.
Tokyo is now under its fourth state of emergency since the pandemic began, with this one set to last until after the Games end on Aug. 8. The city is seeing its highest case numbers in months, reporting more than 1,000 new cases for a fifth consecutive day on Sunday.
New precautionary measures continue to be announced in the days leading up to the Games. They include changes to the medal ceremony, announced last week, that require athletes to place their gold, silver or bronze medals around their own necks rather than accept them from presenters.
The podium will also be larger this year to ensure social distancing among medalists. Olympic officials had previously announced that masks would be mandatory for both medalists and presenters.
Some athletes have decided to stay away from the Games. They include two Australians: the tennis player Nick Kyrgios, who cited misgivings about the lack of spectators, and the basketball player Liz Cambage, who said she worried about the effect that being confined to the Olympic bubble would have on her mental health.
Continue reading here:
Coco Gauff tests positive for the virus, another blow for the Tokyo Olympics. - The New York Times
In the spring of 2020, as the novel coronavirus infiltrated the Twin Cities, Hinh Ly could not stop thinking about cats and dogs.
Dr. Ly, a veterinary and biomedical researcher at the University of Minnesota, knew that humans were the primary driver of the pandemic. But he also knew that many people loved to kiss and cuddle their pets, in sickness and in health. He wondered: How transmissible was SARS-CoV-2 to humankinds best friends?
In March of 2020, Dr. Ly learned that two dogs in Hong Kong had received positive P.C.R. tests for the virus. But these tests require the virus to be actively replicating and thus only reveal active infections. Swabbing the snouts of many pets struck Dr. Ly as an overly time-consuming way to figure out how easily the animals could be infected.
So he pitched an idea to his wife, Yuying Liang, a researcher in the same department who leads the lab with him, to test cats and dogs for antibodies, which would reveal past infection to the virus. I had the idea, but she is the boss, Dr. Ly said.
The result of those antibody tests, published recently in the journal Virulence, suggest that household cats are more susceptible than dogs to a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Fortunately, infected cats appear to show mild symptoms at most. I am still a bit surprised that cats are so readily infected and yet rarely exhibit any signs of illness, said Dr. Angela Bosco-Lauth, a biomedical researcher at Colorado State Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences who was not involved with the research.
And there is still no evidence to suggest infected cats or dogs are a risk to people, said Dr. Jonathan Runstadler, a virologist at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University who has studied how the coronavirus affects animals but was not involved in the new work.
The new study supports recent research that it may be fairly common in households where people test positive for SARS-CoV-2 for cats and dogs to become infected, too, Dr. Runstadler said.
To test for pet antibodies, the Minnesota researchers needed the animals serum, the component of blood that contains antibodies. Dr. Ly reached out to Dr. Daniel Heinrich, director of the clinical pathology lab at the universitys veterinary center. (Dr. Henrich is also an author on the new study.) Pets passed through the center daily and had their blood tested for myriad reasons, including annual checkups, unrelated disease, peeing inappropriately on the wall, Dr. Ly said.
Those samples are usually discarded. But Dr. Heinrich asked pet owners to allow the serum to be used anonymously in the study, and the researchers got their first handful of samples in April.
The researchers initially screened roughly 100 samples, and found that about 5 percent of the cat serum contained coronavirus antibodies, whereas almost none of the dog serum did. To be safe, Dr. Ly tested hundreds more samples, drawing from blood collected in April, May and June, as Covid cases were rising in the region.
In the end, the scientists found that 8 percent of cats carried antibodies to the coronavirus, whereas less than 1 percent of dogs did, suggesting that cats were more susceptible to infection.
Because the pet owners granted consent anonymously, the researchers were unable to trace which humans might have transmitted the virus to the various cats and dogs. It was also unclear whether the infected pet cats lived indoors or outdoors, or how transmissible the virus was from cat to cat, Dr. Ly said.
The researchers do not know why cats seem to be more susceptible than dogs. One possibility relates to ACE2, a protein on the surface of cells that is a receptor for the coronavirus. The genetic sequence of the human ACE2 protein is much more similar to the equivalent sequence in cats than in dogs.
But animal behavior could be a factor as well. A recent study that presented similar findings that cats become infected by the coronavirus more readily than dogs noted that cats are often more welcome to sleep on beds than dogs are. Maybe it is because we cuddle the cats more, Dr. Ly speculated. Maybe we kiss the cats more.
Dr. Bosco-Lauth said she believes that pets are unlikely to contribute to the epidemiology of SARS-COV-2 in the long run. But theres still no way to know for sure.
For those people who test positive for Covid-19, Dr. Ly recommended distancing from not only humans, but cats and dogs. You cannot cuddle them, he said.
Dr. Ly and Dr. Liang do not have cats or dogs in their own home. They do have a tank of guppies, which appear, for the moment, to be quite safe from the coronavirus.
Read more:
Cats Are Better Than Dogs (at Catching the Coronavirus) - The New York Times
