Category: Corona Virus

A second coronavirus relief bill seems more uncertain than ever after President Donald Trump said he called off negotiations with Democrats but then went on to push for piecemeal, standalone bills in a series of tweets Tuesday night. At stake are second relief checks for Americans, additional unemployment benefits, another round of Paycheck Protection loans and billions in airline aid. The U.S. economy has been waging a slow recovery after the virus shutdown in March.

Here are some of the biggest developments Wednesday:

The following data was compiled by Johns Hopkins University:

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Coronavirus live updates: Fed concerned failure to pass stimulus will hurt economic recovery - CNBC

Massachusetts' latest weekly data on the coronavirus pandemic, including the updated community-level risk assessment map, shows 40 communities considered at the highest risk for transmitting COVID-19, 17 more than last week.

The data, from the Department of Public Health, includes a breakdown of the total number of coronavirus cases in each Massachusetts city and town, as well as the new map and more data.

The high-risk communities in Wednesday's report are Acushnet, Amherst, Attleboro, Avon, Boston, Brockton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Dartmouth, Dracut, Dudley, Everett, Framingham, Haverhill, Holyoke, Hudson, Kingston, Lawrence, Leicester, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Marlborough, Methuen, Middleton, Nantucket, New Bedford, North Andover, Plymouth, Randolph, Revere, Southborough, Southbridge, Springfield, Sunderland, Waltham, Webster, Winthrop, Woburn and Worcester.

The map shows the number of cases detected on average each day over the last two weeks in each of Massachusetts' communities. More than 8 cases per 100,000 translates to a high risk and red shading, between 4 and 8 cases per 100,000 is moderate risk and any less than that is low risk.

This map shows the average daily number of coronavirus cases per capita in Massachusetts from Sept. 20-Oct. 3, 2020.

There are 40 cities and towns shaded red in this map, a 74% increase compared to last week's map, which included data from Sept. 13-26. There were 23 communities on last week's list from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

These 19 communities are new to the list since last week: Acushnet, Amherst, Brockton, Chelmsford, Dartmouth, Dudley, Holyoke, Hudson, Kingston, Leicester, Malden, Plymouth, Randolph, Southborough, Southbridge, Sunderland, Waltham, Webster, and Woburn

These two communities, Holliston and Lynnfield, were removed from the list since last week.

Read this week's full report here, with data on communities' percent positivity, county- and state-level data and more.

Boston entered the red zone last week and its average incidence rate rose to 10 coronavirus cases per 100,000 in the new Department of Public Health report.

Mayor Marty Walsh on Wednesday announced that Boston Public Schools would pause their reopening after the citys coronavirus positivity rate climbed above the 4% cutoff it had previously outlined.

Last week, the city held off entering Step 2 of Phase 3 of Massachusetts' reopening plan because it anticipated entering the red zone.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he's holding out hope that students can return to class on schedule this fall, even though the city is nearing Massachusetts' highest risk zone for coronavirus.

Massachusetts has changed how it's measured coronavirus metrics over time.

The color-coded town-by-town data was introduced in August, and the Baker administration announced that the state would focus its strongest COVID-mitigation efforts on towns in the red category. Communities can only move to Step 2 of Phase 3 of Massachusetts' reopening plan, announced Tuesday, if they are not consistently in the red.

Previously, the positive COVID test rate over the prior 14 days had been the standard for measuring hot spots. The Department of Public Health's weekly report still includes that information, along with other metrics like how many tests are being conducted locally and how many cases have been reported locally.

However, some of Massachusetts' smaller towns have taken issue with being categorized based on cases per capita.

New Mass. communities designated by the state's as high risk for coronavirus are reacting to the designation.

They say that, when a town only has a few thousand people, an outbreak in just one household can send it into red, which is determined by 8 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents.

Asked last week why he prefers using cases per capita instead of percent positivity, Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday that the latter doesn't take into account that some people get tested repeatedly.

"We have a lot of repeat testers in our data, many of whom are repeating for work-related reasons," Baker said.

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Coronavirus Risk Map: Number of Mass. Communities in the Red Rises to 40 - NBC10 Boston

Professor Baker helped devise the countrys elimination strategy. He said that despite early fears that severe lockdowns would irreparably damage the economy, New Zealands approach had proved that the best economic response was a strong public health response, including a blitz of testing, contact tracing and quarantining.

Much of the rest of the Western world, Professor Baker added, has adopted the approach of complacent exceptionalism that they wouldnt get the virus, or it wouldnt be as severe as they thought, and the pandemic has proved them wrong.

In Auckland, where gatherings had been restricted to 100 people and masks had been mandated on public transport, the rules were eased at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday. People are no longer required to wear masks in public, but must continue to sign in at and keep records of locations they visit, maintain good hygiene practices and, if unwell, remain at home and get tested for the virus. The national border remains closed to almost all travelers except New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.

While residents said they were relieved, they did not expect an immediate return to normal life.

People have stayed in their suburbs and supported their local restaurants, so where in the past I was in a really good spot, now not so much, said Yael Shochat, who has run Ima Cuisine, a restaurant in downtown Auckland, for almost two decades.

But the most important thing is we have eliminated the virus again, and that makes people confident to come out, Ms. Shochat said. Im hoping that as Christmas comes, people will really want to go out and party its been a horrible year.

Others said they had been frustrated at restrictions that seemed too stringent, preventing them from applying for visas or doing work considered nonessential by the government. And some who acknowledged that the measures were necessary said they felt that not enough had been done to assist them.

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New Zealand Stamps Out the Coronavirus. For a Second Time. - The New York Times

Another 48 coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Wednesday.

Wednesdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 5,604. Of those, 5,011 have been confirmed positive, while 593 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Tuesdays cumulative total to 5,556, down from 5,565, meaning there was an increase of 39 over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

New cases were reported in Androscoggin (7), Aroostook (2), Cumberland (2), Kennebec (14), Knox (1), Lincoln (1), Oxford (1), Penobscot (3), Somerset (5), Waldo (1) and York (10) counties, state data show. Information about where an additional case was reported wasnt immediately available.

The seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 33.7, up from 31.6 a week ago and up from 25.4 a month ago.

No new deaths were reported on Wednesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 142. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 459 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, nine people are currently hospitalized, with two in critical care.

Meanwhile, 41 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 4,880. That means there are 582 active confirmed and probable cases in the state, which is down from 584 on Tuesday.

A majority of the cases 3,239 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Wednesday, there have been 477,882 negative test results out of 485,662 overall. About 1.4 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 2,361 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 70 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 780, 267 and 1,251 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (51), Franklin (64), Hancock (55), Kennebec (248), Knox (48), Lincoln (50), Oxford (154), Piscataquis (9), Sagadahoc (70), Somerset (96), Waldo (79) and Washington (20) counties.

As of Wednesday evening, the coronavirus had sickened 7,538,550 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 211,532 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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48 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine - Bangor Daily News

Tony Beaulieu says he got concerned for the first time about COVID-19, when the president got sick. But he says Trump's insistence that he's recovered reassured him that the virus is not much to worry about. Tovia Smith/NPR hide caption

Tony Beaulieu says he got concerned for the first time about COVID-19, when the president got sick. But he says Trump's insistence that he's recovered reassured him that the virus is not much to worry about.

Voters are both denouncing and defending President Trump for how he's handling his COVID-19 diagnosis, reflecting the deep political divide over how he has managed the pandemic as a whole. Even in blue Massachusetts, the president is getting both criticism and kudos.

Tony Beaulieu never goes anywhere without his "Trump 2020" hat on the front windshield of his truck, and his Trump flag in the back. His face mask is usually somewhere on the floor.

"I only wear a mask when I have to go in the store or something," he said. "I take zero precautions. And all the people in my circle, same thing. They don't wear masks either."

Finishing lunch in his truck, outside a sandwich place in Waltham, Mass., Beaulieu, who owns a construction business, said he believes Democrats have been exaggerating the threat of COVID-19, just to make Trump look bad before the election.

"This coronavirus is nothing like what they're saying. They make up the numbers," he said last week, just before news broke that the president was infected.

But reached by phone afterward, Beaulieu conceded that Trump's diagnosis left him feeling a little more concerned.

"It does make you think a little bit," he sighed. "Now that it's in the White House and the president can get it, I guess I could get it too. You know, I would hate to get COVID and die."

But Beaulieu's worry wouldn't last long. When Trump left the hospital Monday evening, tweeting that he felt great and "Don't be afraid of Covid," Beaulieu was once again reassured.

"I don't know, maybe [the risk] is, you know, not as bad as it's cracked up to be."

That infuriated Massachusetts' many pandemic-prudent Democrats, out shopping at the same strip mall yesterday.

"Trump is [saying] 'Look, I told you it's nothing. Look, I got over it in two days. You can too,'" said fashion designer David Josef. "This is insanity."

"I think it is very selfish, very irresponsible and very ignorant," said Jennifer Craig, who works in development at a nearby museum. The president continues to discourage social distancing and mask wearing, Craig said, which will "result in more people becoming sick, more people dying and more people infecting others."

Josef and his husband, Dan Forrester, say they were especially outraged to see Trump mask-less in the White House while contagious, grossly downplaying the dangers of the deadly virus even as cases are rising and setting alarming records in many states.

"He's throwing gas kerosene on the fire," said Forrester.

"It's a disgrace," added Josef. "It's such a slap in the face to the [more than] 200,000 Americans who have died."

It felt especially irresponsible to some, that Trump didn't just say his condition was "improving" or "good," but instead tweeted a characteristically over-the-top pronouncement that "I feel better than I did 20 years ago!"

"It sounds like the drugs are impacting his mental acuity to be honest," quipped grad student Alex Berlin, who works as a contact tracer. "I talk to people for my job about having coronavirus, and [none of them] feel like they're 20 years younger," he said.

Fellow grad student Aislinn Mayfield said she too finds Trump's tweets dangerously misleading, especially since he is benefiting from taking drugs that are unavailable to other Americans.

"For him to just brush it off, he's privileged to say what he's saying. But I think he has definitely not thought about a lot of people in communities of color who need to take it seriously because there's a lot more risk there."

Trump loyalists, however, dismiss such criticism as partisan attacks. No one could have done better battling such a deadly virus, they say. And Trump had an equally important role to play as a kind of "Calmer-in-Chief."

"He's just trying to not panic people. You have to do that," said Rick Lampron, who traveled from Florida to work on a construction project in Massachusetts. "Look what happened with the toilet paper."

Lampron said Trump is also right to reassure people about the progress made on COVID treatment options. "There are more drugs now than we had at the beginning of the pandemic, so we are better off," he said.

Another die-hard Trumper sees the president's weekend drive-by outside the hospital, as reassuring as well, and defends the move that was widely panned for endangering his Secret Service agents.

"These people take a bullet for him. So he has COVID-19, and they're supposed to do what? Social distance? They're not supposed to protect the leader of the free world because he has COVID-19? They can't say, 'Sorry, Mr. President, you have COVID-19 so we're going to have to stay 20 feet back from you,' " said the Trump supporter, who asked that his name not be used.

"I don't want to put my family in jeopardy," he said, "because I don't want those quacks out there who are rioting and burning things down to come by my house because they don't like Trump."

"It's unfortunate," he said, that the country is so divided that "no matter what [Trump] does, it's always going to be wrong." Though, he noted, he distinguishes between liking the president personally, and liking his policies.

Kevin Mac, a retired corrections officer and Trump supporter says Americans should social distance and wear masks, at least while inside, but rejects criticism that the president is dangerously downplaying the risk of COVID-19. Tovia Smith/NPR hide caption

Kevin Mac, a retired corrections officer and Trump supporter says Americans should social distance and wear masks, at least while inside, but rejects criticism that the president is dangerously downplaying the risk of COVID-19.

Another voter, Kevin Mac, a former corrections officer and a former Democrat, said he too bristles sometimes at things the president says or tweets, but he chooses to look the other way, and focus instead on what he sees as the president's strong leadership on the economy, and trade.

"You know, the president spews stuff. I'm not saying it's right," said Mac. "But you know what? I don't want no cupcakes in [the White House.] You've got to take care of your own country. We can't be, you know, bamboozled."

Polls however suggest fewer voters may see it that way. Trump's handling of his own illness and of the pandemic more broadly appears to be eroding public trust in him, leaving more voters wondering if they're being bamboozled by their president.

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How Massachusetts Voters View Trump's Handling Of The Coronavirus - NPR

Adolescents who contract Covid-19 usually do not get as sick as adults and often experience few if any symptoms, but they can spread the novel coronavirus that causes the disease to others.

Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the health departments of four states Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island described a 13-year-old girl who became infected with the coronavirus just before a three-week family gathering. Eleven other relatives, including her mother, her father, two brothers and two grandparents, also became infected.

This outbreak highlights several important issues, wrote the authors, led by Dr. Noah G. Schwartz of the C.D.C., in the article, which was published on Monday. First, children and adolescents can serve as the source for Covid-19 outbreaks within families, even when their symptoms are mild.

The finding, which appeared in the C.D.C.s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, may also fit with claims that teenagers are more likely become infected and spread the virus than younger children.

This doesnt necessarily mean that all 13-year-olds can cause outbreaks like this, said William Hanage, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved with the research. But it does mean that some 13-year-olds can.

The potential for children to transmit the disease is now pretty much established, Dr. Hanage said.

In the new case report, the girl was exposed to the coronavirus away from home in June, the authors reported. However, four days after the exposure, a rapid antigen test reported a negative result. Antigen tests for the coronavirus, however, often produce erroneous results. Two days later, she experienced nasal congestion, her only Covid-19 symptom.

The same day, she, her parents and two brothers traveled to a get-together of 20 relatives over the next three and a half weeks. Fourteen of them stayed in the five-bedroom, two-bathroom house at varying lengths of time ranging from 8 to 25 days; they did not wear face masks or stay at least six feet apart from each other. Six other relatives came by during two days once for 10 hours, the other time for three hours but maintained physical distance and remained outdoors, although they too did not wear face masks.

Of the 14 staying at the house, 12 of them, including the girl, came down with Covid-19, with the onset of symptoms appearing up to 18 days after the start of the gathering. Their ages ranged from 9 to 72. Not all of them were likely to have been directly infected by the girl; the virus may have been spread by several people in the house.

One was hospitalized, and another went to an emergency room because of trouble breathing. Both recovered. No additional cases have been linked to the family gathering.

Two of the girls cousins, 14 and 16 years old, did not contract the coronavirus. None of the day visitors who stayed outside the house became ill.

It re-emphasizes the importance of basic public health precautions, even with people we know and love, said Dr. Megan L. Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown who was not involved with the study.

Those include avoiding spaces indoors where people are close together. Staying outside is always safer, as shown by transmission rates within this study, Dr. Ranney said.

It also illustrated that other recommendations of public health officials have merit: that physical distancing helps prevent spread of the coronavirus, that rapid antigen tests should be confirmed by more reliable polymerase chain reaction tests and that someone exposed to the coronavirus should remain isolated from others for 14 days.

Physical distancing, face mask use, and hand hygiene reduce transmission; gatherings should be avoided when physical distancing and face mask use are not possible, the authors wrote.

Originally posted here:

One 13-Year-Old Girl Spread the Coronavirus to 11 of Her Family Members - The New York Times

Heres what you need to know:Nevada has suspended the use of two companies rapid coronavirus testing in nursing homes.Credit...Julia Rendleman for The New York Times

The coronavirus tests kits are small and fast they produce results in as a little as 15 minutes and when they were first distributed to nursing homes around the country in August by the federal government, they were welcomed with open arms.

At last it seemed, there was a solution to the delays and equipment shortages that had stymied efforts to use laboratory-based tests to curb outbreaks.

But now Nevada has ordered its nursing facilities to immediately suspend the use of two of the rapid virus tests after their performance was found to be lacking, according to a directive issued by the states department of health.

The order was prompted by a spate of false-positive results, in which the tests mistakenly found that healthy people were infected. The state directed that use of the kits be discontinued until the accuracy of the tests can be further evaluated, the Nevada document said.

The rapid tests are manufactured by two companies: Quidel, and Becton, Dickinson and Company, Representatives for the companies defended their products and said they were conducting investigations into the reports of false positives in Nevada.

Lisa Sanders, director of media relations at LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services, said that several nursing homes in other states had been experiencing issues with BD and Quidels tests and reporting them to her organization and the American Health Care Association in recent weeks.

In submitting their applications to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency clearance, both BD and Quidel declared that their tests had no false positives.

But shortly after the tests were rolled out across the state this summer, nursing homes began to report that people who had been evaluated by both the rapid tests and a slower but highly reliable laboratory test, called P.C.R., were getting conflicting results. Among 39 positive antigen test results from both BD and Quidel, 23 were found by P.C.R. to be negative an error rate of nearly 60 percent.

The results, which were collected from a dozen facilities where thousands of tests had been performed, prompted the state to pivot away from antigen tests like BDs and Quintels to viral RNA tests such as P.C.R., according to the directive.

Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Southern California, said the findings in Nevada could be emblematic of a larger issue: the use of tests in ways for which they were not designed or validated.

Both BDs and Quidels tests received F.D.A. clearance for use within the first five days of the onset of symptoms. The instructions that come with BDs test have noted that the performance of this test has not been evaluated for use in patients without signs and symptoms of respiratory infection and performance may differ in asymptomatic individuals.

Shannon Litz, a spokeswoman for Nevadas department of health and human services, said in an email that the agency would be re-evaluating the tests performance before resuming their use.

President Trump returned to the Oval Office on Wednesday, even as a full picture of his health remained unclear and many of his aides were in quarantine amid a West Wing outbreak that continues to grow.

White House officials said he went in for an update on the stimulus talks that he called off Tuesday. And two people close to the White House said advisers were exploring a resumption of travel events for the president next week.

Despite the presidents insistence on returning to seeming normalcy, experts on the virus say he is entering a pivotal phase in the disease seven to 10 days after the onset of symptoms when some patients take a turn for the worse.

Underscoring the potential dangers, a White House memo instructed staff members to follow new safety protocols, among them some that Mr. Trump has previously dismissed. They include surgical masks and protective eye covers. Many health experts believe West Wing outbreak is a result of White House officials ignoring precautions recommended by public health experts.

Mr. Trump told the White House medical staff that he was feeling great and was symptom-free, according to a statement released Wednesday by his physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley. But Dr. Conley offered few further details about the presidents treatment, including whether he was still taking a steroid.

Dr. Conleys statement said Mr. Trump has not needed supplemental oxygen since returning from the hospital. But the full picture of the his health remains murky. Doctors, for instance, have not shared results of the presidents chest X-rays or lung scans, crucial measures of the severity of his illness.

The president trailing in the polls and just a month away from the election is trying to project the image of a healthy leader, and not of a patient with Covid-19. He has said he plans to be at the next debate, on Oct. 15, when it is possible he could still be contagious. His opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., says there should not be a debate if the president still has the virus.

Since leaving the hospital Monday evening, the president has returned to minimizing the seriousness of the pandemic even as many states in the country are experiencing serious outbreaks.

Montana and Oklahoma, where hospitals are strained, set single-day case records on Tuesday, according to a Times database. And Alaska, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming reported more cases in the last week than they have during any seven-day period of the pandemic.

President Trump, releasing a direct-to-camera video of himself addressing the nation, said Wednesday that getting Covid-19 had been a blessing and claimed he would provide hundreds of thousands of doses of unapproved drugs to Americans free of charge.

I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it, Mr. Trump said in the nearly five-minute video, released after nearly two days of him being out of public view.

The coronavirus has killed more than one million people, including more than 211,000 Americans, but because of it, Mr. Trump said, he was treated with an experimental antibody cocktail, still in clinical trials, that is produced by Regeneron.

I call that a cure, said Mr. Trump, whose skin appeared darkened by makeup and who appeared to struggle to get air at times.

It is impossible to know if the treatment has cured the president or even if he has beaten the disease. Most people with Covid-19 eventually recover, and medical experts have also said that Mr. Trump is most likely still battling it.

And the Regeneron antibody cocktail is not the only drug that Mr. Trump was prescribed. He has also been taking the antiviral drug remdesivir, as well as the dexamethasone, a steroid.

But the president was unstinting in his endorsement.

I feel great I feel, like, perfect, declared Mr. Trump, who has made broad claims about other unproven drugs in the past, some of them hotly debated.

The president has been desperate to announce some kind of definitive treatment, or a vaccine, ahead of the election, in which nearly all polls show him trailing former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The president said that everyone should have access to the as-yet-approved drug for free and that he would make sure it was in every hospital as soon as possible. He did not provide any details, other than saying the military could help distribute the drug.

Good luck, Mr. Trump said, ending the video.

transcript

transcript

Well, the American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. And here are the facts: 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over 7 million people who have contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed. Were looking at frontline workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment. And heres the thing: On Jan. 28, the vice president and the president were informed about the nature of this pandemic. They were informed that its lethal in consequence, that it is airborne, that it will affect young people, and that it would be contracted because it is airborne. And they knew what was happening and they didnt tell you. Can you imagine if you knew on Jan. 28 as opposed to March 13 what they knew, what you might have done to prepare? They knew and they covered it up.

At the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night, Senator Kamala Harris of California wasted no time in prosecuting the case against the Trump administrations handling of the coronavirus crisis.

The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country, she said in her opening remarks on Wednesday.

Ms. Harris, in her debate debut as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.s running mate, accused President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of hiding the truth of the pandemic from the American people.

They knew what was happening and they didnt tell you, she said. They knew and they covered it up.

Ms. Harris said a Biden administration would put in place a national strategy for contact tracing and coronavirus testing, which she said would be free for all Americans. Mr. Trump, she said, does not deserve any more chances to solve the problem.

This administration has forfeited their right to re-election, she said.

Mr. Pence, for his part, sought to highlight Chinas role in the coronavirus pandemic, saying, First and foremost, China is to blame for the coronavirus, and President Trump is not happy about it.

As he has before, Mr. Pence praised Mr. Trumps decision early in the pandemic to suspend travel from China, though he incorrectly characterized it as a ban on all travel from China. The virus ended up reaching the United States primarily through Europe.

The Chinese governments failures in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan are well documented, but the Trump administrations singular focus on those failures has often served to elide its own, equally well-documented failures, compared with efforts in other wealthy countries, in containing the virus once it arrived in the United States.

Ms. Harris noted that Mr. Trump had disbanded the Obama administrations pandemic response team and had withdrawn American disease experts who were monitoring potential threats in China.

The coronavirus hung over Wednesdays debate as it has hung over all of American life for months. There was no handshake. The candidates were seated 12 feet apart. Two plexiglass dividers stood between them, providing an illusion of protection that scientists said would not actually do anything against an airborne virus.

After President Trump was hospitalized for the coronavirus, Ms. Harriss team had been pushing for stronger safety measures, including the plexiglass, in case Mr. Pence was infected. (He has tested negative, but tests are not always accurate until several days after exposure.) Aides to Mr. Pence had criticized the plans, but after negotiations, his staff accepted the placement of the dividers.

Boston is delaying the next step in its plan to reopen public school classrooms as the citys rate of positive test results climbs.

The district, which serves 54,000 students, making it one of the nations 100 largest, began the year with remote learning on Sept. 21 and planned to allow students to return to classrooms in phases, with most students given the option to attend school in-person two days a week.

Last week, the city allowed a group of high-needs students, including some students with disabilities, students facing homelessness, and English language learners, to return to classrooms for the first time. Kindergarten students were expected to return as soon as Oct. 15, with older students moving into schools in waves over the following days.

But Mayor Marty Walsh had said that the city would only allow in-person to continue if the seven-day average positivity rate citywide remained under 4 percent. In recent days, as the city has experienced an increase in cases, the positivity rate has topped that threshold.

Mr. Walsh wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the city would delay the return of kindergarten students, bringing them back no sooner than Oct. 22, and that it would continue to adjust its plans as needed based on new testing data.

He said that, based on the guidance of public health experts and in consultation with state officials, the city had decided that the high-needs students who started in-person learning last week could continue to go to school.

For many of these students, not being in school presents risk that cannot be mitigated the way that the risk of #COVID19 can be, Mr. Walsh wrote.

New York City completed reopening schools on a hybrid model last week, but 100 public schools, and roughly 200 private schools, have already been closed in areas that have seen sharp upticks in cases. Most other big cities are holding off on in-person schooling for now, but thousands of smaller districts have reopened, especially in the South and the Midwest.

Massachusetts has seen a steady rise in coronavirus cases since early July, and some public health experts have urged Gov. Charlie Baker to roll back the states reopening process.

Global Roundup

More than 40 percent of patients hospitalized in intensive care units in the Paris region have Covid-19, the French authorities said this week, warning that local hospitals were coming under increasing strain from an influx of new cases.

Over 2,300 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized in Ile-de-France, the region that includes the French capital and that is the countrys most populated. Nearly 450 of them are in intensive care, and some hospitals have started to defer surgeries to make additional room.

Aurlien Rousseau, the head of the health authority for Ile-de-France, warned that Covid-19 patients could take up half of all intensive care units within the next 10 to 15 days if new restrictions put in place over the past week did not make an impact.

The new restrictions in Paris include the closure of all bars for at least two weeks. Gyms, dance halls and enclosed swimming pools are also closed to adults, and university classrooms and lecture halls can operate only at half capacity or below. Restaurants can remain open if they follow a strict health protocol.

Models from the Pasteur Institut, using data from Sept. 25, before any of the new restrictions were put in place, warned that the regions intensive care units, at their current capacity, would be completely full with Covid-19 patients by November if nothing changed.

Mr. Rousseau stressed the need for residents to further reduce social interactions. It is demanding, but its the condition to limit the number of infections and to protect the health system, he said on Twitter.

France reported nearly 19,000 new daily cases on Wednesday, a record so far, as President Emmanuel Macron said that we must go toward more restrictions in regions where the epidemic was picking up speed, despite improvements in other areas.

We are not in a normal time, and we wont be for several months, Mr. Macron told French television on Wednesday evening.

Mr. Macron did not detail how restrictions might be tightened, but the health minister is expected to announce any new measures at a news conference on Thursday evening.

Nearly 7,400 people are hospitalized because of Covid-19 around France, including 1,400 people in intensive care. That is a far cry from the peak in April, when hospitals around the country had more than 32,000 Covid-19 patients, but a worrying increase since late August, when that number was around 4,500.

Hospitals in other regions are also coming under increasing pressure from a rise in the number of infections, including the area around Marseille, in southern France, where restrictions had already been tightened last month, and in the northern Hauts-de-France region.

In other news around Europe:

Scotland will further tighten restrictions on its hospitality sector, closing pubs and canceling events around Glasgow, to avoid the likelihood of a second lockdown, the government said on Wednesday. Elsewhere in the country, pubs and restaurants will not be able to serve customers indoors after 6 p.m starting Friday. We have a duty to balance all the different harms caused by the pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said, adding that without more restrictions, there was a real risk the virus will run out of control by the end of this month. Scotland reported over 1,000 new cases on Wednesday, with a dramatic spike in infections in those over the age of 70. The government will also provide 40 million in funding for businesses affected by the new measures.

State governors in Germany agreed Wednesday to restrict domestic travelers from renting rooms if they are coming from a virus hot spot. Those who live in areas where cases surpass 50 per 100,000 people in a week are discouraged from non-essential travel and will have to present a negative test result to book a room in a hotel or resort. The news came as Germans prepared for their traditional two-week October school break, during which many families travel, and amid a rise in cases. The health authorities registered 2,828 new infections across Germany on Tuesday, a figure not seen in the country since April. Bars and restaurants in Berlin must also close at 11 p.m. starting this weekend.

Members of the governments of Brussels and Wallonia, two out of three of Belgiums regions, are in quarantine after two ministers tested positive for the virus. The news comes as Belgium implements rules limiting social interactions to three people outside of families in response to a rise in cases. The city of Brussels also announced on Wednesday that it would shut down all bars and cafes for a month.

With less than a month to go before Election Day, the pandemic-driven economic outlook is not a good one.

Job growth in the United States has stalled, layoffs are mounting, and there are no signs more financial help is coming anytime soon for families enduring hardships.

Households and businesses have gone two months without the enhanced unemployment benefits, low-interest loans and other programs that helped prop up the economy in the spring.

President Trump announced on Tuesday that he was cutting off stimulus negotiations until after the election. He later added confusion by urging Congress to act IMMEDIATELY to revive a lapsed loan program for small businesses and to approve funds for airlines and another round of stimulus checks.

But the only talks that seemed to be moving forward at all on Wednesday were on airlines. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, spoke in the morning about the prospects of a stand-alone bill for airline relief.

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman has argued that failing to provide enough support carried risks for the economy.

Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses, he said in a speech on Tuesday.

Already, many furloughs are turning into permanent job losses, and major companies like Disney and Allstate are embarking on new rounds of layoffs. The hotel industry is warning of thousands of closures, and tens of thousands of small businesses are weighing whether to close up shop for good. An estimated one of every seven small businesses in the United States had shut down permanently by the end of August 850,000 in all according to data from Womply, a marketing platform. The deeper those wounds, the longer the economy will take to heal.

After President Trump indicated that he might want to revive some stimulus measures, stocks on Wall Street rose on Wednesday, broadly erasing Tuesdays losses. The bounce was just the latest in a series of head-spinning turns for the market.

The gridlock in Washington is a reversal from the spring, when lawmakers acted out of fear of an imminent economic collapse and approved trillions of dollars in aid to households and businesses. The effort was largely successful.

But most of the aid programs expired over the summer, and in recent weeks economic gains have faltered. Economists across the ideological spectrum agree that the loss of momentum is likely to get worse if more aid doesnt arrive soon.

The California governors office wants people who dine in restaurants to put their masks back on their faces in between bites.

The recommendation appears to contradict advice from the World Health Organization, which warns mask wearers to avoid touching their masks as much as possible, and to wash their hands before and after touching it hardly practical to do at a dining table between mouthfuls.

The tweet on the subject issued by the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday also seemed to contradict itself. An accompanying graphic instructs diners to minimize the number of times you take your mask off. An illustration shows a diner wearing her mask while perusing a menu, maskless while taking a bite, and then wearing the mask again with an empty plate.

The unusual and confusing suggestion to take the mask on and off repeatedly throughout a meal attracted mockery online. Its confirmed, I live in the dumbest state, one Twitter user responded.

As most states do in some form, California requires mask-wearing in public spaces. Many counties in the state restrict restaurants to outdoor seating only, or limit their indoor seating to 25 percent of capacity. The state has reported more than 840,000 cases of the virus so far, and more than 16,000 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

Experts have taken different approaches to mask-wearing while dining out. In an interview with The Daily Show last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he wears his mask around his neck while eating and drinking in public, and then places it over his face while youre waiting for the waiter or during other lulls in the meal.

Orthodox Jewish and other religious leaders lashed out at Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday over new coronavirus restrictions on schools, businesses and houses of worship, as protests broke out in Brooklyn overnight, leading to scenes of chaos and the injury of at least one person.

The new restrictions, announced by Mr. Cuomo on Tuesday, are intended to combat worrisome outbreaks of the coronavirus in Brooklyn, Queens and New York Citys northern suburbs. The rules would shut down nonessential businesses and schools and impose tight restrictions on houses of worship, where attendance in the hardest-hit areas would be limited to 10 people. In other neighborhoods, attendance would be limited to 25 people.

On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said that the restrictions in portions of Brooklyn and Queens, as outlined by the state, would go into effect on Thursday.

The rules which will be put in place before an important Jewish holiday, Shemini Atzeret seem to specifically target Orthodox synagogues that have become scenes of large gatherings of worshipers clustered together, with many not wearing face coverings.

The number of virus cases in the affected areas of Brooklyn and Queens has been rising for weeks, especially in Orthodox Jewish communities. Local leaders said that surge was driven by denialism, wishful thinking around herd immunity and misinformation.

Other religious leaders from communities affected by the new rules were also outraged. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which has 1.5 million followers and 210 churches in Brooklyn and Queens, said it was taken by surprise by the governors announcement. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn condemned the new rules as outrageous.

Orthodox Jewish leaders, who also said they were not consulted before the governor announced the new restrictions, said they were appalled by the action. In a letter posted late Tuesday from four Orthodox Jewish lawmakers representing the affected areas said Mr. Cuomo has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities.

Their frustration was reflected on the street, where video shared widely on social media showed hundreds of Hasidic men, most of them without masks, gathering after midnight and setting fires along 13th Avenue in the Borough Park neighborhood.

The crowd soon turned violent. One man can be heard yelling Snitch! in a video as the crowd beats a man the mob believed to be disloyal.

On Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said that he sympathized with those who were upset with the restrictions. But, he added, these limitations are better than going back to close down.

Read more:

Live Covid-19 Updates: Global Cases and Deaths - The New York Times

Sacramento City Received $89 Million In Federal COVID-19 Relief Funds. It's Delivered About One-Third Of The Money  Capital Public Radio News

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Sacramento City Received $89 Million In Federal COVID-19 Relief Funds. It's Delivered About One-Third Of The Money - Capital Public Radio News

The number of active coronavirus cases among Veterans Affairs patients continued to slowly rise in recent days as the total number of deaths from the virus among department patients rose above 3,500 this week.

As of Tuesday evening, VA reported 3,641 active cases of the virus, an increase of 7 percent in the last week and more than 21 percent in the last month. The cases are spread out across 139 department medical centers nationwide.

Active cases of the virus had dropped below 2,500 in mid-September, but have risen slowly since then. Those totals topped 6,400 in mid-July, when the outbreak within the VA patient population was at its peak.

VA officials have said they do not consider the active case counts or death totals to be accurate measures of the severity of the ongoing pandemic among their patient population. Instead, they point to hospitalization rates among patients who test positive, which have remained steady over the last few months.

As of Tuesday afternoon, department medical staff were caring for 340 inpatients with complications related to coronavirus.

On Wednesday morning, the death total among the VA patient population was 3,528. That figure is up almost 300 individuals in the last 20 days. Nationally, more than 210,000 individuals have died from complications related to the virus.

The fatality rate among VA patients who test positive for the illness is about 5.5 percent, well above the 3 percent rate for the rest of the country. But VA officials have cautioned against comparing their patient population to the rest of the country, noting the increased dangers the virus presents to individuals who are elderly and infirm, two descriptors that encompass most of the departments medical cases.

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VA has tracked more than 63,000 cases of coronavirus among patients in the last seven months. Officials have administered more than 765,000 tests for the virus since the start of March.

In addition to the patient deaths, at least 58 VA employees have died from complications related to coronavirus in the last seven months. Department officials have said most of them were not in medical jobs involving direct contact with patients.

About 2,000 department employees are currently working with non-VA facilities as part of the departments federal responsibility to act as a support network for local communities overwhelmed by the pandemic.

On Wednesday, VA officials they will resume in-person benefits services at 10 regional offices in coming weeks.

We have robust safety measures in place that will allow us to resume in-person services while protecting the health and safety of veterans, their families and our team members who serve them," VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a statement.

More information on those officers is available on the VA web site.

Read more here:

Coronavirus deaths among VA patients top 3,500 this week as number of cases slowly increases - Military Times

Coronavirus test sites have opened and closed throughout Tampa Bay over the last several months. Here is an updated list of where you can get tested for the novel coronavirus this fall.

Most are a drive-thru style where people wait in their cars and a medical professional uses a long swab to collect a sample from the patients nose. Many are free, but some do require people provide insurance information or payment after the fact.

Several sites are requiring people to make appointments beforehand. Wait times for results vary, but range from two to 12 days based on the site, laboratory and current demand.

Here are the criteria, hours and protocol for each test site. This information will change depending on the supply of tests and the latest government orders. Providers with an asterisk operate in a number of counties.

Appointments required. The call center is open Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Days vary based on site.

8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., daily.

Monday Friday, 8:30 a.m. 4 p.m.

Location provided once appointment is scheduled

An appointment is required and can be made by calling 727-824-6900. The test is free to patients, regardless of insurance.

5 to 8 p.m., Thursdays. Also on Tuesdays in Pinellas Park.

Appointments are not required, but can be made calling 727-824-8181 and selecting option 0 or visiting http://www.chcpinellas.org

8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Tropicana Field Parking Lot 2, located on the west side of the stadium off 16th Street S, St. Petersburg.

You need not be a Pinellas resident to get tested and no insurance information is necessary. Identification and a phone number will be requested. No appointments are being taken. Testing will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Daily. Hours vary by location.

Testing is available to anyone older than 18, regardless of symptoms, and is free to the public.

The sites typically operate from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., based on appointments.

CVS offers testing at dozens of its locations throughout Tampa Bay, including in Bradenton, Brandon, Clearwater, Dunedin, Lakeland, Largo, Lutz, Madeira Beach, Oldsmar, Pinellas Park, St. Petersburg, Tampa and Tarpon Springs. People can choose a location once theyve completed an online screening.

CVS is making testing available to anyone experiencing symptoms who meets the requirements listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Patients must first book appointments by visiting CVS.com.

The Tampa Bay stores have the capacity to test up to 50 people a day. All testing will take place inside a persons car. No walk-ups will be accepted and no testing will take place inside stores.

Mornings, Monday through Friday. The Clearwater site is only open Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

A doctors referral is encouraged. If not, you will be screened while in line to see if you meet requirements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For patients without insurance, the cost of the COVID-19 lab test is $85. Payment is not due at testing. BayCare is working with government agencies to secure funding for patients that are unable to pay.

8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Tests are available on a limited basis daily. Other Tampa Bay locations offer screening and testing COVID-19 at their health centers. Find more information at medexpress.com.

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Where to get a coronavirus test in the Tampa Bay area - Tampa Bay Times