Category: Corona Virus

Another four Mainers have died as health officials on Sunday reported 340 more coronavirus cases across the state.

Sundays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 33,559, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 33,219 on Saturday.

Of those, 27,511 have been confirmed positive, while 6,048 were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Two Cumberland County residents, a Somerset County resident and a York County resident have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide toll to 511. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

Sunday marked the lowest number of new cases reported since Monday, when Maine saw 313. It followed a week that saw four days with new cases above 700 including three above 800, as well as a new single-day record high of 824. New cases slipped to 438 on Saturday.

That follows a trend of lower cases reported over the weekend. The previous weekend Maine saw new cases slip into the 200s. Such weekend slumps have been followed by a return of higher new daily cases during the week.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 610.9, up from 601.7 a day ago, up from 529.7 a week ago and up from 433.4 a month ago. Before this surge began in late October, Maines seven-day average was hovering in the 30s.

The Maine CDC continues to report widespread high levels of community transmission, defined as a case rate of 16 or more per 10,000 people, even in counties once largely spared the worst of the pandemic.

So far, 1,244 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 205 people are currently hospitalized, with 66 in critical care and 26 on ventilators.

Maine CDC spokesperson Robert Long said Sunday that 66,314 Mainers have been vaccinated against the virus, with 11,720 who have received two doses.

A majority of the cases 19,972 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Friday, there have been 1,328,905 negative test results out of 1,368,816 overall. Nearly 2.9 percent of all tests have come back positive, the most recently available Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 9,794 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 126 have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (3,612), Aroostook (1,024), Franklin (564), Hancock (683), Kennebec (2,606), Knox (485), Lincoln (393), Oxford (1,560), Penobscot (2,894), Piscataquis (163), Sagadahoc (614), Somerset (942), Waldo (428), Washington (494) and York (7,296) counties. Information about where an additional three cases were reported wasnt immediately available.

As of Sunday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 23,775,293 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 395,896 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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4 more Mainers die as another 340 coronavirus cases are reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

Other locations designated as vaccine hubs in the Houston area include:

According to the state health departments website, you must be one of the following in order to qualify for a vaccine from one of the hub providers:

Texas will receive 333,650 first does of the COVID-19 vaccine next week, according to the state health department. Health officials have instructed the CDC to ship the doses to 260 providers across the state, including 79 hubs focused largely on community vaccination efforts and 181 additional providers.

This week, Texas became the first state to give 1 million does of the vaccine. The state health department said the vaccine has been given to residents in all of Texas 254 counties.

The DSHS is ordering about 500,000 doses intended to be the second dose for those who received their first round of the COVID-19 vaccine a few weeks ago.

For more information on coronavirus vaccines in Texas, click here.

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Texas announces additional COVID-19 vaccine hubs in Houston area - KHOU.com

In a study published in Science today, Berger and her colleagues pull several of these strands together and use NLP to predict mutations that allow viruses to avoid being detected by antibodies in the human immune system, a process known as viral immune escape. The basic idea is that the interpretation of a virus by an immune system is analogous to the interpretation of a sentence by a human.

Its a neat paper, building off the momentum of previous work, says Ali Madani, a scientist at Salesforce, who is using NLP to predict protein sequences.

Bergers team uses two different linguistic concepts: grammar and semantics (or meaning). The genetic or evolutionary fitness of a viruscharacteristics such as how good it is at infecting a hostcan be interpreted in terms of grammatical correctness. A successful, infectious virus is grammatically correct; an unsuccessful one is not.

Similarly, mutations of a virus can be interpreted in terms of semantics. Mutations that make a virus appear different to things in its environmentsuch as changes in its surface proteins that make it invisible to certain antibodieshave altered its meaning. Viruses with different mutations can have different meanings, and a virus with a different meaning may need different antibodies to read it.

To model these properties, the researchers usedan LSTM, a type of neural network that predates the transformer-based ones used by large language models like GPT-3. These older networks can be trained on far less data than transformers and still perform well for many applications.

Instead of millions of sentences, they trained the NLP model on thousands of genetic sequences taken from three different viruses: 45,000 unique sequences for a strain of influenza, 60,000 for a strain of HIV, and between 3,000 and 4,000 for a strain of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Theres less data for the coronavirus because theres been less surveillance, says Brian Hie, a graduate student at MIT, who built the models.

NLP models work by encoding words in a mathematical space in such a way that words with similar meanings are closer together than words with different meanings. This is known as an embedding. For viruses, the embedding of the genetic sequences grouped viruses according to how similar their mutations were.

The overall aim of the approach is to identify mutations that might let a virus escape an immune system without making it less infectiousthat is, mutations that change a viruss meaning without making it grammatically incorrect.

Take a language example. Changing just one word in the sentence "wine growers revel in good season" can produce the sentences "wine growers revel in strong season" or "wine growers revel in flu season." Both share the same grammatical structure but one has changed its meaning more than the other. The tool looks for similar changes in a virus, flagging those that change its meaning most.

To test their approach, the team used a common metric for assessing predictions made by machine-learning models that scores accuracy on a scale between 0.5 (no better than chance) and 1 (perfect). In this case, they took the top mutations identified by the tool and, using real viruses in a lab, checked how many of them were actual escape mutations. Their results ranged from 0.69 for HIV to 0.85 for one coronavirus strain. This is better than results from other state-of-the-art models, they say.

Knowing what mutations might be coming could make it easier for hospitals and public health authorities to plan ahead. For example, asking the model to tell you how much a flu strain has changed its meaning since last year would give you a sense of how well the antibodies that people have already developed are going to work this year.

Still, this work is more about breaking new ground than making a real impact on public healthfor now. Since doing the work published in Science, the team has been running models on new variants of the coronavirus, including the so-called UK mutation, the mink mutation from Denmark, and variants taken from South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia.

They have found a high potential for immune escape in all of themalthough this hasnt yet been tested in the wild. But the model did miss another change in the South Africa variant that has raised concerns because it may allow it to escape vaccines. They are trying to understand why that is."It consists of multiple mutations and we believe a combinatorial effect is coming into play," says Berger.

Using NLP accelerates a slow process. Previously, the genome of the virus taken from a covid-19 patient in hospital could be sequenced and its mutations re-created and studied in a lab. But that can take weeks, says Bryan Bryson, a biologist at MIT, who also works on the project. The NLP model predicts potential mutations straight away, which focuses the lab work and speeds it up.

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AIs that read sentences are now catching coronavirus mutations - MIT Technology Review

Illinois seven-day average positivity rate fell for an eighth straight day, now down to 6.3%, the lowest that indicator of transmission has been since Oct. 26.

Heres what else happened in Chicago and around Illinois in coronavirus-related news.

More than 103,000 Illinois residents so far have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, public health officials said Saturday, as the state reported COVID-19 has killed an additional 130 people and spread to 5,343 more.

The new cases were diagnosed among 102,372 tests submitted to the Illinois Department of Public Health, keeping most of the states metrics trending in the right direction as they have since the holidays.

Illinois seven-day average positivity rate fell for an eighth straight day, now down to 6.3%, the lowest that indicator of transmission has been since Oct. 26.

And COVID-19 hospitalizations are as low as theyve been since Nov. 1, with 3,406 beds occupied statewide as of Friday night. Of those patients, 711 were receiving intensive care and 379 were on ventilators.

But Saturdays death count is well above the states average of 107 deaths per day so far this year. A total of 1,704 Illinois lives have been lost to COVID-19 since New Years Day.

Read the full story from Mitchell Armentrout here.

Friday was confusing. Documents were emailed to media. Websites that allegedly outline the states entire sports policy during coronavirus werent updated (and then they were). The Illinois High School Association had a last-minute meeting with Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz.

Gov. Pritzker hit on high school sports very briefly in his COVID-19 update.

There was some good news for high school athletes. Low-risk sports will be allowed when regions move to Tier 2. Rockford, Peoria and southern Illinois hit Tier 2 on Friday and some regions in the Chicago area could be there as early next week.

There are regions that are moving into lower tiers of mitigations, Pritzker said. In those tiers there are [sports] that are opening up. Thats a good beginning.

Low-risk sports (boys and girls bowling, cheerleading, dance, girls gymnastics and boys swimming and diving and badminton) will be allowed to play conference and intra-region games.

Medium-risk sports will be allowed to conduct full practices and high-risk sports (basketball and wrestling) will be allowed to hold no-contact practices in Tier 2. There are no IHSA medium-risk winter sports.

Read the full story here.

NEW DELHI India started inoculating health workers Saturday in what is likely the worlds largest COVID-19 vaccination campaign, joining the ranks of wealthier nations where the effort is already well underway.

India is home to the worlds largest vaccine makers and has one of the biggest immunization programs. But there is no playbook for the enormity of the current challenge.

Indian authorities hope to give shots to 300 million people, roughly the population of the U.S and several times more than its existing program, which targets 26 million infants. The recipients include 30 million doctors, nurses and other front-line workers, to be followed by 270 million people who are either over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to COVID-19.

For workers who have pulled Indias battered health care system through the pandemic, the vaccinations offered confidence that life can start returning to normal. Many burst with pride.

I am happy to get an India-made vaccine and that we do not have to depend on others for it, said Gita Devi, a nurse who was one of the first to get a shot. Devi has treated patients throughout the pandemic in a hospital in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state in Indias heartland.

Read the full story here.

An employee of Cook Countys Office of the Chief Judge tested positive for the coronavirus, raising the total number of employees with positive tests to 253.

The employee works in the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, the chief judges office said Friday in a statement. A new resident at the detention center who had already been released also tested positive.

In addition to the 253 employees who tested positive for the coronavirus, 19 judges have also tested positive since the start of the pandemic, according to the statement.

Read the full story here.

A city investigation into Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse found it to be in compliance with coronavirus safety regulation after a fire Wednesday evacuated the restaurant.

The fire, which started about 9 p.m. in a second-floor fireplace, was quickly extinguished, and while no one was injured in the blaze, the restaurant did have to evacuate patrons from the building, according to Chicago fire officials.

That led to an investigation from the office of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, which had inspected the famed Gold Coast steakhouse just days before the fire and found them compliant with COVID-19 regulations.

BACP has reached the same conclusion after another investigation on Thursday, according to spokesman Isaac Reichman.

Reporter Sam Kelly has more.

Illinois cash-starved bars and restaurants will be allowed to welcome customers inside sooner than originally ordered by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, but that reopening is still a ways off for Chicago.

The Democratic governor announced Friday that limited indoor service will be allowed for regions of the state that see their COVID-19 metrics improve enough to move down to the states Tier 1 mitigation level.

Thats a shift from the original plan laid out by Pritzkers health team, which wouldve required regions to improve even further to return to the states Phase 4 of reopening.

Still, most of the states 11 regions remain in Tier 3, including Chicago and its suburbs.

Pritzkers layers of tiers and mitigations have caused confusion for the thousands of establishments that have seen revenue dry up since the governor shuttered indoor service statewide in November in an effort to stem a record-breaking COVID-19 resurgence.

Reporter Mitchell Armentrout has more.

Who knew?

Apparently, only a few.

Who figured Americas presidential inaugural would be recalibrated by a gruesome twist in American history: sedition fueled by an accelerator named President Donald Trump and his thug acolytes.

The recent attack of domestic terrorism by the latest version of the historic Plug Uglies, is not expected to force President-elect Joseph Bidens inauguration off the steps of the nations Capitol this week.

But its a good bet the nations House, invaded last week by soldiers of Trumps alternative universe, will be hovered by a Star Wars sized military force ostensibly protecting celebrants looking sideways and facing the possibility of a pat-down rather than a pat on the back.

Sadly, our nations inaugural transfer of power used to be a ball, a bash to celebrate the success of democracy.

Read the full column from Michael Sneed here.

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Coronavirus live blog, Jan. 16, 2021: More than 103,000 Illinois residents have been fully vaccinated - Chicago Sun-Times

CLEVELAND, Ohio Five Northeast Ohio bars four in Cuyahoga County and one in Summit County were cited Saturday for violating the orders put in place by the Ohio Department of Health in order to try and curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

None of the bars have previously been cited by the Ohio Investigative Unit. Here are the establishments cited Saturday, in alphabetical order by city, according to a news release from the OIU:

Papa Dons Pub, Akron

Papa Dons Pub, on East Market Street near Interstate 76, was cited about 8:50 p.m. Saturday. OIU agents went to the bar and saw more than 50 patrons packed inside, with no social distancing measures in place. Every seat at the bar was occupied, and people were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, an OIU news release says. The bar received a citation for improper conduct disorderly activity.

Backstage Bar, Cleveland

Backstage Bar, on Lorain Avenue in Clevelands Kamms Corners neighborhood, was cited about 10:40 p.m. Saturday. OIU agents cited the bar for improper conduct disorderly activity after they observed numerous patrons still inside drinking alcohol, with bartenders still serving drinks. Gov. Mike DeWine put a cut-off on alcohol sales at 10 p.m. over the summer.

In the Drink, Fairview Park

In the Drink, a bar on Lorain Road near Fairview Parks border with Cleveland, was cited about 10:25 p.m. Saturday for improper conduct disorderly activity. Patrons were still inside and drinking alcohol past the 10 p.m. cut-off.

Riverwood Caf, Lakewood

Riverwood Caf, on Detroit Road on the west end of Lakewood, received a citation for improper conduct disorderly activity about 9:15 p.m. Saturday. Agents cited the bar after observing about 100 patrons inside, standing shoulder-to-shoulder while the bar was packed. There were no social distancing measures or physical barriers in place.

Shadows Bar & Grill, Parma Heights

Shadows Bar & Grill, on West 130th Street near the intersection with Pearl Road, was cited about 8:15 p.m. for improper conduct disorderly activity. OIU agents were joined by Parma Heights police in their investigation. Authorities saw about 100 patrons at the establishment, with many closely congregating. There were some safety precautions in place, but the social distancing measures or physical barriers to separate groups were not.

These administrative cases will be heard by the Ohio Liquor Control Commission for possible penalties, including fines or the suspension or revocation of liquor permits, according to the OIU. You can find cases that have been heard by the liquor control commission and their findings here.

Read more coronavirus-related coverage on cleveland.com:

COVID-19 vaccine dates for seniors, school employees set for Cuyahoga County

At least 17,000 more people than usual died last year in Ohio amid coronavirus

Try to focus on the blessing: Concord woman keeps positive thoughts despite long-haul coronavirus Coping Through Covid

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Five Northeast Ohio bars cited for violating coronavirus health orders - cleveland.com

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) Twenty-three more COVID-19 deaths were reported, as active cases in the state continue to remain below 5,000. The last time South Dakota had fewer than 5,000 active cases was on October 8.

On Saturday, 266 new total coronavirus cases were announced bringing the states total case count to 105,544, up from Saturday (105,278). Total recovered cases are now at 99,226, up from Saturday (98,808).

The death toll is now at 1,656. New deaths reported on Saturday were 13 men and 10 women in the following age ranges: 50-59 (2), 60-69 (3), 70-79 (8), and 80+ (10).

Active cases are now at 4,662, down from Saturday (4,837).

Current hospitalizations are at 213, up from Saturday (209). Total hospitalizations are at 6,063, up from Saturday (6,039).

Total persons negative is now at 285,878, up from Saturday (285,242).

There were 902 new persons tested reported on Saturday. Saturdays new person tested positivity rate is 29.4%.

The latest seven-day all test positivity rate reported by the DOH is 10.9%. The DOH calculates that based on the results of the PCR test results but doesnt release total numbers for how many PCR tests are done daily. The latest one-day PCR test positivity rate is 10.3%.

40 South Dakota counties are listed as having substantial community spread, while 17 South Dakota counties are listed as moderate community spread and 9 South Dakota counties are listed as minimal community spread.

Vaccine tracking is now being reported by the state. As of Saturday, 29,034 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 27,591 doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered to 46,796 total persons. Theres been 9,829 persons completed two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and no one has completed two doses of the Moderna vaccine. Vaccine data does not include vaccine given to South Dakota Indian Reservations because that is federally allocated.

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COVID-19 in South Dakota: 266 total new cases; Death toll rises to 1,656; Active cases at 4,662 - KELOLAND.com

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

NEW ORLEANS Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was a Baptist Minister, activist and Civil Rights Leader, whose mission was to bring awareness to racism, end racial discrimination and bring unity to all races across the country.

Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, brought out about 250,000 people to listen to what is described as a call for equality and freedom.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. " I Have a Dream".

He fought for equality and racial justice up until his assassination on April 4, 1968.

To honor his memory, MLK Day is seen as a day of service where individuals and groups come together to better their community by engaging in community service activities. But many MLK Day events have been canceled or altered to follow COVID restrictions.

Here is a list of events to commemorate MLK Day:

Orleans

Covington

Lake Charles

Kenner

Slidell

Stay up-to-date with the latest news and weather in the New Orleans area on the all-new free WWL TV app. Our app features the latest breaking news that impacts you and your family, interactive weather and radar, and live video from our newscasts and local events. LOCAL & BREAKING NEWS * Receive r...

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MLK day of service events have been altered due to the coronavirus - WWLTV.com

Denton County Public Health has been allocated an additional 6,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Texas Week 6 allocation list.

Last week, Texas began a shift away from its previous vaccine distribution model of sending shipments in the low hundreds to numerous providers throughout the state. The state named 28 vaccination hubs, chosen for their capability to administer the shots in large numbers.

As a result of the states distribution shift, only one other provider in Denton county was allocated a shipment: Health Services of North Texas in Denton, which will be receiving 100.

DCPH spokesperson Jennifer Rainey said earlier in the week that the department was told it will continue to receive large shipments, making for a significant improvement in communication with the state compared to the start of the vaccine rollout, in which the department was not allocated any and could not reach the state for information on why.

DCPH Director Matt Richardsons weekly COVID-19 presentation at Tuesdays Denton County Commissioners Court Meeting will likely offer more details on the new shipment and DCPHs administration plans moving forward. He will also likely discuss Thursdays 3,000-vaccine clinic at C.H. Collins Athletic Complex, which he said would be a test for the department.

Continue reading here:

County set to receive another 6,000 COVID-19 vaccines | Coronavirus Outbreak - Denton Record Chronicle

COVID-19 vaccine rules spark confusion for some in Philly. Others are jumping the line.  The Philadelphia Inquirer

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COVID-19 vaccine rules spark confusion for some in Philly. Others are jumping the line. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: Jan 17, 2021 / 03:53 PM EST / Updated: Jan 17, 2021 / 06:29 PM EST

SCI Albion is reporting the first death of an inmate from COVID-19.

The 67-year-old inmate died on Saturday from the virus.

The inmate had underlying medical conditions and was sent to the hospital last Wednesday where he contracted COVID-19.

There are currently 186 current cases of COVID-19 with inmates and 32 active staff cases.

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SCI Albion reports the first death of an inmate from COVID-19 - YourErie