Category: Corona Virus

Bill Campling / USA Today Network; Getty Images(Photo: Bill Campling / USA Today Network,Getty Images)

ASHEVILLE - Thirty Buncombe County residents havedied due to COVID-19, as of noon June 5.

Of those, 25 were residents of long-term care facilities. Buncombe's lab-confirmedcase count of the illness was at 376.

More: 'Not overwhelmed,' Mission Hospital responds to viral Facebook post concerning increase in COVID-19 patients

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As interim health director Dr. Jennifer Mullendore spoke about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic onBuncombe County, she asked the community to "keep working together" to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Here are five important takeaways from the briefing:

Mullendore said 80 of the county's confirmed cases, or 22%, have been in black, indigenous or people of color, who make up 8.4% of Buncombe's population.

Additionally, about 90 individuals, or 25% of those included in the county's confirmed cases, identify at Latinxa population that makes up 6.7% of Buncombe.

Tunnel Road had little traffic hours before the Buncombe County Stay Home, Stay Safe declaration went into effect on March 26, 2020. The declaration closed non-essential businesses in an effort to curb the spread of novel coronavirus. (Photo: ANGELI WRIGHT/ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES)

Mullendore said this "uneven impact of COVID-19 illness" is apparent statewide and nationally,where it also is showing up as disproportionate hospitalizations and deaths.

"Structural racism and the inequities it leads to in housing, employment, income, education and other social determinants of health result in these worse health outcomes," said Mullendore.

More: Will Asheville nightly protests and tear gassing lead to a coronavirus outbreak?

She said the county has implemented free testing for COVID-19 with an eye toward these communities, "acknowledging that these populations are disproportionately represented in our service sector and they don't have the privilege in their work settings or have access to employment opportunities that enable the use of teleworking."

Information on locations and schedules of that testing can be found at BuncombeReady.org.

Messages to employees of Aston Park Health Care Center decorate the entrance May 29, 2020.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizentimes.com)

In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, Mullendore said Buncombe officials want long-term care facilities to do baseline testing of all residents and health care personnel.

"What we are seeing is that many of these facilities are trying and continuing to make efforts to regularly test all staff and residents based on (CDC) guidance, but unfortunately for some of these facilities, they're running into barriers such as insurance providers who are not covering the cost of testing for their staff," she said, adding that the issue with insurance is"a significant barrier to keeping this high-priority population safe through this pandemic."

More: Families in fear at stricken Asheville nursing home

More: As WNC nursing home coronavirus deaths spike, testing efforts and official action stall

Mullendore said Buncombe has reached out to the state and is working to try to overcome the challenges.

She said long-term care facilities can contact the county "if they need additional guidance or support in their COVID-19 response" at congregantcare@BuncombeCounty.org.

Not everyone is taking Public Health guidance seriously, said Mullendore.

"Some people are asymptomatic and do not know that they have the illness," she said.... "It's important to know that if you are asked by a Public Health communicable disease nurse to isolate or quarantine, it is important that you take it seriously and follow their guidance right away."

Buncombe interim health director Dr. Jennifer Mullendore speaks in a county coronavirus update June 4, 2020.(Photo: Buncombe County)

She said Buncombe has resources for individuals who can't isolate or quarantine at their own residence and urged the community to "remember that in our day-to-day, every contact counts."

More: Former Sheriff Bobby Medford dies of COVID-19 in federal custody

Mullendore reiterated the importance of following "the three Ws":

More: Coronavirus: Buncombe to require face coverings in Phase 2 for certain public settings

She saidits also important to continue staying home when sick and limiting interaction with people outside of your household.

These measures are "not all or nothing," she added. Individuals should just strive to do them as much as possible.

Supporters listen to speeches by local government and clergy leaders before marching peacefully from Church Street to Pack Square Park on June 4, 2020. The march was organized in response to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis which led to four nights of protest in Asheville. (Photo: ANGELI WRIGHT/ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES)

More: Coronavirus: Buncombe's Phase 2 slightly more restrictive than NC's, details of mask mandate

Finally, she asked that employers communicate to their workforce that COVID-19 is serious and ask their staff not to come in when sick.

Mullendore said this is "an extremely difficult time for many," adding that itmay place a "particular burden on individuals of color in our community."

"Tending to the emotional and mental health needs of your community and yourself are and important part of public health, especially now," she said."Witnessing this trauma repeatedly affects mental health, especially for communities of color.

"Please check up on your friends, family and community as well as checking in with yourself."

Mackenzie Wicker covers Buncombe County for the Asheville Citizen Times. You can reach her at mwicker@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter @MackWick.

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Coronavirus: 30 deaths in Buncombe, disproportionate infection in people of color and more - Citizen Times

After high school, Dr. Henry joined the naval reserves, drawn by the camaraderie, naval navigation and communication techniques, and the lure of the open ocean. She enlisted in her third year of medical school and graduated to become a fleet medical officer in Esquimalt, B.C., not far from where she lives now.

I look back on it now, a lot of the work I was doing with a group of captive men was prevention. They would tease me about always telling them to wear sunscreen and use condoms, said Dr. Henry, who stayed with the navy for almost 10 years, meeting her husband there. (They separated five years ago, after 20 years of marriage, and never had children.)

During a gastrointestinal outbreak onboard, Dr. Henry used basic epidemiological legwork and a microscope to trace the source of the sickness to contaminated bottled water theyd taken on board in Tahiti.

One day at her job at a clinic in San Diego, a man burst in with a gun, demanding to talk to someone. Dr. Henry stepped forward. I said, Im somebody. Lets talk, she recalled. He burst into tears. He was in pain and distraught.

It turned out he was recovering from open-heart surgery and was unsure how he would pay the medical bills.

It was while working for the World Health Organization tracing Ebola outbreaks in Uganda that Dr. Henry developed her ideas about how best to respond to public health emergencies. The keys to an effective quarantine, she came to understand, were communication and support, like food and medical follow-up, not punitive measures.

If you tell people what they need to do and why, and give them the means to do it, most people will do what you need, she said.

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The Top Doctor Who Aced the Coronavirus Test - The New York Times

Coronavirus: US one-day death rate remains above 1000 as it happened  Financial Times

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Coronavirus: US one-day death rate remains above 1000 as it happened - Financial Times

Weekly Health Quiz: Coronavirus, Hugs and Global Spread  The New York Times

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Weekly Health Quiz: Coronavirus, Hugs and Global Spread - The New York Times

CLEVELAND, Ohio The Cuyahoga County ZIP codes with the most coronavirus infections remain the eastern suburbs and portions of the city of Cleveland, according to data released Friday by the Board of Health.

Only one ZIP code in the western suburbs now remains among the areas hardest hit by the virus: the area around Middleburg Heights and Parma Heights.

Clevelands hardest-hit ZIP codes designated as those with 158 to 241 cases since the local outbreak began, are still neighborhoods in the center of the city and on its far western and eastern edges. As during the past several weeks, most-affected eastern suburbs still include the ZIP codes containing Beachwood, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights and Warrensville Heights, among others.

As of Friday, 3,428 suburban county residents had been infected and 215 had died, the board reported. Thats an increase of 365 cases and 29 deaths since last week, when the board had reported its highest spike in weekly coronavirus cases (484) since COVID-19 hit Northeast Ohio.

New infections this week are slightly higher than they were in late March and early April. About 1,250 people have recovered.

Health Commissioner Terry Allan on Friday said he expects to see upsurges and downsurges over the course of the summer, ahead of what could be a long flu season, beginning in fall.

Allan attributed some of fluctuations in case counts to several possible factors: restaurants and businesses reopening, large protests over the weekend in which some demonstrators were not maintaining social-distance or wearing masks, more testing (leading to higher confirmed case counts), and people venturing out more during the warmer months.

Allan and other health officials drew attention to the disproportionate effect on communities of color. About 41% of suburban cases are black residents; 44.5% of cases are white residents. Of those who have required intensive-care treatment, 49% are black and 43% are white.

But officials also took the opportunity to address systemic racism and the weekends protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in the hands of Minneapolis police.

Said Deputy Director of Prevention and Wellness Ramona Brazile: To learn through reports that Mr. Floyd had survived COVID-19, but not the cruel hands of racism is too much.

Said Allan: Were experiencing in real time the collision of an international pandemic and the brutal killing of George Floyd, yet another heartbreaking demonstration of the plague of racism that still infects every fabric of our society.

The countys $5 million testing effort aimed at congregate living spaces, which often house vulnerable, largely minority populations, is underway. Some 1,600 tests have been conducted since May 8, officials said.

Some of those tests are among the roughly 15,000 administered by MetroHealth, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals this week. Thats an increase of 2,000 tests over last week, but about the same number of tests administered the week before that. This week, about 5% of people tested at the hospitals tested positive.

The availability of critical-care beds at county hospitals increased by two percentage points this week, to a 72% occupancy rate. Ventilator usage increased by one percentage point to 32%, and normal hospital bed usage increased by three percentage points to a 76% occupancy rate.

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Cuyahoga Countys highest number of coronavirus infections remain in the eastern suburbs and portions of Clev - cleveland.com

Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus outbreak this Friday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.

It wasn't ready to accompany last week's launch of the NHS test and trace system in England - but business minister Nadhim Zahawi says the NHS contact-tracing app should be in place by the end of June. NHS bosses have said a system to track people who have come into close contact with those with the virus is important to avoid a second surge in cases. Different methods are being used in each of the home nations, as our report explains.

Face coverings should be compulsory in all places where social distancing is not possible - not just on public transport - says the doctors' union. The comments from the British Medical Association come after the government said passengers in England must wear a face covering from 15 June. They are recommended in Scotland and Northern Ireland in places where social distancing is more difficult, while the Welsh government says it is a personal choice.

While the government is allowing dentists in England to resume work from Monday, the British Dental Association is warning patients to expect only a "skeleton service" after a poll suggested just 36% would reopen. Some dentists say they were not given enough warning, while others lack the necessary protective kit.

The pandemic has not affected all communities equally, with wealth appearing to be a major factor. Stephanie Hegarty explores why poorer people are more likely to catch - and die from - Covid-19.

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British drug maker AstraZeneca says new deals will enable it to supply two billion doses of a virus vaccine, should the product being developed with Oxford University scientists prove effective. AstraZeneca has agreed to supply half of the doses to low and middle-income countries.

Get a longer coronavirus briefing from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning, by signing up here.

...the guidance on wearing face coverings, in light of the government announcement concerning their use on public transport. You can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.

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Coronavirus: App 'ready by end of June' and call to extend face-covering use - BBC News

FILE PHOTO: The Ford logo is seen at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) is re-evaluating how much office space it needs for white-collar workers as restrictions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic are eased and employees return to workplaces.

In March, Ford, General Motors Co (GM.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) (FCHA.MI)(FCAU.N) told salaried employees to work from home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Ford brought back 12,000 salaried employees last month, and others have been told they can work from home until September, spokeswoman Marisa Bradley said. Given potential workplace changes caused by the outbreak, a facility consolidation the No. 2 U.S. automaker had already launched could accelerate.

If we know we are going to have a smaller population thats going to come back to work, we could look at maybe shrinking our footprint, Bradley said.

U.S. companies are wrestling with who can work from home and how much office space is necessary.

Ford Chief Operating Officer Jim Farley said recently many salaried employees can work from home, and the Dearborn, Michigan-based company could eliminate offices. The shutdown is really an opportunity to redesign how we do work, he said.

FCA has one of the largest offices spaces in the country with its U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. A small number of employees who work in testing facilities have returned to work there, and more salaried workers will return slowly over the coming months, a spokeswoman said.

A GM spokesman said the No. 1 U.S. automaker is not looking at consolidating office space, but is bringing salaried workers back in phases, focusing first on those who need to be in the office to do their job.

Hourly workers in the automakers U.S. plants largely returned to work May 18 after a two-month lockdown, using greater safety measures such as screening workers for fevers and providing face masks.

Reporting by Ben Klayman, Nick Carey and Joseph White; Editing by David Gregorio

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Ford re-evaluates office space in coronavirus world - Reuters

Mller pulled up a series of graphs and charts on her laptop. These showed that, per capita, Iceland had had more COVID-19 cases than any other Scandinavian country, and more than even Italy or Britain. There was an outbreak in a nursing home in the town of Bolungarvk, in northwestern Iceland, and one in the Westman Islands, an archipelago off the southern coast, which seemed to have started at a handball game. (In Europe, handball is a team sport thats sort of a cross between basketball and soccer.)

The numbers in the beginning were terrible, Mller said. She attributed the countrys success in bringing the caseload down in part to having got an early start. The trio, along with officials from Icelands university hospital, had begun meeting back in January. We saw what was going on in China, she recalled. We saw the pictures of people lying dead in emergency departments, even on the street. So it was obvious that something terrible was happening. And, of course, we didnt know if it would spread to other countries. But we didnt dare take the chance. So we started preparing. For example, it was discovered that the country didnt have enough protective gear for its health-care workers, so hospital officials immediately set about buying more.

Meanwhile, Mller began assembling a backup team. You know, everybody knows everyone in Iceland, she said. And so I rang up the president of the Icelandic Medical Association and the head of the nurses association. Doctors who had recently retired, nurses who had gone on to other jobsall were urged to sign up. When new cases started to be diagnosed in a great rush, the backup team, along with doctors whose offices had been shut by the pandemic, counselled people over the phone. If you were seventy, if you had high blood pressure, you got called every day, Mller told me. But, if you were young and healthy, maybe twice a week. And Im sure that this led to fewer hospital admittances and even to fewer intensive-care admittances.

This, in turn, appears to have cut down on fatalities. Icelands death rate from COVID-19 is one out of every one hundred and eighty confirmed cases, or just 0.56 per centone of the lowest in the world. The figure is so low that it raised some doubts. Mllers department decided to look into how many Icelanders had perished for any reason since the outbreak began. It turned out that over-all mortality in Iceland had actually gone down since the coronavirus had arrived.

I asked Mller about masks. In Massachusetts, an executive order issued by the governor requires that masks be worn by anyone entering a store, taking a cab, or using public transit, and violators can be fined up to three hundred dollars. In Iceland, masks arent even part of the public conversation. Mller said that wearing one might be advisable for a person who is sick and coughing, but that person shouldnt be walking around in public anyway. We think they dont add much and they can give a false sense of security, she said. Also, masks work for some time, and then they get wet, and they dont work anymore.

Mller was careful not to suggest that Iceland had beaten the virus. She seemed almost embarrassed by the idea of claiming credit for herself, for the trio, or for Iceland. The furthest she would go, when pressed, was to say, We are a nation thats used to catastrophes. We deal with avalanches, earthquakes, eruptions, and so on. Among the slides she showed me about the countrys experience with COVID was one labelled Success?

Iceland was one of the last (more or less) habitable places on earth to be settled by humans, sometime toward the end of the ninth century. Genetic analysis performed by deCODE shows that the islands original inhabitants were mainly men from Norway and women from the British Isles. (It seems likely that the women were seized by the Vikings and brought along by force.)

For centuries, hardly anyone from anywhere else bothered to travel to Iceland; it just didnt seem worth the effort. Isolation, combined with low population density, tended to keep out epidemicsthe island was, for example, spared the Black Death. But, when disease did slip in, the effects on a population that lacked immunity could be devastating. In 1707, an Icelander contracted smallpox during a trip to Copenhagen. He died on his way home and was buried at sea. His clothes continued on to the town of Eyrarbakki, on the islands southern coast, sparking an outbreak that, by 1709, had killed about a quarter of the country.

Today, Iceland is still far from anywhere. Its nearest neighbor, Greenland, is mostly ice, and the capital city of Nuuk is almost nine hundred miles away. But jets and cruise ships have turned Reykjavk into a bucket-list destination; last year, almost two million foreign tourists visited, four times the number that visited just a decade ago. Icelands first COVID casualty was, perhaps not surprisingly, a vacationer. The man, whose name was not released, was Australian. He died on March 16th, shortly after arriving at a medical clinic in Hsavk, a small town on the northern coast known for whale-watching. His widow, who also tested positive, was ordered into isolation, a development that prompted an outpouring of sympathy from Icelanders. A woman named Rakel Jnsdttir set up a Facebook group, With Love from Us, so that people could post messages to her; more than ten thousand people joined. You may not see us, you may not know us, but we all think of you and have you in our hearts, Jnsdttir wrote.

Icelanders, too, are big travellers: in 2018, more than eighty per cent of them vacationed abroad. I spoke to several people in Reykjavk whod brought the virus home from overseas. One was Brkur Arnarson, an art dealer. I went to speak to him at his gallery, i8, which was closed to the public at the time. (Rule 4b: Only those being interviewed should have direct interaction with the journalist.)

Arnarson, who represents, among others, the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, had been in New York, attending the Armory Show, at the beginning of March. After the show ended, hed gone to a crowded party where finger food was served. Im not a news guy, he told me. But I knew what was going on here in Iceland, and I knew what was going on in Europe. And I was struck by how New Yorkers were so confident. They didnt believe it was going to happen, or, if it was going to happen, somehow it was going to be O.K.

Arnarson started to feel crappy almost as soon as he got home. His daughter signed the family up for COVID tests that were being offered by deCODE; when his came back positive, Arnarson went into isolation in a studio loaned to him by an artist friend. Every day, someone on the team of nurses and doctors phoned him. They asked, How are you doing? What are your symptoms? Are you getting all the help you need? he recalled. And that was really amazing. It was so comforting, knowing that they were doing this. He was given a number to call in case of an emergency: I dont think they were getting many calls, because they were so proactive. While he was in isolation, his wife and his daughter, whod originally tested negative for the virus, came down with it. They received the same treatment. None of them ended up going to the hospital or to a clinic.

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How Iceland Beat the Coronavirus - The New Yorker

As of Monday morning at least 1,790,191 Americans have contracted the virus and 104,383 have died. But some expect a jump in cases following days of demonstrations.

Spike in cases expected

"I am deeply concerned about a super-spreader type of incident," Walz said. "We're going to see a spike in Covid-19. It's inevitable."

"I would still wish that everyone would realize that when people gather it's inherently dangerous in the context of this pandemic, and I'm going to keep urging people not to use that approach and if they do they focus on social distancing and wearing face coverings," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday.

The mayor said he recognized the need to demonstrate following the death of Floyd but "It's a very, very complicated reality."

"You cannot see overt racism, you cannot see overt racist murder and not feel something profoundly deep, so I understand that," de Blasio added. "But the last thing we would want to see is members of our community harmed because the virus spread in one of these settings."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that while people have the right to protest, even during a pandemic, they also have a duty to protect the health of themselves and others.

"You have a right to demonstrate you have a right to protest, God Bless America," Cuomo said at a Saturday press conference. "You don't have a right to infect other people, you don't have a right to act in a way that's going to jeopardize public health."

"Demonstrate with a mask on," he said nodding to its effectiveness. "You're wrong not to wear a mask, I think you're disrespectful, I think you're putting other people's lives at risk needlessly."

Cuomo also noted how the coronavirus has brought long standing health disparities for the African American community to light once again.

"The coronavirus crisis has created a depth of pain that still has not been accounted for. So many New Yorkers have lost someone but that is particularly true in communities of color and particularly true in the African American community," Cuomo said. "That loss is being felt so deeply because every knows it's not based on equality ... communities of color lost so much more."

Protests taking focus off pandemic

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also said she's worried about the impact the virus is having on the community during the protests. She told CNN she's been so busy with ongoing unrest in her city that she neglected to look at infection data for days.

"Last night I realized I hadn't looked at our coronavirus numbers in two days," Lance Bottoms told CNN's Jake Tapper during State of the Union. "That's frightening because it's a pandemic and people of color are getting hit harder."

"I am extremely concerned when we're seeing mass gatherings. We know what's happening in our community with this virus," the mayor explained.

"There's no questions that when you put hundreds or thousands of people together in close proximity when we've got this virus all over the streets is not healthy," Hogan said. "Two weeks from now across America we're going to find out whether or not this gives us a spike and drives the numbers back up."

"Most states had rules about no crowds of ten or more and now we're seeing thousands of people jammed in together in close proximity," Hogan added.

Health experts worried about spread

Health experts have also spoken out about the need for masks and other protective measures in light of racial disparities in the data showing minorities have an increased risk for catching the virus.

"There's going to be a lot of issues coming out of what's happened in the last week, but one of them is going to be that chains of transmission will have become lit from these gatherings," Gottlieb said. "And Minnesota, one of the hard hit states by the protests where you've seen large mass gatherings, that state has been seeing an uptick in cases to begin with. Even before these protests started, we saw rising hospitalizations in that state."

Other doctors told CNN that the racial disparity in the way coronavirus spreads will only be compounded by the protests.

"I think this week, more than any week, it is so important to call attention to the racial disparities that many of us in the public health community, John, have been talking about for months," Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown University, told CNN's John King. "We know that blacks are two to four times more likely to die from Covid-19 compared to whites. And of course, other communities, like Native Americans and Hispanics, are disproportionately affected, as well.

"It's so tied up with our country's history of structural racism, historical injustices, as well as ongoing problems," Dr. Ranny noted.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of Harvard's Global Health Institute, said on the same show that he wished demonstrators would wear masks to protect themselves and others.

CNN's Kristina Sgueglia and Maggie Fox contributed to this report.

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The protests are raising fears of a spike in coronavirus cases - CNN

I dont think theres a question of whether there will be spikes in cases in 10 to 14 days, Mark Shrime, a public-health researcher at Harvard, told me. With so many protests happening, that are getting so much bigger, I dont think its a question of if, but when and where.

Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at Boston Childrens Hospital and Harvard Medical School, agrees. All things considered, theres little doubt that these protests will translate into increased risk of transmission for COVID-19, she told me by email.

Yet that risk does not lead Majumder to oppose the protests. I personally believe that these particular protestswhich demand justice for black and brown bodies that have been brutalized by the policeare a necessary action, she said. Structural racism has been a public-health crisis for much longer than the pandemic has. Even the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed black people disproportionately, Majumder told me. While about 13 percent of Americans are black, a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths where the victims race is known have befallen black people, according to the COVID Racial Data Tracker.

Adam Serwer: The coronavirus was an emergency until Trump found out who was dying

Alexandra Phelan, a professor of global-health law at Georgetown University, also told me she believed that the protests were justifiable, even amid the public-health crisis. She drew a difference between these protests, against police brutality, and the protests earlier this spring, which opposed mask mandates and social-distancing rules. At the very least, she said, many protesters this weekend were wearing masks, reducing the risk of transmission to the community.

International law would also understand the Floyd-inspired protests differently than it would the anti-mask protests, Phelan said, because it places a premium on the use of civil rights to keep governments accountable. These protests are currently the primary channel to seek accountability for the governance systems that have led to extrajudicial killings and police violence, but also for the disproportionate death from COVID-19 experienced by black and brown Americans.

Protesting is protected by constitutional and international law, and yet, at this moment, inescapably dangerous. People who wish to protest should focus first on mitigating their risk of passing the virus along to someone else, the experts told me. Protesters should wear a mask over their mouth and nose to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus. Theres probably evidencethough that evidence is weakthat masking protects me, but theres more evidence that masking protects you, Shrime said.

Read: The real reason to wear a mask

Since chanting seems to spread the virus, Majumder recommends that protesters use noisemakers, drums, and written signs. She also recommended that protesters carry shatterproof goggles and a saline spritz, in case they are pepper-sprayed. Soothing the irritant with a sterile solution can reduce coughing and sneezing, which are some of the major pathways through which the novel coronavirus is spread, she said.

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The Protests Will Spread the Coronavirus - The Atlantic