Category: Covid-19

When researchers at Duke University School of Medicine asked selected parents in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area to track symptoms in children who tested positive for the coronavirus early in the pandemic, among the notable answers was this: After 28 days, more than one-third of the 6- to 13-year-olds had shown no symptoms at all.

That finding poses implications for school systems that have brought students back to class or are making plans to do so. Will elementary and middle schoolers who show no signs of infection spread the virus to other kids and staff?

As calls rise to get more kids back into classrooms for their educational, emotional, and physical health, medical schools and university hospitals are helping educators assess such risks and develop plans plans built on data from schools that have opened and evidence about how kids catch and transmit the virus.

The early data suggest that schools can reopen safely under certain conditions, but the analyses come with follow-up questions and multiple caveats the most basic of which is some form of, Thats what we know so far.

Were nine to 10 months into a brand-new disease, cautions Helen Bristow, MPH, program manager of Dukes ABC Science Collaborative, which guides schools on COVID-19 safety. Were regularly learning something we didnt know before.

Here is some of what researchers are sharing with school systems about how children catch, are affected by, and transmit the coronavirus.

Early data from K-12 schools do not confirm fears that bringing students together in classrooms inevitably creates COVID-19 petri dishes although the absence of a standardized national database of school cases makes it impossible to know for sure. University researchers have partly filled the void with a plethora of data analyses from selected schools and grades.

One of the largest studies, led by Brown University economist Emily Oster, PhD, analyzed in-school infection data from 47 states over the last two weeks of September. Among more than 200,000 students and 63,000 staff who had returned to school, Oster reported an infection rate of 0.13% among students and 0.24% among staff.

The low infection rates support what other researchers have seen in smaller samples.

What we havent seen are superspreader events that ignited in schools, says Sallie Permar, MD, PhD, a professor of pediatrics and immunology at Duke. The fear that youd have one infected kid come to school, and then youd have many other kids and teachers and relatives [at home] get infected that hasnt happened.

Nevertheless, many schools have experienced infections that compelled them to quarantine some students and staff at home for a time, and some school districts in Georgia and Utah have shifted to more online learning after experiencing severe outbreaks.

The fear that youd have one infected kid come to school, and then youd have many other kids and teachers and relatives [at home] get infected that hasnt happened.

Sallie Permar, MD, PhDProfessor of pediatrics and immunology at Duke University School of Medicine

One characteristic common among schools that are doing well: They are operating under capacity, as theyve opened with arrangements designed to minimize crowding, such as grouping students to come to school on different days and allowing students to attend only from home. So, while New York City touted a miniscule 0.15% infection rate in its schools in mid-October, the city reported that just over one-quarter of its students had attended any classes in person.

And while COVID-19s light impact on K-12 schools so far has spurred calls to fill classrooms, coronavirus infection surges in many parts of the country pose a growing threat. In recent weeks, outbreaks have forced some schools to revert to distance learning while others have postponed their reopening plans.

Infections in schools reflect infection levels and mitigation practices in their communities. The COVID-19 surge in Utah has fueled one of the countrys biggest public school outbreaks. Some school districts in the Salt Lake City area remained open this fall even after local coronavirus infection rates reached more than double the level at which the state recommended distance learning.

That stuns Benjamin Linas, MD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine who has advocated for opening schools under strict safety measures. You can only open your school safely if you have COVID under control in your community, Linas says.

The surge in Utah has been partly attributed to public resistance to infection mitigation recommendations, such as physical distancing and wearing masks a resistance that carried into the schools, many of which did not require such measures among students. Maintaining those practices in both schools and their surrounding communities is critical, says Peggy Thompson, RN, director of infection prevention at Tampa General Hospital (TGH).

You can have the best laid plans in classrooms, but if kids are not following social distancing and mask usage outside of school, theyre going to bring COVID into the school with them, says Thompson, who works with schools to contain the virus through an initiative called TGH Prevention Response Outreach.

You can only open your school safely if you have COVID under control in your community.

Benjamin Linas, MD, MPHAssociate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine

TGH and other teaching hospitals that consult with schools about operating safely during the pandemic find that students and staffers who have tested positive for the coronavirus usually contracted the virus outside of school.

Theres a party, students are gathering unmasked, and [the virus] is brought back to school, says Joan Zoltanski, MD, who oversees the Healthy Restart initiative at University Hospitals in Cleveland to help schools and businesses operate safely. She cites gatherings of family members from different households as another common viral source for students and staff.

Thats why researchers advise that, as Permar says, You cant stop cases from coming on school grounds. The goal is to eliminate transmissions on the campus.

Several studies have found that children transmit the virus, but perhaps not as often as adults, especially in younger age groups. Its not clear why.

The Duke study found that children carry large amounts of the virus in their respiratory systems, says Matthew Kelly, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke who co-authored the study with Permar and others. He posits that for several reasons, younger children might not transmit the virus as effectively as adults; for instance, children may not generate aerosols as effectively as older children and adults when they cough, sneeze, or breathe.

In addition, children might not cough, sneeze, or struggle to breathe as much with COVID-19 as they do when afflicted with other respiratory illnesses, such as the flu because, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, most children with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or have no symptoms at all. While thats good for those kids, the phenomenon opens a vulnerability for schools where safety strategies include screening students for symptoms.

Because researchers have found that people transmit the coronavirus even when they experience mild orno symptoms, Kelly cautions that trying to use symptom-based screening strategies may not effectively pick up infections among school-aged children.

When school districts began making plans this summer to reopen some schools, many staffers and parents objected that teachers would not be able to get younger kids to stick with wearing masks, washing their hands frequently, and maintaining distance from each other (which varies among schools from three to six feet). Researchers who have worked with schools on those plans say the younger children have complied quite well, especially when adults have made clear that those measures are mandated and practiced those measures themselves.

In schools with such mandates, coronavirus transmissions appear to remain low. The COVID-19 School Response Dashboard built by the technology company Qualtrics based on data provided by schools that choose to participate, and which Oster used for her analysis shows fewer reported infections in schools that require masks and six-foot distancing.

The teachers and principals are nervous. Theyre in need of information they can trust.

Helen Bristow, MPHProgram manager of Dukes ABC Science Collaborative, which guides schools on COVID-19 safety

Mandates or not, the most difficult area to get consistent compliance with safety measures might be the cafeteria. Theyre like the free-for-all zone, says Thompson, the nurse at TGH. Thats where you can take your mask off because you can eat and drink. They [school administrators] will put set-ups in place for where the kids need to socially distance, and the kids all pile around one table anyway. Theyre social animals.

Sticking to safety measures during unstructured time outside of classrooms has proven particularly challenging for older students, both in school and beyond, according to Zolanski at University Hospitals in Cleveland. She notes that high schoolers, compared with younger students, tend to socialize with more peers and are more often away from close adult supervision.

Theyre the most challenging because they are interacting outside of school, Zolanski says.

Medical schools, university hospitals, and individual doctors and researchers are working with schools around the country to operate as safely as possible and make adjustments based on new data and evolving knowledge.

The largest such effort is the ABC Science Collaborative, established this summer by the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine with a grant from the National Institutes of Health. The core of the collaboration is a multidisciplinary scientific advisory board that explains data on epidemiology, transmission rates, and other research through webinars, online resources, and data-sharing with participating school districts, according to Bristow.

The initiative works with 57 of North Carolinas 115 school districts and hopes to expand to other states. The teachers and principals are nervous, she says. Theyre in need of information they can trust.

In other states, academic medical centers are increasingly consulting with schools and businesses about how to operate safely. The mitigation tactics are not as straightforward as one might think, explains William Lennarz, MD, system chair for pediatrics at Ochsner Health, which provides support for several hundred schools in Louisiana.

Among the questions Ochsner has worked through with schools: Do you quarantine a whole class when you identify one suspected case? Does everyone from the class who maintained a safe distance of six feet from the infected student have to go home? Do you wait for another test result?

The answers, according to Lennarz, have depended on an array of factors in each situation a few of which led schools to temporarily move a class or a grade to remote learning.

In other communities, doctors and other health professionals provide that kind of expertise on a more individual level. In Boston, Linas serves on the Public Health, Safety and Logistics advisory panel for his local school district in the suburb of Brookline. The panel, composed of physicians and public health experts, uses the latest research and data to assist the school system in deciding what measures to take as it operates on a hybrid model of in-person and at-home learning.

Linas says that amid the societal tension and disagreements about how to respond to COVID-19, school administrators, teachers, and parents express appreciation for the straightforward information that the panel provides.

Because of our academic standing and rigorous use of data, and our professional commitment to public health, our panel has emerged as an independent source of trusted information, he says.

More:

Kids, school, and COVID-19: What we know and what we don't - AAMC

David Eggman is a registered nurse who works at Aspirus Wausau Hospital. The surge in COVID-19 cases increases the risk of nurses and other hospital workers testing positive or being exposed to someone who has in the community.(Photo: Courtesy Aspirus Wausau Hospital)

Hospitals could face an additional challenge in the coming weeks from the states surge in COVID-19 cases: Their workers are at increased risk of becoming infected with the virus or being exposed to someone who is, forcing them to isolate or quarantine for as long as two weeks.

That would only increase the pressure on hospitals that have seen a sharp increase in COVID-19 patients in the past month.All72 counties recorded a very high level of COVID-19 activity, and state health officials implored residents to stay home to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Signs of the potential risk already are appearing.

Marshfield Clinic Health System has about 140 people at its nine hospitals out because they have tested positive or been exposed to someone who has. Mayo Clinic Health System has said that 200 of its 4,800 workers in northwestern Wisconsin, which includes its hospital in Eau Claire, are out for the same reason.

ThedaCare, which has large hospitals in Neenah and Appleton, had an average of 175 people out each day last month. Bellin Health in Green Bay had about 60 people out of its 4,800 workers out as of Monday. ProHealth Care had 90 people out as of Wednesday.

Those health systems and others have stressed that they have been able to maintain adequate staff to care for patients by moving nurses and other workersand taking other steps.

But many health systems are not disclosing how many people in their hospitals are out because they have tested positive or been exposed to the virus.

The health systems that did not respond or declined to disclose the information include Aurora Health Care, Ascension Wisconsin, Froedtert Health, Childrens Wisconsin, UW Health, Hospital Sisters Health System and Aspirus.

The ZablockiVA Medical Center in Milwaukee also did not respond to questions on how many of its workers are out.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is not tracking how many hospital workers are out. It does track health care workers who have tested positive or are experiencing symptoms but does not break out the number of hospital workers who have been affected.

The number of cases and the high percentage of people who test positivethe percent has hit 30% on some days suggests that the virus is increasingly widespread in communities.

Further, given that as many as 40% of those infected by the virus may not show symptoms, its prevalence is more widespread than the number of positive cases suggest.

All this increases the chances of additional hospital workers becoming infected or exposed to the virus.

That worries health systems.

Mayo Clinic temporarily deferred elective procedures and other care on Saturday in Eau Claire because of the surge in COVID-19 patients.

"This situation is serious, Richard Helmers, a physician and regional vice president of the Northwest Wisconsin Region for the health system, said in in a statement. We now are at risk of overwhelming our health care system,"

Health care professionals, he said, need everyones help.

"We are pleading with community members to comply with all recommended precautionary measures to help reduce transmission of the virus among our neighbors, friends and health care workers, Helmers said in the statement.

ThedaCare which said that about a third of its affected employees are nurses made the same plea.

The health system said that people can take some simple steps, such as wearing masks and taking part in social distancing, to show support for health care workers.

Without question, hospital and other workers in health care are more likely to take precautions to limit their exposure. But they also face the same risk as everyone else of being exposed in the community.

Guidelines call for someone who has been exposed to the virus to quarantine for up to two weeks.

Health systems are taking different approaches on whether they pay employees who have to quarantine.

ProHealth Care, ThedaCare and UW Health are paying employees who have to quarantine because they have been exposed to the virus.

Hospital Sisters Health System, which has hospitals in Green Bay, Sheboygan and Eau Claire, said whether an employee must use their allotted time off when quarantined varies.

But other health systemsare requiring employees to use their paid time off their allotted mix of vacation and paid sick days while quarantining.

This includes Aurora, part of Advocate Aurora Health Care, and Ascension Wisconsin.

Employees at Ascension Wisconsin, for instance, can file for short-term disability if they must quarantine, according to information sent to employees. They can use their allotted paid time off before that kicks in and then to supplement the money they receive through short-term disability.

Hospital workers who become infected at work may be eligible for workers compensation. But they must be able to prove that they were infected at work.

Other health systems, such as Froedtert Health, did not respond to questions about their policies.

Nobody knows that health care workers arent getting this paid time, said Jamie Lucas, executive director of the WisconsinFederationof Nurses and Health Professionals.

That has been a frustration for some nurses and other workers who have had to use their allotted vacation and sick days when quarantining.

In March, the union asked health systems where it represented employees, including Aurora, Ascension Wisconsin and Aspirus, to continue to pay workers who had to quarantine, Lucas said. But the proposal was rejected.

The policies of requiring employees to use their allotted paid time off if they must quarantine could make some reluctant to report the exposure.

In a statement, Hospital Sisters Health System said,We have faith that our employees would always do what is right to protect the health and safety of their patients, colleagues and communities especially in the midst of a public health crisis.

THANK YOU: Subscribers' support makes this work possible. Help us share the knowledge by buying a gift subscription.

Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/health-care/2020/11/06/hundreds-health-care-workers-across-wisconsin-sidelined-covid-19/6174355002/

Originally posted here:

Hundreds of health workers across the state sidelined by COVID-19 infections, exposure - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Students study and attend classes while distanced from each other. They can access more than one million books digitally. And in a recent development, theyve been able to request hardbound books for delivery, in accordance with public health guidelines.

Like so many other mainstays campus life, the Northeastern Library has adapted to the virtual realities of COVID-19.

It really is a rapid evolution of the library, says Dan Cohen, dean of libraries and vice provost for information collaboration at Northeastern. Every single service that you would get in Snell, pre-COVID, is available to you as a student or faculty member.

The library, which has been limited to 750 students at a time because of COVID-19 distancing rulescompared to its normal capacity of 2,000 before the pandemichas become an especially welcome sanctuary this semester.

I didnt really go to Snell that much last yearonly a handful of timesbut now Ive been going there more because theres limited space everywhere else, says Matt Blanco, a second-year student computer science and design. Everything is really spread out. The space between students is pretty large, so Ive been feeling safe.

Over the course of the semester, the library has adjusted its rules to accommodate students needs. The latest adaptation allows students to enter the library and study at a table without making a reservation. Earlier in the semester, students had been asked to reserve a spot at a table or desk in advance.

Because of a more limited seating capacity, we just wanted to be sure in the first few weeks of classes that every student could find a place to study, Cohen says. It is now clear that our traffic has naturally spread itself out and the reservation system simply isnt needed any longer. We want to be as accessible as possible.

The reconfigured third floor at Snell enables 300 distanced students to attend virtual classes.

I have some online classes that are back-to-back with in-person classes, and if I tried to take them from my dorm, I probably wouldnt make it to [the in-person] class, says Julia Denlinger, a third-year student in health science, who has been making use of Snells new third floor. Being able to go to the library and have a space where I can participate in the online classes is really nice, and I am able to get to class on time afterwards.

A simplified welcome page on the library website offers access to digital offerings as well as opportunities to request help from library staff around the clock.

We had been moving over the last several years to provide more and more services, and a lot of them were virtual, given that Northeastern has a global campus network, Cohen says. We have accelerated that natural process in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what weve found is that all of the services are not only continuing but have multiplied by an order of magnitude.

Cohen says that the library has launched a delivery system for printed books that places each returned volume in a 72-hour quarantine, in accordance with the public health guidelines of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency. Hardbound books have been removed from the library shelves during the pandemic.

In addition, the library has substantially deepened its collection of digital materials, with more than 1.4 million ebooks (a 32 percent increase since March), 150,000 electronic journals, and 180,000 streaming videos. Some 267,000 hardbound books that are currently unavailable at Snell may now be accessed online because of the librarys association with HathiTrust, which provides temporary digitized access to printed materials that are owned by Northeastern.

Already this semester, students and faculty have had more than 1,000 online consultations with librarians who have provided help on research products and other academic work. The library also offers a collection of 46 online workshops and 20-minute webinars, which have been viewed by more than 1,000 students.

If a student wants to learn a new skillsuch as how to create a podcast, or how to start a search through a complicated databasewe have a variety of tutorials available, and were seeing a real surge in demand in them, Cohen says. Everyone should know that the library is here to help the Northeastern community.

For media inquiries, please contact media@northeastern.edu.

Go here to see the original:

Here's how Northeastern's Snell Library reinvented itself during the COVID-19 pandemic - News@Northeastern

Local officials are grappling with their growing case counts as state government looks on, encouraging them to do what is best in their communities to slow the pandemic's rapid spread.

With the pandemic showing no signs of abatement, the North Dakota Department of Health on Tuesday, Nov. 3, announced another 15 COVID-19 deaths.

North Dakota's death rate is staggeringly higher than the rest of the nation, with 1.5 deaths per 100,000 in the last seven days. The nationwide average is 0.3 deaths per 100,000 in the last seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 230,800 Americans have died from COVID-19 throughout the pandemic as of Tuesday.

The deaths announced Tuesday were all men and women in their 50s to 90s and included three women from Burleigh County, two residents of Towner County and two Ward County men. The others each were from Benson, Cass, Dickey, LaMoure, Pierce, Rolette, Stark and Wells counties.

October was North Dakota's deadliest month by far with 275 deaths. More deaths are likely to be added to the state's official October toll as death investigations conclude. October has seen more than twice as many deaths as September so far.

At least 326 of the state's deaths have come in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, many of which have seen skyrocketing cases among residents and employees in the last month.

COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide remained at a high of 215 residents Tuesday, and there are approximately 11% of staffed hospital beds available statewide.

Hospital capacity in the state's largest cities remained tight on Tuesday, with both Essentia Health and Sanford Health in Fargo reporting zero available staffed in-patient beds. Among the city's three hospitals, three staffed ICU beds were available and eight in-patient beds were only available in Fargo's VA hospital.

Bismarck reported six available staffed in-patient beds and two staffed ICU beds among Bismarck's two hospitals, according to the latest numbers from the North Dakota Department of Health.

Statewide, there are 12 available staffed ICU beds and 195 available staffed in-patient beds, according to the latest numbers from the North Dakota Department of Health.

On Oct. 3, the state reported 3,055 residents known to be infected with COVID-19. As of Tuesday, at least 8,396 residents were infected by the virus. This is a 175% increase in active COVID-19 cases in one month.

Grand Forks County recently surpassed 1,000 active cases for the first time and local health officials are warning that the worst is yet to come and urging the government at all levels to enact more stringent policies to help curb COVID-19 spread. The county reported an additional 218 positive cases on Tuesday.

Steele County enacted a mask mandate to protect citizens in the county, Steele County Public Health announced Tuesday. The county as a population of around 1,900 and it reported a 16% rolling positivity state for all COVID-19 tests in the last 14 days, according to the Department of Health.

Ward County, which encompasses Minot, reported an additional 182 positive COVID-19 cases Tuesday and now has the third-highest number of active cases among North Dakota's counties with 1,222 residents known to be infected with the virus.

Cass County, which includes Fargo and West Fargo, has 1,229 residents known to be infected with the illness the most of the state's 53 counties. It announced an additional 176 cases Tuesday.

About 16% of the 7,615 residents tested as part of the latest batch received a positive result, but 24% of residents tested for the first time got a positive result.

North Dakota does not report a seven-day rolling average for positivity rate, but Forum News Service calculated the rate to be about 14% for all residents tested and about 24% for tests taken on previously untested residents.

As a public service, weve opened this article to everyone regardless of subscription status. If this coverage is important to you, please consider supporting local journalism by clicking on the subscribe button in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.

Readers can reach reporter Michelle Griffith, a Report for America corps member, at mgriffith@forumcomm.com.

More:

North Dakota announces another 15 COVID-19 deaths as state remains nationwide hotspot - Grand Forks Herald

Navajo voters casting their ballots after riding 10 miles on horseback through Navajo County, Ariz.

About a week before Election Day, as the Wind River Reservation was bracing for snow, Wyoming State Rep. Andi Clifford squeezed in some roadside campaigning outside of a community hall in Arapahoe.

"Normally we would've been inside," she said. "But we can't, so we're out here."

The reservation's public health orders prohibit large, indoor gatherings. So as Clifford seeks a second term representing Wind River, she and her team have been spending a lot of time outside in the cold.

"We think of our ancestors and what they've gone through under the elements," she said. "So it's a little bit of suffering for a couple of hours, but I don't care."

When two women pulled up in a pickup truck, campaign volunteers brought them bowls of stew and pieces of frybread. Clifford handed them a voting guide.

"Did you get to vote yet?" she asked. Both women shook their heads no.

Like most voters in Clifford's district, they're planning to wait until Election Day when they can vote in one of four polling places on the reservation. The only early voting center in Fremont County is the county clerk's office in Lander. Depending on where you live on Wind River and what the weather's like, that drive can take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour.

"However I'm encouraging people to go because the coronavirus is at a spike here, and I don't want them to be quarantined and not be able to go and vote on Nov. 3," Clifford said.

A week before Election Day, data from the Wyoming Secretary of State's Office showed that Clifford's constituents had cast about a third as many early and mail-in ballots as voters in the neighboring house district.

Wind River voters are facing what the Native American Rights Fund, or NARF, calls the "tyranny of distance." Samantha Kelty, an attorney with the nonprofit law group, said it's a problem that the pandemic has only intensified.

"It's caused worsening economic conditions or loss of jobs, and so when it was hard enough to find enough money for a tank of gas to get to the county seat, now it's just impossible," Kelty said.

Distance isn't the only problem. In a 2018 report titled "Obstacles at Every Turn," NARF laid out how strict voter registration laws disproportionately affect Native people in some places. Poor postal access makes voting by mail a challenge, and a lack of broadband can prevent people from accessing voter information.

"It's just layered obstacle on top of obstacle on top of obstacle," Kelty said. "And all of these issues have been ongoing. They just have the spotlight on them now with COVID-19."

This year, NARF worked to secure satellite voting offices on reservations across Montana, where many Native people would otherwise travel two to three times farther than non-Natives to get to the polls.

NARF also helped secure the right of third-party organizations to collect ballots and deliver them to election officials on behalf of tribal members in Nevada and Montana.

But in other communities, there have been setbacks. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona lost its court battle for an early voting center that it requested because of the pandemic. One county in South Dakota cited the virus as a reason not to provide early voting on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

And there's another persistent problem when it comes to voting in Indian Country distrust of the federal government, and the feeling that Native people and the issues they care about will be ignored no matter who's in office.

"I get it. You know, I hear that," said Allie Young, an organizer on the Navajo Nation.

She said struggles during the pandemic, including the slow rollout of federal coronavirus aid to tribal nations, has only intensified that distrust.

"But at the same time, this election is too important to sit out," she said. "And so I was trying to come up with ways of, 'How can we speak to our Native voters? How can we get them excited?'"

So, she organized a trail ride. Young and 15 other voters rode about 10 miles on horseback to cast their ballots early in Kayenta, Ariz.

"You know, our elders fought for our right to vote and they rode more miles and longer hours to get to the polls, so let's do this in honor of them," Young said.

She hopes pictures and videos of the ride on social media will inspire more Native people to get to the polls, even if it's not easy.

See more here:

In Indian Country, COVID-19 Yet Another Obstacle To Casting A Vote - NPR

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) Nearly 2 million residents were infected with the coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic in the spring.

Thats according to a new report that also found the virus is much more deadly than the flu, CBS2s Kiran Dhillon reported Tuesday.

Months after COVID-19 overwhelmed the Big Apple, were now learning new details about its impact on our community.

Initially, we did not have a lot of nucleic acid testing, a lot of PCR testing, and so the vast majority of initial cases were probably not captured, said Dr. Florian Krammer, a virologist with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A new report by the Icahn School of Medicine has found that during the first wave of the pandemic, 1.7 million New York City residents, or about 22% of the citys population, were infected.

The fatality rate is sitting at around 0.97%, about 10 times more deadly than the flu, and a rate much higher than other places around the world.

We got hit by surprise that the medical facilities the health care system in the city was overwhelmed, Krammer said, and, you know, we were not very efficient in treating it initially.

The findings come after researchers checked for COVID-19 antibodies in plasma samples from more than 10,000 hospital patients between February and July. This technique allowed doctors to check for past infections that may have been undetected due to mild symptoms or asymptomatic patients.

Other takeaways from the report include:

The virus was already here, maybe, you know, two, three, four weeks before that, maybe at low prevalence, Krammer said. When a virus emerges in a new population, you dont necessarily see thousands of cases right away. The virus lingers around before it then takes up steam.

MORE FROM CBS NEW YORK

The report also found that after New York State implemented a stay-at-home order in late March, cases began to drop and eventually plateaued in the city.

Still, Krammer said the infection rate is far below whats necessary for herd immunity.

We need to keep going with social distancing. We have to be careful. The virus is likely more transmissible when the temperature is cold, Krammer said.

The report contains essential new information, since some say the second wave is already here.

You can get the latest news, sports and weather on our brand new CBS New York app. Download here.

View original post here:

Study: 1.7 Million New Yorkers Have Been Infected With COVID-19 - CBS New York

Wood County Hospital gets new COVID-19 testing equipment with 24-hour turnaround  WNWO NBC 24

See more here:

Wood County Hospital gets new COVID-19 testing equipment with 24-hour turnaround - WNWO NBC 24

Harry Higgs became the 16th PGA Tour player to test positive for COVID-19 and has withdrawn from this weeks Vivint Houston Open.

While I am disappointed to have to withdraw this week, I am grateful that I drove to Houston by myself and was alone as I awaited my pre-tournament screening results, said Higgs. I look forward to returning to competition when it is safe to do so.

Higgs, who lives in Dallas, must go through 10 days of self-isolation and he was replaced in the field by Kramer Hickock. Higgs is not in the field at the Masters.

View post:

Harry Higgs withdraws from Houston Open after positive COVID-19 test - Golf Channel

Some states in the U.S. are doubling down, while others are resisting stricter safety measures as COVID-19 cases rise in 47 states.

ICU beds are 80% full in nearly a quarter of U.S. hospitals, according to a federal government memo obtained by NPR. It's a mounting tragedy that could have been avoided, Michael George reported for "CBS This Morning: Saturday."

A third of the population believes this pandemic is a hoax, "and they believe that it will end next Wednesday," said Dr. Michael Osterholm. "And no public health messaging is having an impact on that population."

In Wisconsin, Democratic Governor Tony Evers can't get the Republican legislature to support safety.

"If we want to do this right and stop it in its tracks, people have to wear a freaking mask," he said.

South Dakota is battling a positivity rate of 46%. California wants to avoid that, and has halted some plans to loosen restrictions.

"You see 20, 30% positivity rates now in other parts of the country, we're at 3.0% over a 14-day period but we are not taking our eye off the ball. We've got to box this disease in," said Governor Gavin Newsom said.

Oregon, too, is considering clamping down, after the state saw record case numbers this week.

"Oregon's cases are rising, just like the rest of the countries are, and frankly, cases around the globe. The second wave that we've all been worried about is here," said Governor Kate Brown.

Read the original:

COVID-19 news from across the United States - CBS News

Abstract

Between early March and 1 August 2020, COVID-19 took the lives of more than 150,000 Americans. Here, we examine the political consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic using granular data on COVID-19 fatalities and the attitudes of the American public. We find that COVID-19 has led to substantial damage for President Trump and other Republican candidates. States and local areas with higher levels of COVID-19 fatalities are less likely to support President Trump and Republican candidates for House and Senate. Our results show that President Trump and other Republican candidates would benefit electorally from a reduction in COVID-19 fatalities. This implies that a greater emphasis on social distancing, masks, and other mitigation strategies would benefit the president and his allies.

COVID-19 has killed about 5 times as many Americans as were killed in the Korean War, over 3 times as many as in Vietnam, and 40 times as many Americans as were killed in the entire Iraq War. Americans broadly disapprove of the presidents handling of the pandemic (1), but as of yet, there has been no clear causal evidence about whether the rise in COVID-19 fatalities has led Americans to turn away from President Trump.

A large academic literature has shown that the American public holds presidents accountable for their performance in office (2, 3). Among other things, the public penalizes a president and others in their party for casualties in war. Areas with more local casualties, for example, were among the first to turn against the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1972 (4), and during the Iraq War, people who knew someone who died on 9/11 or in the Iraq War were consistently more likely to disapprove of George W. Bush (5). As a result, states with greater losses were more likely to vote against President Bush in the 2004 presidential election (6). Voters also punished Republican candidates at other levels of office: Areas with higher casualties from the war in Iraq were more likely to support Democratic House and Senate candidates in the 2006 midterm elections (7, 8). Last, areas with higher casualties in the war in Afghanistan penalized Barack Obamas Democratic successor in 2016, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by supporting Donald Trump in greater numbers (9).

The U.S. president has likened his battle against COVID-19 to that of a war-time president (10). Voters may also see him that way. On the basis of previous studies of the political costs of war-time casualties, we hypothesize that the American public will be less likely to support President Trump and other Republican candidates for federal offices in areas with higher levels of COVID-19 fatalities.

We examine whether Americans are penalizing the president and other Republicans for the fatalities due to COVID-19 using several granular data sources (see Materials and Methods for more details). We leverage both temporal and geographic variation in the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic using local-level data on fatalities gathered by the New York Times. We use the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project to measure the attitudes of the American public at a local level. This survey includes the responses of more than 300,000 people between the summers of 2019 and 2020 (11).

Figure 1 (below) examines the state-level association between cumulative COVID-19 fatalities as of 31 May 2020 and changes in Americans attitudes between the first 2 months of 2020 and June. It shows that states with more COVID-19 fatalities were less likely to support Republican candidates. For example, people in the states with the highest fatalities were about 6% less likely to approve of President Trumps performance in office than people in the states with the lowest level of fatalities (Fig. 1A). The states with the highest level of fatalities were about 3% less likely to support President Trumps reelection in the presidential race against Democrat Joseph R. Biden (Fig. 1B). The hardest-hit states were nearly 13% less likely to support Republican Senate candidates (Fig. 1C) and about 5% less likely to support Republican House candidates (Fig. 1D).

These associations, however, could be confounded by other state-level factors and may be affected by sampling variability at the state level (particularly for smaller states). Thus, we move next to a more rigorous difference-in-differences regression design to assess the causal effect of COVID-19 fatalities on political preferences. This approach examines the effect of COVID-19 fatalities over the past 30 days in each respondents state or county on their attitudes about President Trump and other politicians. In addition to providing a more granular test, county-level results characterize the impact of the information environment surrounding the pandemic relative to the actual number of fatalities. We use fixed effects for geography and week of interview to account for area- and time-specific confounders. We also control for a host of preCOVID-19 individual-level attributes of the survey respondents, including 2016 vote choice, making our results net of factors such as race, education, gender, and partisan preference in 2016 (see Materials and Methods).

We find consistent results at every level of geography and for every office (Fig. 2): The effect of fatalities is a drain on Republican vote share (see Materials and Methods for a variety of robustness checks and the Supplementary Materials for a table with the regression results). Overall, areas with higher COVID-19 fatalities are significantly less likely to support President Trump and other Republican candidates. A doubling of COVID-19 fatalities (0.69 U on the natural log scale) at the county level leads to a roughly 0.19% reduction in President Trumps approval rating, and a doubling in fatalities at the state level leads to a 0.5% reduction in the presidents approval. In the presidential election, a doubling of COVID-19 fatalities at the county level makes Americans about 0.14% less likely to support President Trump against Joseph R. Biden and a doubling in fatalities at the state level leads to a 0.37% reduction in support for Trump. In Senate races, a doubling of COVID-19 fatalities at the county level makes Americans about 0.28% less likely to support Republican candidates and a doubling in fatalities at the state level leads to a 0.79% reduction in support for Republicans. Last, in House races, a doubling of COVID-19 fatalities at the county level makes Americans about 0.22% less likely to support Republican candidates and a doubling in fatalities at the state level leads to a 0.58% reduction in support for Republicans.

This graph shows the results of regression models of the effect of a doubling in COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people in the past 30 days in each state and county on Trump approval and whether respondents plan to vote for Republican candidates for president, Senate, and House. The dots show the point estimates, and the bars show 95% confidence intervals.

Our results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has already substantially damaged the political standing of President Trump. Just as the public penalizes the president for casualties during wars, the public is penalizing the president and other members of his party for local fatalities during the pandemic. The number of local fatalities due to COVID-19 appears to be at least as important as the local economy in Americans evaluations of their leaders (12, 13). COVID-19 could cost Trump and other Republicans several percentage points in the 2020 election. This could swing the presidential election and the U.S. Senate toward Democrats, with particularly high effects in swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Florida. All of these states had tight margins in the 2016 presidential election. Michigans margin was particularly narrow (0.2%), as was New Hampshires (0.4%), suggesting that COVID-related fatalities may be consequential not only at the individual level in 2020 but also in terms of Electoral College results. Similarly, there were very close U.S. Senate elections in 2018. In Florida, 0.2% of the vote separated the Republican winner from the Democrat.

These narrow margins in 2016 and 2018, coupled with the realization that fatalities from COVID-19 are not unlike casualties of war in voters minds, suggest that a winning strategy for President Trump and other Republican candidates on the ballot in 2020 should be to adopt mitigation strategies to limit the spread and consequences of COVID-19 in the American population. Increasing fatalities from the disease leads to losses for Republicans.

This section describes the methods and data that we use in our paper. The first building block of our study is granular data on reported COVID-19 fatalities across geography and time. For this, we use data that the New York Times has collected on the basis of state websites and databases (see https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data). We then aggregate the county-level data on COVID-19 deaths at the state level. County-level population data are taken from the 2014 to 2018 American Community Survey (ACS).

The next building block is data on attitudes of the American public about President Trump and vote intentions for the 2020 elections. For this, we use the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project to measure the attitudes of the American public at a local level (11). This survey includes the responses of more than 300,000 people, about 6400 of whom were interviewed each week between the summers of 2019 and 2020 (through 29 July 2020). The survey is fielded online and is representative of the nation as a whole (14). The Nationscape staff generate sampling weights for the weekly datasets. The technique is based on processes used by the American National Election Studies. In table S1, we show a detailed comparison of the weighted Nationscape sample with population targets. Overall, the weighted sample appears to be extremely representative of observable population targets. Owing to its large size, Nationscape can also be disaggregated to reflect opinions at the state and local levels.

The survey asks about a variety of political attitudes and preferences. We use four specific questions from the survey. First, we use data on whether respondents approve of President Trumps job performance. We collapse this four-point question to a dichotomous variable. Second, we use data on whether people would vote for President Trump or Joseph R. Biden in a head-to-head matchup in the 2020 presidential election. Third, we use data on whether respondents plan to vote for the Republican or Democratic candidate in the 2020 House election in their district. Last, we use data on whether respondents plan to vote for the Republican or Democratic candidate in the 2020 Senate elections in their state (if they have one). For each, we are excluding individuals who answered Not sure. (Note that fig. S4 shows that the results are similar in models that include dont know responses.)

Our main paper reports the results of two sets of analyses. The next two sections describe the details for these analyses.

First, we look at the state-level association between COVID-19 fatalities and Americans attitudes about President Trump and their vote intentions in the 2020 election. For this analysis, the independent variable is the natural log of the number of COVID-19 fatalities per 100,000 people in each state before 1 June 2020. The outcome variable is the change in the publics attitudes before the COVID-19 pandemic (defined as the first 2 months of 2020) and their attitudes after the arrival of COVID-19, between 1 June and 2 July 2020. We use the appropriate state-level sampling weights to calculate the publics state-level attitudes in each time period. We then graph the relationship between COVID-19 fatalities and the changes in political attitudes in each state. By focusing on changes in political attitudes, our analysis implicitly accounts for time-invariant confounders (omitted variables) in each state and common shocks that affect all states. However, there is large sampling variability at the state level, particularly in smaller states, which we will address in further analyses.

Next, we move to a more rigorous difference-in-differences regression design. We use a linear probability model to examine the effect of COVID-19 fatalities over the past 30 days in each survey respondents state or county with their attitudes about President Trump and other politicians. For this analysis, the independent variable is the natural log of the number of COVID-19 fatalities per 100,000 people in the last 30 days (relative to the date each respondent was interviewed) in each geographic area. A 0.69-U increase on the natural log scale can be interpreted as approximately a doubling of fatalities (15). Here, we use fixed effects for geography and survey wave (week) to account for area- and time-specific confounders and identify the causal effects of COVID-19 on political attitudes (16). The geographic fixed effects account for the tendency of different areas to have varying levels of baseline support for President Trump and other Republican candidates. The temporal fixed effects account for national-level changes in political attitudes due to the pandemic, the economy, and national events such as the Black Lives Matter movement. We also control for a host of individual-level pretreatment attributes of the survey respondents. These are not crucial for our identification strategy, but they reduce the variance in our results (17). Specifically, we control for respondents gender, race/ethnicity, education, Hispanic ancestry, and their vote choice in the 2016 presidential election. The SEs in our regression results are clustered at the state-day or county-day level depending on the model (18). We use national sampling weights in all our analysis. So, our results are representative of the American public at the national level. While our main analyses use a linear probability model, we find substantively similar results using logistic regression models.

To validate our research design, we run a placebo check where we examine the effect of future COVID deaths on an index of approval, presidential voting, senate voting, and house voting at the state level. Specifically, we look at future COVID deaths over the next 30 and 90 days using survey data before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, from between July 2019 and March 2020. Figure S1 shows that there is no effect of future COVID-19 deaths on political preferences.

Note that the state of the art in panel research designs is constantly moving forward. In recent years, a number of scholars have conducted innovative work (1921). However, to our knowledge, all of this work currently requires dichotomous treatment variables. So, overall, we believe that our design is the best available research design for our data and that our placebo checks validate a causal interpretation of our results.

We have also run a number of robustness checks for our main research design and results. For simplicity, each of these robustness checks focuses on our state-level model using an index of our four outcome variables to capture aggregate political preferences.

1) First, we examine the results if we use several different numbers of days as cutoffs rather than just 30 days. Specifically, we examine cutoffs ranging from 10 to 90 days. In fig. S2, we find that the results are quite similar across models, although the point estimates decrease a bit for longer cutoffs. Overall, this suggests that our results are not especially sensitive to the choice of cutoffs. They are also significant across all cutoffs.

2) Our next robustness check examines the results if we do not include any control variables in our analyses (fig. S3). We find that our results are slightly noisier without any control variables, but the results are still significant without controls. In our main analyses, we prefer to retain control variables because of the increase in efficiency that they provide.

3) In our main analysis, we dropped dont knows. However, it is reasonable to think that dont knows could be an important middle category, and voters could move into this category because of concern about COVID-19. To assess this possibility, we coded alternative variables for all our outcomes with dont know as a middle category (0.5). Figure S4 shows the results at the state level. It indicates that the results are generally very similar with and without dont knows, especially for the presidential race. The point estimates in Senate and House races are a bit smaller when we include dont knows, but the results are significant both with and without dont knows at all levels of geography. Likewise, our county level results are also similar with and without dont knows.

4) Last, we examine whether the results change if we drop each state one by one. Figure S5 shows that our results are not sensitive to dropping individual states. The point estimates are generally quite similar across models. The highest P value is in a model that drops Texas. Even in this model, however, we still find a P value of 0.02.

Overall, these robustness checks indicate that our results are not sensitive to alternative regression specifications or driven by outliers.

K. Karson, Approval of Trumps coronavirus response underwater, as he returns to campaign trail: POLL. ABC News (2020).

C. Oprysko, S. Luthi, Trump labels himself a wartime president combating coronavirus. Politico (2020).

C. Tausanovitch, L. Vavreck, Democracy Fund+ UCLA Nationscape Project, January 2June 25, 2020. (2020).

C. Tausanovitch, L. Vavreck, T. Reny, A. R. Hayes, A. Rudkin, Democracy Fund+ UCLA Nationscape methodology and representativeness assessment (2019).

A. Gelman, J. Hill, Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006).

J. D. Angrist, J.-S. Pischke, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricists Companion (Princeton Univ. Press, 2008).

A. Abadie, S. Athey, G.W. Imbens, J.Wooldridge, When should you adjust standard errors for clustering? (Technical Report, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017).

A. Goodman-Bacon, Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing (Technical Report, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2018).

Excerpt from:

Fatalities from COVID-19 are reducing Americans' support for Republicans at every level of federal office - Science Advances