Category: Corona Virus

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The daily coronavirus update: new guidance on sports; community testing sites to open later this week – MinnPost

June 9, 2020

For the foreseeable future, MinnPost will be providing daily updates on coronavirus in Minnesota, published following the press phone call with members of the Walz administration each afternoon.

Here are the latest updates from June 8, 2020:

Eleven more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Monday, for a total of 1,197.

Of the deaths announced Monday were two people in their 90s, three in their 80s, one in their 70s, four in their 60s and one in their 20s. Six of the 11 were residents of long-term care. Of the 1,197 deaths reported in Minnesota so far, 955 were among residents of long-term care.

The person in their 20s had no underlying health conditions. The same was true of a person in their twenties whose death was reported Saturday.

The current death toll only includes Minnesotans with lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 tests.

MDH also said Monday there have been 28,224 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota, up 338 from Sundays count.

Since the start of the outbreak, 3,401 Minnesotans have been hospitalized and 452 are currently in the hospital, 198 in intensive care. You can find more information about Minnesotas current ICU usage and capacity here.

Of the 28,224 confirmed positive cases in Minnesota, 23,657 are believed to have recovered.

A total of 354,226 COVID-19 tests have been completed in Minnesota.

More information on cases can be found here.

MDH released new guidance on youth and adult sports over the weekend. The guidance takes into account the amount of contact involved in a given sport as well as shared equipment and other factors, dividing sports into low, medium and high-risk.

Were very hopeful that if the COVID-19 health measures continue to improve, we expect to be able to resume games and competitions for medium-risk sports by the end of June, Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said.

MDH is encouraging anyone who was part of a protest, community clean-up, or providing food or water to demonstrators to get tested for COVID-19 whether they are symptomatic or not.

MDH is finalizing the details on three community testing sites in Minneapolis and one in St. Paul that will be open Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, Malcolm said.

MDHs coronavirus website: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/index.html

Hotline, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: 651-201-3920

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The daily coronavirus update: new guidance on sports; community testing sites to open later this week - MinnPost

India eases coronavirus lockdown as experts warn of rising infections – The Guardian

June 9, 2020

India has taken a significant step towards loosening its lockdown, reopening places of worship, restaurants and shopping malls, despite coronavirus cases continuing to soar and experts warning the country was far from hitting its peak.

Over the weekend India overtook both Italy and Spain to register the fifth highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, 257,000, with cases climbing by more than 9,000 each day. The death toll from Covid-19 stands at 7,135.

The easing of Indias lockdown of its 1.3 billion people, which has been in place since 24 March, went ahead as scheduled on Monday. While it is acknowledged to have slowed the spread of the virus, it has had a brutal impact on Indias poor, particularly tens of millions of migrant workers.

Shopping malls and restaurants opened their doors, and mosques, temples and gurdwaras began welcoming back worshippers, with strict limits on congregation numbers and physical distancing measures in place. In Delhi, the 400-year-old Jama Masjid mosque, one of the biggest in India, is planning to limit worshippers to just three visits a day, instead of the usual five.

Yet experts fear the easing is coming at a worrying time in Indias battle to contain the virus, with 50% of Indias total cases reported in the last two weeks. We are very far away from the peak, said Dr Nivedita Gupta, of the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

The situation remains particularly dire in Indias largest and most populous cities of Delhi and Mumbai, where state-run hospitals have run out of beds and are turning patients away. Maharashtra, Indias worst-hit state where Mumbai is located, has reported a reported a total of 85,975 cases.

Vikas Jain, a Delhi resident, spoke of the ordeal his brother-in-law Narender Jain, 47, experienced after he developed coronavirus symptoms and bounced between five hospitals.

He was first refused entry at two Delhi hospitals, East Delhi hospital and Pushpanjali medical centre, which both said they had no beds. Finally, at about 4am on 2 June when his condition was getting dramatically worse, Narender was admitted to the emergency intensive care unit in Max Patparganj private hospital and put on a ventilator, but only when his family agreed to pay a deposit of 50,000 rupees (520).But he was not permitted to stay.

The next morning, when the test result came through that he had tested positive for Covid-19, the hospital told us they were unable to admit him because there were no beds and no ventilators for Covid-19 patients, so we would have to take him somewhere else, said Vikas. I could not believe it. They also said their ambulances would not take Covid patients so we would have to arrange our own ambulance.

All private Delhi hospitals they called said they had no beds for coronavirus patients so the family took Narender in the privately-hired ambulance to a nearby government Rajiv Gandhi hospital, but they said they had no ICU beds for Covid patients. After another two hours, a government-run hospital agreed to admit him.

But there was no care for him, no attendants even came out and me and my sister had to carry my brother-in-law myself from the ambulance on to the stretcher and take him up two floors of the hospital with no help. We had no protective equipment, Vikas said. In the hospital, they then told us that it would be another two hours till he could go on a ventilator. Narender died that day.

Delhis chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, issued a decree over the weekend that only those with documentary proof of residency in the capital would be admitted to the citys hospitals. In normal times, up to 70% of hospital beds in Delhi are taken by those who have come from outside the city for treatment.

It has suggested reserving Delhi hospitals for the people of Delhi, because if we open the hospitals for all, then the 9,000 Covid-19 beds organised will be filled just within three days, Kejriwal said, adding: If we get more cases in such a situation, where will we accommodate the patients of Delhi? However, hours later the decision was overturned by the citys lieutenant governor, who said patients could not be denied treatment on the grounds of their address.

On Monday, Kejriwal went into self-quarantine with a sore throat and fever and will be tested for Covid-19 on Tuesday.

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India eases coronavirus lockdown as experts warn of rising infections - The Guardian

U.S. Navy test shows 60% of carrier crew have coronavirus antibodies – CNBC

June 9, 2020

In this handout released by the U.S. Navy, The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) leaves its San Diego homeport Jan. 17, 2020.

US Navy | Getty Images

A U.S. Navy investigation into the spread of the coronavirus aboard the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier has found that about 60% of sailors tested had antibodies for the virus, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, suggesting a far higher infection rate than previously known.

In April, the Navy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started conducting serology tests to look for the presence of specific antibodies that are created by the immune system's attack response to the presence of the virus and remain in the blood for a period of time.

More than 1,100 aboard tested positive for the virus as of April, less than 25% of the crew.

The spread of the virus on the ship put into motion a series of events that led to the captain of the ship being relieved of his command after the leak of a letter he wrote calling on the Navy for stronger measures to protect the crew.

One sailor from the ship died from the coronavirus and several others were hospitalized. But broadly, sailors, who are generally healthier and younger, fared better than the general population and most showed no symptoms whatsoever.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that about 400 volunteers participated in the serology tests, lower than the 1,000 volunteers that were sought, but enough to provide statistically relevant data about how the virus spread aboard one of world's largest warships.

The Roosevelt has about 4,800 personnel on the ship.

The officials said a formal announcement was expected as early as Tuesday.

The Navy declined to comment.

The serology test results appear to track closely with data from the Roosevelt in early April, which showed that 60 percent of the sailors who were testing positive for the virus itself not antibodies were in fact symptom-free.

Medical groups, such as the American Medical Association, have warned that serology tests can lead to false positives.

The CDC has said that definitive data is lacking on whether individuals with antibodies are protected against reinfection from the coronavirus.

In addition to the serology tests, volunteers were also swabbed again for Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, as well as asked to answer a short survey.

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U.S. Navy test shows 60% of carrier crew have coronavirus antibodies - CNBC

What is plasma therapy, and how does it work to treat the coronavirus? Everything you need to know – USA TODAY

June 9, 2020

Why a treatment used for over a century on diseases like measles, mumps and influenza could work to treat the new coronavirus strain. USA TODAY

As the government works double-time alongside companies to test and manufacture an effective vaccine for the coronavirus, researchersexamine other drugs and treatments for COVID-19, the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Many scientific articles and government officials have been focused on drugs such ashydroxychloroquine and remdesivir, but little attention has been directed towarda less glamorous form of treatment: convalescent plasma therapy.

Although it's anold tool introduced to science in the 19th century, it's still considered experimental during thecoronavirus pandemic as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says theresno approved treatment for COVID-19.

Congressmen and celebritieshave donated plasma after recovering from COVID-19 and urge others to do the same.Before you do, here's everything you need to know about convalescent plasma therapy.

According to the FDA, convalescent plasma is the liquid part of blood collected from patients who have recovered from COVID-19. These patients develop antibodies, proteins that might help fight the infection.

Plasmafrom survivorsgives patientsan immediate injection of virus-fighting antibodiesso they don't haveto wait for their own immune systems to kick in. The use of plasma from survivors to treat those sick with the same illness goesback more than a century and has been used to stemoutbreaks of polio, measles, mumps and influenza.

Convalescent plasma therapy fell out of fashion in the mid-20th century as antimicrobials gained more popularity in the field, according to a scientific article published in The Lancet. The therapy reemergedperiodically duringepidemics such as SARS in 2002-2004, influenza A H1N1 in 2009 and MERS in 2012.

A study done in 2004 in Hong Kongshowed patients with SARS who were given convalescent plasma earlierin the infection process weredischarged from the hospital soonerand were less likely to die than patients who were given it later. The World Health Organization published official guidance on convalescent plasma donor selection and treatment after research showed positive results for Ebola.

Though studies suggest convalescent plasma therapy is effective in combating other coronaviruses, there has been little evidence to suggest it can do the same for SARS-CoV-2.

The FDA issued guidance for health care providers that recommends using convalescent plasma therapy for clinical trials and patients with serious or immediately life-threatening disease who arent eligible to participate in trials.

Some experts argue the disease is too advanced in critically ill patients for the treatment to work.

'Plasmatic!'Tom Hanks shares picture of himself donating plasma to combat COVID-19

More evidence: Use of survivor plasma is considered safe, but two new tests will see if it combats COVID-19

"Once they get to the ICU stage, it seems like theyre too far gone becausethere's all these physiologicalthings going on with them that antibodies won't touch at that point," said Dr. Camille van Buskirk, medical director for the Mayo Clinic Blood Donor Program.

Astudy from Chinapublished in JAMA Wednesday, found convalescent plasma in addition to standard treatment didnt significantly improve patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19. Researchers conceded results may be limited as theywere unable to recruit more patients and terminatedthe study early.

Van Buskirk said other studies show early signs of improvement among patients who are hospitalized but not yet severely ill, those in the "middle ground."

A recovered COVID-19 patient donates blood at the Arnulfo Arias Madrid Hospital in Panama City on May 13.(Photo: Arnulfo Franco, AP)

Though efficacy may be up in the air, safety isn't. In a Johns Hopkins University study, more than 16,000 Americans with COVID-19 were infused with plasma from recovered patients, andno major safety issues were reported.

Dr. Shmuel Shoham, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, is involved in two randomized, controlled studies at the university looking at convalescent plasma as a prevention method and treatment for COVID-19 in an outpatient setting. Although there aren't any preliminary results from those two studies, previous studies give him a glimmer of hope.

The trend tends to go the same way again and again, Shoham said. The people who get it seem to have a positive response and, when comparisons are made, they tend to do better than the people who didnt get it.

An obstacle for convalescent plasma therapy is supply.

Unlike manufactured antimicrobial medicines,convalescent plasmais a natural treatment that must be harvested from recovered COVID-19 patients who meet the criteria and are willing to donate.

Van Buskirk said declining infection rates in some parts of the country have allowed the Mayo Clinic to build up inventory, but they've also made it more difficult to finddonors.

"Were hoping if everyone can get out there and collect as much as they can that well have enough for the next wave that comes along," she said. Many experts predict that wave of infections will be in the fall.

Plasma can be frozen and stored for up to 18 months.

A lab technician freeze-packs convalescent plasma donated by recovered COVID-19 patients for shipping to hospitals at Inova Blood Services on April 22 in Dulles, Va.(Photo: ALEX EDELMAN, AFP via Getty Images)

To maximize donations, most centers use standard apheresis technology thatseparates the plasma from the blood, then pumps that blood back into the donor. Van Buskirk said the process takes longer than traditionally donating blood and separating the plasma afterward, but it can double the amount of plasma collected.

In late May, the Department of Defense announced a nationwide initiative to collect more than 8,000 units of plasma at 15 Armed Services Blood Program centers across the country using the technology.

In an attempt to promote plasma transfusions, more than 40 of the nation's top health institutionsjoined theNational COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project.People who want to donate plasmacanregister withthe MayoClinic, the lead institutionforthe program.

More donation programs can be found on the FDA website. Van Buskirk recommended checking in with your local center before donating as requirements have changed over the course of the pandemic.

'Someones life could depend on it': Two congressmen donate plasma after COVID-19 recovery

Have you recovered from coronavirus?Want to help doctors find a treatment? Here's what they need from you.

Even with a healthy supply, the concept ofconvalescent therapy may be difficult for patients to grasp,Shoham said.

"It does require a paradigm shift in people's minds," he said. "It's a product that needs to be given by IV infusion as opposed to getting a pill or a shot in the arm."

One treatment can take up to an hour, which makes it harder to line up health workers who may be more at risk for exposure as the country's economy begins to open.

Shohamsaid people are more receptive to the idea of immunotherapy, and he hopes the acceptance will continue past thepandemic.

"It could change things, not just for the coronavirus, but a host of different viruses that don't have traditional therapies and change from season to season," he said.

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

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What is plasma therapy, and how does it work to treat the coronavirus? Everything you need to know - USA TODAY

A US recession began in February in the face of coronavirus – ABC News

June 9, 2020

By

CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer

June 9, 2020, 1:30 AM

5 min read

5 min read

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy entered a recession in February as the coronavirus struck the nation, a group of economists declared Monday, ending the longest expansion on record.

The economists said that employment, income and spending peaked in February and then fell sharply afterward as the viral outbreak shut down businesses across the country, marking the start of the downturn after nearly 11 full years of economic growth.

A committee within the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit group, determines when recessions begin and end. It broadly defines a recession as a decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months.

For that reason, the NBER typically waits longer before making a determination that the economy is in a downturn. In the previous recession, the committee did not declare that the economy was in recession until December 2008, a year after it had actually begun. But in this case, the NBER said the collapse in employment and incomes was so steep that it could much more quickly make a determination.

The unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy, warrants the designation of this episode as a recession, even if it turns out to be briefer than earlier contractions, the NBER panel said.

The way the NBER defines recessions, they begin in the same month that the previous expansion ends. Because the economy peaked in February, that is the month when the recession officially began, rather than in March, when unemployment began to rise.

Financial markets had little reaction Monday to the NBER's declaration. February is when the stock market hit its own record high before stumbling into a severe downturn from which it has mostly recovered, thanks to extraordinary stimulus and support measures from the Federal Reserve and Congress as well as expectations that the worst of the economic pain may have passed.

The unemployment rate is officially 13.3%, down from 14.7% in April. Both figures are higher than in any other downturn since World War II. A broader measure of underemployment that includes those who have given up looking and those who have been reduced to part-time status is 21.2%.

On Friday, the government said that employers added 2.5 million jobs in May, an unexpected gain that suggested job losses may have bottomed out. A recession ends when employment and output start to pick up again, not when they reach their pre-recession levels. So it's possible that the recession could technically end soon.

That would make the current recession the shortest and deepest on record. It is expected to be followed by an extended recovery before the economy manages to regain its pre-pandemic levels of production and employment. Some economists say it could take two years or more, with the unemployment rate likely still 10% or higher at the end of this year.

The most important thing to focus on is the strength of the recovery, and thats where the greatest uncertainty lies right now, said Ernie Tedeschi, policy economist at investment bank Evercore ISI.

It's unclear, Tedeschi noted, whether the virus is under control, whether there will be a second wave or whether or when a vaccine will be developed.

On Monday, the World Bank said the world was facing a health and economic crisis that has spread with astonishing speed and will produce the largest shock the global economy has witnessed in seven decades. It expects millions of people to be pushed into extreme poverty.

In its updated global outlook, the World Bank projected that international economic activity will shrink by 5.2% this year, the deepest recession since a contraction in 1945-46 at the end of World War II. The 5.2% downturn would be the fourth-worst global downturn over the past 150 years, exceeded only by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the periods immediately after World War I and World War II.

In the U.S., states have begun reopening their economies, thereby allowing businesses to recall some employees to work. But economic activity is returning only very gradually. A full recovery wont occur until Americans are willing to resume their previous habits of shopping, eating out, and traveling. That might not happen until a vaccine is developed or testing is more widely available.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, an accounting firm, said the NBER committee might end up declaring this recession to have already ended in May based on the fact that hiring rebounded that month.

We could have the shortest recession in history it seems ridiculous, but we could, Swonk said. Still, it will take much longer for the economy to rebound, she said.

This bottom is going to be uniquely deep, and we dont know how fast we will get out of the bottom, she said.

AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

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A US recession began in February in the face of coronavirus - ABC News

The Idea: Build It, and They Can Find Coronavirus Tests – The New York Times

June 9, 2020

For the past two months, the 9-to-5 jobs at their recruiting software company were just the start of a busy workday for Joe Essenfeld, Boris Kozak and Matt Geffken.

After a short break for dinner and a little family time, the three friends would jump on an 8:30 p.m. Zoom call with a dozen other volunteers to work on AllClear, a website to help people find information about testing locations for Covid-19, and stay at it until 2 or 3 a.m.

AllClear now has a directory of more than 10,000 locations in the United States where people can be tested for Covid-19 or for antibodies to the coronavirus. The listing for each location is displayed on a map and contains information such as the test type and whether an appointment is necessary.

The excitement of doing something new felt familiar to the three men, who worked together at Jibe, a software company Mr. Essenfeld started. Last year, Jibe was sold to iCIMS, a recruiting software company where they still work. But there is no financial reward awaiting them this time. They have already spent $35,000 of their own money for something that they promise wont ever make a cent.

They are representative of a digital volunteerism that has emerged during the pandemic. As the coronavirus spread and frustration with the federal response to the crisis grew, some entrepreneurs and engineers applied their start-up ethos to help.

Carl Bass, former chief executive of the software company Autodesk, for example, is assembling 1,500 face shields a day for nurses and doctors from a robotics warehouse in Berkeley, Calif., and sending them across the country. Lan Xuezhao, founding partner of Basis Set Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, tapped her connections in China to procure tens of thousands of medical masks straight from the factories for hospitals.

When Messrs. Essenfeld, Kozak and Geffken, who all live in the New York area, set out to build AllClear in mid-March, the vision was to create a social network for people to share their experiences with the virus, including whether they had been tested.

It was the type of half-joking, half-serious idea that the three men regularly bounce off one another, like the time they considered selling caffeinated pickles or iced coffee that smelled like hot coffee. But as the seriousness of the pandemic became clear, they felt the itch to do something.

Feeling powerless during this crisis was difficult to deal with, Mr. Essenfeld said. But building this has been helping us cope with that.

They homed in on making it easy to find testing sites. At the time, it was difficult to find information on where and how people could be tested. The information that was available was dispersed across the internet on a variety of websites and came from local health agencies, hospitals and even social media. The data was often unreliable and inconsistent.

The challenge of collecting and organizing data, however, was familiar to them. At their start-up, they had faced similar issues with job listings, information that changed frequently and was dispersed across the web.

Weve done this over and over again, Mr. Kozak said. We were confident in our ability to get it done, and we werent confident in the governments ability to do it.

There is no shortage of websites to help people find testing locations. But some are run by local or state health agencies and provide locations only within a specific region. Other websites are run by health care providers and show only affiliated locations. Some sites by volunteer groups use unverified, crowdsourced information. Apple is allowing health care providers and labs to register as testing locations that will appear on Apple Maps, but it requires busy labs and medical offices to come forward.

AllClears creators say they believe their site is the only national testing location service providing verified information that is not affiliated with a health care provider or a specific type of test.

These grass-roots initiatives are a great step in the right direction, said Jim Kyung-Soo Liew, associate professor of finance at the Johns Hopkins Universitys Carey Business School, who created an online tool to track drive-through coronavirus testing sites across the United States. Being able to test easily is important in helping curb the spread of the disease.

With no background in medical testing, the three men contacted two doctoral candidates from Cornell Universitys medical school for advice. The pair, whom Mr. Essenfeld had met at a genetics conference, were the first to agree to volunteer by helping to organize the specific information to collect about testing sites and how it should be displayed.

The AllClear founders also tapped their professional network from their start-up days, and reached out to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, a San Francisco law firm that had represented Jibe since its early years.

The firm agreed to take on AllClear pro bono to handle the nonprofit paperwork and make sure the project complied with data privacy rules and guidelines for handling health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. They also drafted terms of service.

The men recruited volunteers to help work on the look and function of the site. They leaned on friends and current and former colleagues to bring on engineers, designers and product strategists. The group has grown to more than 30 volunteers, many of whom gather on a nightly Zoom planning call.

Updated June 5, 2020

A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nations job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.

Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. When you havent been exercising, you lose muscle mass. Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.

States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you arent being told to stay at home, its still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.

Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus whether its surface transmission or close human contact is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people dont need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks dont replace hand washing and social distancing.

If youve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Mr. Kozak said no one had said no when he asked for help.

To collect the information about testing locations, AllClear posted an advertisement on Upwork, which helps companies hire freelancers, looking for researchers to scour the internet. It offered to pay $4 to $7 per hour for the work, depending on the location and experience of the researcher.

After a day, around 130 freelancers from around the world had expressed interest. Interviews narrowed the pool to 20 candidates, focusing on those who had demonstrated some knowledge of the virus. On the first night, the 20 candidates came back with information about 2,000 testing locations.

Eventually, AllClear whittled the group down to five researchers two from India, two from Egypt and one from Poland who work 40 hours a week and monitor 10 states each. The researchers comb sites from state and local agencies, medical providers and even Twitter for leads on possible testing site information. A team of volunteers verifies that the information is correct before it is published.

So far, AllClear has spent $35,000 to pay researchers as well as cloud computing costs to keep the site up. It is hoping to find a sponsor to pay the running costs.

The site became public in late April. It is drawing several thousand people a day, and soon its location results will start appearing in Google search results.

As the crisis continues, the number of testing sites has grown and the type of information has changed. For example, some locations now offer testing for the virus as well as antibody tests.

The three friends said finding testing sites was just the beginning. Ultimately, their goal is to help people go back to living more normal lives.

Our technology and efforts will continue to focus on helping reduce anxiety around getting tested and finding out the results, Mr. Essenfeld said.

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The Idea: Build It, and They Can Find Coronavirus Tests - The New York Times

America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic – The Atlantic

June 9, 2020

Read: I cant breathe: braving teargas in a pandemic

Journalists from across the country have reported that police officers are wearing masks less often than protesters. The state is the one with the duty to protect public health, Alexandra Phelan, a professor of global-health law at Georgetown University, told us earlier this week. Regardless of what the police think of the protests, she said, it is their obligation under international and domestic law to keep the protesters safe, including minimizing the health risk from viral spread.

There are too many variables to know exactly what the summer has in store for the outbreak in America, including what effect the protests will have. There are some signs of hope. Masks are in use around the country. Outdoor transmission seems to be fairly unlikely in most settings. And testing availability has improved. According to data from the COVID Tracking Project, the United States can now conduct 3 million tests a week. The public-health system is discovering and diagnosing a much greater percentage of cases than it did in the early days of the outbreak. Morgan Stanley estimated that the transmission rate in the U.S. was just above 1; this suggests that there has not been explosive growth in the number of active cases in recent weeks.

But that estimated rate also implies that cases are not rapidly declining. And the slow growth reflects the time before the full data from states recent moves to reopen their economy became availablebefore large swaths of the public returned to work, and before the mass protests and jailings began.

Few people believe that the U.S. is doing all it can to contain the virus. A brief glance at Covid Exit Strategy, a site that tracks state-by-state progress, reveals that most states are not actually hitting the reopening marks suggested by public-health experts. Yet state leaders have not stuck with the kinds of lockdowns that suppressed the virus in other countries; nobody has suggested that cases must be brought to negligible levels before normal activity can resume. No federal official has shared a plan for preventing transmission among states that have outbreaks of varying intensity. The Trump administration did not use the eight weeks of intense social distancing to significantly expand our suppression capacity.

What our colleague Ed Yong called the patchwork pandemic appears to have confused the American public about what is going on. The virus is not following one single course through the nation, but, like a tornado, is taking a meandering and at times incomprehensible path through cities and counties. Why this workplace but not another? Why this city or state but not others?

The virus has not mapped neatly onto American political narratives, either. While some questions remain about their accounting, Georgia and Floridawhere leaders opened up early and residents seemed relatively defiant of public-health advicehave seen relatively flat numbers, while California, which took a more conservative approach, has seen cases grow. The state most poised for major trouble seems to be Arizona, where the outbreak is spreading very quickly. Not only is the state (which lifted its stay-at-home order on May 16) setting new records for positive tests and people in the hospital, but the percentage of tests that are coming back positive is also growing. So much for warm weather and sunshine alone stamping out viral transmission, as some had hoped: Phoenix saw only a single days high under 90 degrees during May. The states age demographics also havent played an obvious role: The state is slightly younger than the U.S. as a whole.

Americans have not fully grasped that we are not doing what countries that have returned to normal have done. Some countries have almost completely suppressed the virus. Others had large outbreaks, took intense measures, and have seen life return to normal. Americans, meanwhile, never stayed at home to the degree that most Europeans have, according to mobility data from Apple and Google. Our version of the spring lockdown looked more like Swedens looser approach than like the more substantial measures in Italy, or even the United Kingdom and France. Swedish public-health officials have acknowledged that this approach may not have been the best path forward.

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America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic - The Atlantic

The coronavirus may be out of headlines, but it has not gone away – CNN

June 9, 2020

During two weeks of protests, fevered political debate and presidential posturing, the virus marched on killing hundreds of Americans every day and spreading faster in southern states that have so far been spared the worst of its fury.

So much about the disease remains unknown and unpredictable. Rising US cases could be due to more testing. Or fraying social distancing and business openings could be giving the pandemic new life. But it seems like a heck of a coincidence that aggressive openers like Texas and Florida now see cases rising fast.

Nuanced analysis is needed to make sense of the pandemic and end it -- not exactly the forte of President Donald Trump, who is still wishing it away, saying Friday that the US was "largely through" the crisis.

He's not the only one who wants to move on. Teenagers are reaching their breaking points at home. Millions need to get back to work. And mixed with the outpouring of grief and anger at nationwide demonstrations is also the frustration of a country helplessly locked down for too long.

If the curve starts to sharply climb, it will take a brave politician to send everyone back home.

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The coronavirus may be out of headlines, but it has not gone away - CNN

UK coronavirus victims have lain undetected at home for two weeks – The Guardian

June 9, 2020

People have died at home alone of Covid-19 during the pandemic and not been found for up to two weeks, doctors who have investigated such deaths have said.

They have only been discovered after a relative, friend or neighbour raised the alarm and have in many cases gone undetected for so long that their body has started to decompose.

Campaigners for the elderly said the phenomenon highlighted the vulnerability of isolated older people living on their own with little family support and the risks being run by the large numbers of patients who have avoided hospitals and GP surgeries in recent months through fear of coronavirus.

People have lain undiscovered during the pandemic for seven to 14 days, said Dr Mike Osborn, a senior pathologist in London and the chair of the death investigation committee at the Royal College of Pathologists.

Ive seen plenty of such cases like this, where bodies are decomposed, in the Covid outbreak and also done postmortems in query Covid cases [where the disease was suspected].

The decomposition makes identifying the exact cause of death difficult, Osborne stressed. However, despite this, he was able to establish that some such deaths were as a result of Covid-19.

Doctors believe that several dozen such cases occurred in London during March, April and May.

During the pandemic doctors have certified the deaths of 700 people who lived at home in London, with or without relatives. Medics involved in ascertaining the cause of these deaths say that in many cases they have either confirmed coronavirus as the cause or judged that, combined with underlying poor health, it was likely to have contributedor resulted in the persons death

We always feared that a number of older people would be found dead alone at home, either victims of the virus or of something else, and it is extremely sad to find that this is indeed the case, said Caroline Abrahams, the charity director of Age UK.

The Guardian is investigating how the UK government prepared for and is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. We want to learn more about recent decisions taken at the heart of government. If you're a whistleblower or source and with new information, you can emailinvestigations@theguardian.comor (using a non-work phone) send us a Signal or WhatsApp to this number (UK) +44 7584 640566. (The number does not take calls.) For the most secure communications,use SecureDropand for general advice on confidentially contacting the Guardiansee our guide.

It also underlines why its such a cause for concern that the NHS has seen a significant drop in the numbers seeking help for serious conditions, even heart attacks and strokes.

It is not known how many people have died alone at home and not been found. However, all such cases have been referred to the local coroner, and inquests will happen in the months ahead.

Doctors say that while most of such cases involved older people living alone, in others the person who died had mental health problems, such as schizophrenia or depression, or had severe learning disabilities. Some are also thought to have used drugs, alcohol or both.

Another pathologist in London who has looked into a number of deaths which have gone undetected said: I know of what we call decomps involving people being found dead at home after not being heard from for a couple of weeks. The ones I know about have all been older people over-60s who lived alone. They didnt live with loved ones and seemingly didnt have many relatives close by.

A few have been described by neighbours as reclusive or private, things like that. Often they were discovered by a neighbour or acquaintance who hasnt heard from them for a while popping round, seeing no signs of life and phoning the ambulance or the police or both, who then make entry and find the deceased.

Some of these deaths were discovered after the persons family doctor, after being unable to contact them, asked the police to make a welfare check on them by calling round.

The head of the Royal College of GPs linked such deaths to the lockdown that has been in force across the UK since 23 March, which has banned mingling between members of different households in peoples homes, and people not seeking NHS care when they needed it.

The Covid-19 pandemic is also creating an epidemic of loneliness, not just for older people, and sadly there are some people who will fall through the net, said Prof Martin Marshall.

GPs are working hard to check on their patients who are shielding and the NHS volunteers have been doing a good job of looking after vulnerable people in their communities. But we are noticing an increase in people dying in the community, often at home and often due to conditions unrelated to Covid-19, such as cardiac arrest.

If people are choosing not to seek medical attention for non-Covid illnesses for fear of catching the virus, or because they are worried about being a burden on the NHS, then it is incredibly concerning, he added.

Marshall urged people to keep an eye on the movements and welfare of vulnerable neighbours who are living alone.Wherever possible, we would ask people to check on their neighbours with appropriate social distancing measures in place and alert the authorities if they have any concerns. Charities such as Age UK also have excellent tips on how communities can help each other during this difficult time.

One of the 30 doctors who certified the deaths of about 700 people who died at home alone in London during the pandemic said: Colleagues have had cases of people not being found for five or even seven days. Sometimes they were only discovered by someone noticing a smell.

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UK coronavirus victims have lain undetected at home for two weeks - The Guardian

David Tennant: British theatres need urgent help during coronavirus crisis – The Guardian

June 9, 2020

British theatre will need some form of government intervention during the coronavirus crisis before venues can reopen, the actor David Tennant has said.

Theatres closed abruptly in March and many in the industry fear they will not be able to reopen properly until 2021.

In an interview with this weeks Radio Times, Tennant said one of the biggest issues is about audience safety. Youre asking people to pay a lot of money to potentially have someone coughing into their packet of boiled sweets and infecting them, he said.

I dont know what the answer is yet. Its urgent, because the performing arts in this country dont exist with huge profit margins.

A handful of theatres, including the Nuffield in Southampton, have already gone bust and there are warnings that 70% of theatres will run out of money by the end of the year.

The West End producer Sonia Friedman has said the performing arts face the real possibility of complete obliteration without substantial government support, while the director Sam Mendes said an ecosystem this intricate and evolved cannot be rebuilt from scratch.

Tennant said some theatres were teetering. He added: Well need government intervention until theatres can safely reopen, and audiences are happy to go back.

The government has set up a cultural renewal taskforce to help map a course out of the lockdown, but arts leaders say the solution must involve investment.

The culture secretary Oliver Dowden said on Monday he was involved in intricate discussions with the Treasury and suggested a deal was almost done.

He told the London Evening Standard: I am not going to stand by and see our world-leading position in arts and culture destroyed.

Of course I want to get the money flowing, I am not going to let anyone down.

Tennant stars with Michael Sheen in a lockdown comedy for the BBC titled Staged, in which they play actors who had been due to open in a new West End production of Luigi Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Their director suggests they continue rehearsals through lockdown on Zoom. The show also features their real-life partners, Tennants wife, Georgia Moffett, and Sheens partner, Anna Lundberg, both actors.

Casting existing pairs of actor partners in shows is being discussed as a possible way of working within the rules of social distancing, and Tennant said he was in favour.

He said: It would be great. Wed have to all isolate together for rehearsals. And wed need a lot of childcare for when we were on stage.

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David Tennant: British theatres need urgent help during coronavirus crisis - The Guardian

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