Category: Covid-19

VERMILLION, S.D. (KELO) In September, USD had a peak of 243 total active COVID-19 cases. Today, they only have 21.

Because theyve been able to flatten that curve, the schools COVID-19 Task Force has entered into a new phase of mitigating the spread of the virus on campus. That includes testing students, faculty and staff who may not even have symptoms.

For two weeks now, USD has been conducting surveillance testing on campus.

Were looking for the asymptomatic people. These are people that are sick with COVID-19 but dont know it because they dont have symptoms so they dont go get tested. So sentinel testing is a program in which we draw a random sampling from a population of asymptomatic people and send them to get tested, chair of the COVID-19 Task Force Kevin OKelley said.

If a person is randomly asked to get tested, it is up to them to decide if they want to or not.

The goal here is were trying to find the invisible illness in our community. If we found a cluster of people that are asymptomatic, but sick, then we might go to phase five, which is point prevalence testing, where we might swoop in on a particular cohort, particular population, that might be ready to have an outbreak, OKelley said.

Freshman Ashley Gustafson, says shes glad the university is taking this step.

Especially from the beginning of the year, the amount of people getting tested has gone down, you know, just because I feel like theyre nervous to get quarantined. So these randomized testing is a way to keep that rolling and maintain safety on campus, Gustafson said.

Sophomore Jacob Hotchkiss, says hes happy with how the school has handled the virus so far.

I firmly believe in, like, taking measures from COVID-19. So, Im happy that they required masks and when we had the big outbreak in cases I was happy that they restricted things in the MUC. I think theyve done a great job, Hotchkiss said.

And OKelley says hes proud of how well the whole campus is coming together to stay safe.

Were social people, particularly ages 18 to 24, were social and for them to voluntarily forgo some of things they might expect from a normal college year has been really great to see, OKelley said.

The surveillance testing is free at the Sanford Vermillion Medical Center because the program is being paid for by the South Dakota Department of Health. OKelley says the school also offers rides to the clinic for people getting tested.

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KELOLAND News is covering the COVID-19 pandemic. This is your guide to everything you need to know to prepare. We also have the latest stories from across the globe feeding into this page.

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USDs next phase in mitigating COVID-19 - KELOLAND.com

More than 190 U.S. Navy ships have suffered a COVID-19 outbreak this year, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said in a message to the fleet late last month.

If that tally is limited to the sea services 296 deployable ships, it would mean nearly 65 percent of the fleet has experienced some level of infection by the novel coronavirus.

Officials did not immediately clarify that point.

At the same time, aggressive early action to isolate, quarantine and contact trace has helped contain outbreaks, he added.

Precisely which ships have suffered outbreaks, and the extent of those outbreaks, remains unclear.

Following Pentagon regulations, the sea service stopped reporting COVID cases at local units this spring.

Navy spokeswoman Lt. Emily Wilkin told Navy Times this week that the 190 ships with at least one case onboard were a mix of ships at sea and in port.

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We have not had any [other] outbreaks like USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Kidd, she said in an email.

TR showcased the harrowing virality of COVID this spring, when an outbreak on the ship eventually infected roughly a quarter of its sailors and forced an emergency diversion to Guam.

Infections onboard the guided-missile destroyer Kidd afflicted at least 78 sailors, which was the last tally provided by the Navy before it stopped releasing updates.

Wilkin pointed to an outbreak onboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan earlier this year that was successfully contained, with a handful of COVID-positive sailors flown off and the carrier able to continue operations without any new cases.

The revelation regarding how many ships have suffered COVID infection came about in updated guidance to the fleet sent Sept. 30 by the CNO regarding the novel coronavirus, which had infected 10,585 sailors as of Wednesday.

Officials said Friday that Gilday has tested negative for COVID but continues to self-quarantine at home along with other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after the vice commandant of the Coast Guard tested positive earlier this week.

Roughly 35 percent of infected sailors have shown few to no symptoms, and Gilday wrote that testing is the best way to uncover asymptomatic service members.

At the same time, Gilday warned that testing resources are constantly strained and may become more strained during influenza season.

Sailor infection rates tend to mirror the local area, and three units have traced ship outbreaks to command dinners at a public restaurant, the CNO wrote.

As the country continues to re-open, individual sailors and commands must show resolve in practicing proper health protection measures and avoid unnecessary risk, Gilday wrote.

Wilkin declined to identify which ships had suffered outbreaks traced to restaurants, citing the Pentagon policy.

While offering a high-level view on how the pandemic has impacted the Navy and its sailors, Gildays recent guidance also offers more ground-level instructions for keeping everyone safe when a ship is on a cruise.

Sailors should alternate head/foot where berthing configuration allows to minimize close contact, he wrote. Where possible, spread out sleeping arrangements. In congested berthings, ensure sailors use personal pillows and linens are regularly laundered.

Gildays message again hammers home the effectiveness of the 14-day restriction of movement, or ROM, isolations that now precede a ship getting underway, what he called a key enabler of getting a ship to sea with a COVID-free crew.

Those ROMs often flow right into final at-sea training before a deployment begins.

In a copy of remarks Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer made earlier this month, the deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy gave a nod to the struggles COVID policies place on sailors and families.

We know these mitigations are hard on Sailors and their families, adding extra family separation onto the beginning of a deployment and foregoing the chance to visit and enjoy foreign ports, Sawyer said. But its a critical piece of protecting our young women and women who have signed up to serve. All of this is about keeping our Sailors safe from this deadly virus.

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CNO: More than 190 ships have had COVID-19 cases - NavyTimes.com

ByThe Associated Press

October 9, 2020, 6:43 PM

2 min read

GENEVA -- The World Health Organization has announced a new daily record high in coronavirus cases confirmed worldwide, with more than 350,000 infections reported to the U.N. health agency on Friday.

The new daily high of 350,766 cases surpasses a record set earlier this week by nearly 12,000. That tally includes more than 109,000 cases from Europe alone.

In a press briefing on Friday, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan acknowledged that even as COVID-19 continues to surge across the world, there are no new answers.

He said that although the agency wants countries to avoid the punishing lockdowns that have devastated economies, governments must ensure the most vulnerable people are protected and numerous measures must be taken.

The majority of people in the world are still susceptible to this disease, Ryan warned. He said countries should focus not just on restrictive measures, but also on bolstering their surveillance systems, testing, contact tracing and ensuring populations are engaged.

As the virus continues to surge across Europe and elsewhere, Ryan acknowledged that restrictive measures might be warranted at some point. British scientists reported this week that the COVID-19 outbreak is doubling every few weeks, French hospitals are running out of ICU beds, Germany may enlist the army to help contain its outbreak and Spain declared a state of emergency in Madrid as coronavirus cases soar.

Ryan said lockdowns may be unavoidable where the disease has got out of control again, but we shouldnt accept that in every country, the return of cases should be seen with an immediate return of the need for lockdown restrictions.

Globally, more than 36 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported, including more than 1 million deaths.

Experts say the tally far underestimates the real number of cases and Ryan said on Monday that the WHOs best estimates were that one in 10 people worldwide or roughly 760 million people may have been infected.

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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UN: New daily record as COVID-19 cases hit more than 350,000 - ABC News

By Outer Banks Voice on October 9, 2020

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) reported 2,034 new cases of COVID-19 on Oct. 9, the fifth time in nine days that there have been more than 2,000 new cases. Part of the recent increase in daily cases is attributable to a decision by the NCDHHS to include antigen positive results in the total number of cases beginning on Sept. 25. Broken out separately, 6,466 of the 227,431 total cases reported in North Carolina have been antigen positive cases.

Also on Oct. 9, North Carolina reported 3,747 deaths attributable to COVID-19, while 1,065 individuals are currently hospitalized, a number that has steadily risen for five straight days.

Dare County has reported 2 new cases of COVID-19 on Oct. 9, with one county resident and one non-resident affected. That brings the total number of cases reported here since the beginning of the pandemic to 584. In addition, the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services (DCDHHS) reports that four residents and four non-residents who had recently been categorized as having active cases are now listed as recovered.

In a bulletin issued on Oct. 9, the DCDHHS provided information on two new testing clinic events. One is on Tuesday, Oct. 20 at Cape Hatteras Elementary School. Another is at the Soundside Event Site in Nags Head during the first week of November. Details about the testing event in Nags Head will be released by Oct. 21. To schedule an appointment for the Oct. 20 testing event, please call 252-475-5008.

Hyde County is reporting a total of 146 COVID-19 cases as of Oct. 8. Of this total, 18 are active cases, 123 have recovered, and there have been 5 deaths. Hyde County has no COVID-19 clusters at this time. It is reporting an outbreak in a local correctional facility, but are pleased to report that the local nursing home has been COVID-free for 28 days or more, which removes them from the outbreak status.

Note:Every morning, the NC Department of Health and Human Services posts updates o number of reported cases of coronavirus. That numberreflects positive results from all tests, including the NC State Laboratory of Public Health and all hospital and commercial labs.There may be other reports, from the media and elsewhere, that will include different numbers during a given day, but this is an effective way of tracking numbers from the same source on a day-to-day basis.

SOURCE: NC DEPARTMENT OFHEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Link to COVID-19 North Carolina Dashboard

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COVID-19 hospitalizations recently on rise in NC - The Outer Banks Voice

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) Five new COVID-19 deaths were announced Friday as South Dakota surpassed 5,000 active cases in the latest update from the state department of public health.

The death toll is now at 277. There have been 29 new deaths in the past three days. The new deaths on Friday included three men and two women with three listed in the 80+ age range, one in the 70-79 age range and one in the 60-69 age range. Two new deaths were in Lincoln County (6), one new death was in Minnehaha County (87), one new death was in Grant County (1) and one new death was in Yankton County (4).

On Friday, 772 total new coronavirus cases were announced, bringing the states total case count to 27,215, up from Thursday (26,441). Total recovered cases are now at 21,750, up from Thursday (21,496).

Active cases went up to another daily record of 5,188, up from Thursday (4,673).

On Wednesday, the DOH added probable cases to case counts. A probable case includes persons with positive antigen test for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. There were 24 probable cases announced with 748 new confirmed cases. Confirmed cases are people with positive RT-PCR tests. There are 27,215 total cases (26,711 confirmed cases and 504 probable cases).

Current hospitalizations is now at 267, down from Thursday (284). Total hospitalizations is now at 1,782, up from Thursday (1,717).

Total persons tested negative is now at 186,938, up from Thursday (184,850).

There were 2,862 new persons tested reported on Friday.

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COVID-19 in South Dakota: 772 new total cases; Death toll rises to 277; Active cases at 5,188 - KELOLAND.com

The total number of active COVID-19 cases in McKinney is 109 as of Oct. 9. (Community Impact staff)

City-level reports from Collin County show McKinney added 352 new COVID-19 cases this week, with 285 new cases reported Oct. 3.

The total number of active COVID-19 cases in McKinney is 109 as of Oct. 9.

As of Oct. 9 in McKinney, there have been 2,473 confirmed total cases of COVID-19 and 2,364 recoveries, for a 95.6% recovery rate.

There have been 36 total deaths in McKinney related to COVID-19, a rate of 1.45%.

A group of dedicated investigators launched by the Texas Department of State Health Services was expected to begin working through the backlog of Collin County's COVID-19 active cases Aug. 25, according to Hill.

Of McKinney ZIP codes, the 75071 ZIP code had the highest number of total cases, with 934, from March to Oct. 9, according to Collin County data.

As of Oct. 9, 75069 has a total of 850 cases, 75070 has 652 cases and 75072 has 312 cases.

Among the key indicators being watched by experts is the number of hospitalizations. Collin County reported 109 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized as of Oct. 9. That number has fluctuated over the last two weeks.

The rate of confirmed cases takes into account population differences. In Texas, there were 26.34 confirmed cases per 1,000 people as of Oct. 8. Here are the rates per 1,000 people for the four North Texas counties as of Oct. 8.

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Tracking COVID-19: 352 new cases reported in McKinney this week - Community Impact Newspaper

FRIDAYMAP UPDATEAdditionally Friday, Gov. Justice provided a look at West Virginias latest mid-week County Alert System map update, which featured an increase in the number of Orange an Gold counties across the state.

Redcounties: 0Orangecounties: 5 (Cabell, Doddridge, Harrison, Logan, Mingo)Goldcounties: 8 (Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Jackson, Kanawha, Putnam, Randolph, Upshur)Yellowcounties: 3 (Morgan, Nicholas, Wirt)Greencounties: 39 (All others)

We have got to stay on our game in all of these counties all across our state, Gov. Justice said. If you'll look predominantly through the north and the central parts of our state, as well as the Eastern Panhandle, and even certain areas of the south, we have big areas of our state that are dadgum good. But we do have some problems. We know where they are and weve just got to everyone in those spots focused so we can slow down the spread.

The map is updated live on theDHHRs COVID-19 Dashboard(Click "County Alert System" tab)throughout the week for informational purposes and to provide an indication of how each county is trending ahead of each Saturday at 5 p.m.; the time when each county is assigned its official color designation for the next week, which determines the level of scholastic, athletic, and extracurricular activities permitted in each county for that particular week.

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COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice announces additional free testing at pharmacy drive-thrus; Mon County bars may reopen next Tuesday with restrictions -...

Braden Boyce and Elizabeth Darrington. | Courtesy Liz Peebles

RIGBY A Rigby couple had to put their dream wedding festivities on pause after the bride tested positive for COVID-19.

Two days before Braden Boyce, 23, and Elizabeth Darrington, 19, were supposed to tie the knot, Darrington found out she had caught the virus. With the wedding set for Oct. 9, and assuming Boyce had been exposed to COVID-19 too, the couple was left with a choice to make.

We were like, We have to cancel everything,' Darrington recalls thinking after finding out her test results. Nobodys going to come to the wedding if we still host it and tell people we have COVID.

The reception including the food and flowers that was booked at a venue in Rexburg had to be postponed to a later date and their over week-long honeymoon was canceled.

We already have an apartment and stuff that we can go move in, so were just going to honeymoon in our apartment, I guess, she said.

Courtesy Liz Peebles

Countless hours were spent getting ready for their big day, and even though the current circumstances arent ideal, the couple has decided to make the best of the situation. They are planning to hold a small ceremony, mostly made up of family members who they believe have been exposed to the virus over the last few days, on a ridge that overlooks Heise on Friday.

Darringtons uncle, who is a judge and has already had COVID-19, is going to be performing the ceremony.

We knew there was a risk, but we never thought it was going to happen to us, Darrington explained.

In some ways, Boyce regrets that Darrington got tested in the first place because of all the changes that have since taken place with the wedding, but he recognizes the importance of letting people who are considered high risk know they might have been exposed to COVID-19.

Its sad because this seems like the most important event of your life. The one you always dream and think of, Boyce mentioned. Its unfortunate, but I think for the best with the circumstances we were given.

Darrington said on a positive note, they got refunded for everything they had originally planned, plus shes always wanted a small wedding with close family in attendance and it to be held outside.

It does suck, but as long as you can see something positive in it, I think your wedding can still be a blast, Darrington said with a smile.

Darrington has had a headache, body aches, runny nose and sore throat but is feeling pretty good and is looking forward to what should be an unforgettable wedding day.

To read more COVID-19 news, click here.

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COVID-19 throws wrench into wedding plans for local couple, but they find a way to make it work - East Idaho News

Boxes of remdesivir, an antiviral drug considered a promising treatment for COVID-19. Sima Diab/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Boxes of remdesivir, an antiviral drug considered a promising treatment for COVID-19.

President Trump has credited the apparent improvement of his coronavirus infection to, as he put it in one tweet, "some really great drugs" that were "developed, under the Trump Administration."

The assertion carries special irony for researcher Peter Daszak.

For years Daszak led a U.S.-funded project that played an important role in the emergence of one of those drugs remdesivir as a promising treatment for COVID-19. Specifically, Daszak's U.S.-based research group, EcoHealth Alliance, collaborated with scientists in China to collect fluid samples from bats there in search of coronaviruses that could pose a threat if they spilled over into humans.

Beginning in 2014, virus experts in the U.S. tested remdesivir against some of the bat strains that EcoHealth Alliance had discovered. The results were promising helping to elevate remdesivir's profile within pharmaceutical research such that, when the current coronavirus hit, the drug was one of the first options scientists proposed trying against it.

Yet in April the National Institutes of Health abruptly terminated funding for the China bat research project with no clear explanation. In the weeks earlier, Trump administration officials had been pushing a largely discredited theory that the Chinese lab that EcoHealth Alliance was partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had accidentally released the virus causing COVID-19. And at a White House press conference days before the funding was pulled, Trump erroneously implied that the entirety of the money had gone to the Wuhan Institute and promised that his administration would take action on the issue.

After an uproar among scientists including 77 Nobel laureates who sent a letter in protest the National Institutes of Health said it would reinstate the grant in July. But officials have imposed conditions that Daszak says are unprecedented and purposefully impossible to meet: "One involves investigating the whereabouts of a lab technician who worked in Wuhan and who the conspiracy theorists say has disappeared mysteriously" but with whom, Daszak says, his group never worked.

"It's extremely frustrating," Daszak says. "I understand what's going on. [The president] is not trying to undermine our organization specifically. He just wants to create a narrative that's anti-China." But he adds a little wistfully, "If collaborating with China on this work led to a drug that might help save his life, maybe that will turn him around and make him realize that this research is the sort of thing we need to be doing."

Another researcher who shares that hope is Mark Denison, a professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in studying coronaviruses. Denison notes that the one causing the current pandemic known as SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus to prove deadly to humans in the last 20 years, following SARS and MERS. So when it comes to the focus of his research, "I'm preparing for SARS-CoV-3."

But Denison adds that work is now hampered because EcoHealth Alliance has been effectively barred from discovering additional coronaviruses in China which research suggests is a major reservoir for viruses that could cause future outbreaks. "We cannot be prepared for these things if we aren't looking ahead," Denison says. "We cannot close our research to what's out there."

For example, he says, it will be important to track how many other potentially deadly coronaviruses share a vulnerability of the current one: When making copies of itself, the virus uses a particular proofreading mechanism to ensure that errors aren't introduced into its genetic sequence. Disrupt the proofreading, and you prevent the virus from replicating inside the human body.

Denison and some collaborators at his lab notably Clint Smith first identified key aspects of this proofreading vulnerability between 2007 and 2014 in a coronavirus that causes hepatitis in mice. Denison then immediately went to the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences to ask if it had any experimental compounds that might interfere with the proofreading. "They had this immense panel [of options]," Denison recalls. And "one of the first they sent us was the parent drug of remdesivir."

When Denison's team put the drug into a petri dish with the mouse hepatitis coronavirus, it showed "tremendous" success. This sparked a collaboration with researchers at still more institutions including Timothy Sheahan at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

At the time, another coronavirus MERS was circulating among humans. So "we were focused on developing MERS-specific therapies," Sheahan says. But there was also strong interest in ensuring they came up with a treatment that could work against many other coronaviruses as well as Sheahan puts it, "not just one drug for one bug but a drug for many kinds of bugs."

That prompted Sheahan also to try remdesivir on two bat coronaviruses that EcoHealth Alliance had identified in China as well as against the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in humans.

These were experiments in petri dishes and mice. "But the potency of remdesivir against all the different coronaviruses we tested was high enough that it would make you excited and encouraged that this could perhaps work [against the virus] in a person," Sheahan says.

He notes that even if remdesivr hadn't been tested on the bat coronaviruses, its success against MERS and SARS would probably still have led researchers to prioritize testing it against the current coronavirus. (It also helped that remdesivir was more recently tested in humans against Ebola. And though it did not pan out as a cure for that virus, the clinical trial at least offered evidence of remdesivir's safety.)

Still, Sheahan says, the tests on the bat coronaviruses provided information that was "undoubtedly" useful.

Denison agrees, and he says this history behind remdesivir's development offers an important lesson: "This feels sometimes like it was fully formed from the head of Zeus: You know, there remdesivir was sitting on a shelf let's try it in humans. But that was predicated on the availability of these bat viruses that allowed us to make predictions about the broad use of this drug."

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Ironic Twist: In Spring Trump Halted Research Key To COVID-19 Drug He's Now Taken - NPR

The Centers for Disease Control revised its Covid-19 guidelines on Monday to include that the novel coronavirus can be spread through aerosols, which "can linger in the air for minutes to hours" and travel farther than six feet.

Until now it was understoodthat the coronavirus is spread is through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes, and experts still believe that is the main way it is spread. But now experts also agree that airborne transmission is a key piece of the Covid-19 puzzle.

"I believe pretty confidently that there is some element [of airborne transmission]," White House advisor Dr. Anthony Faucisaid Wednesday.

Here's how to interpret these new guidelines and stay safe:

So what's the difference between the virus spreading through respiratory droplets and being airborne? It comes down to the size of the dropletsand how they travel.

Respiratory droplets are larger thanaerosolswhich are microscopic droplets or particles. Because of their size and weight, larger respiratory droplets get "sprayed like tiny cannonballs onto nearby individuals" and typically fall to the ground in a matter of seconds, within six feet of the source, according to paper published Monday in the journal Science, whichcalled forstronger public health guidance on how the virus travels and spreads through the air.

Viruses in aerosols, on the other hand, are smaller and don't just drop they're suspended in the air for minutes or hours and can be inhaled.

An easy way to visualize how these airborne particles act is to think about the way that cigarette smoke lingers and can be inhaled, Linsey Marr, coauthor of the paper and a professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, said in a pressconference Monday. Like smoke, aerosols can accumulate in a confined space, like a poorly ventilated room or areas where people are breathing heavily.

Although aerosolized particles are much smaller than droplets, they can be concentrated enough to spread Covid-19 to other people, according to the CDC.

The best way to prevent the spread of Covid-19 is still wear a mask, maintain social distance and avoid large indoor gathering. Remember: The virus is mainly spread through respiratory droplets when people have close contact with one another.

Wearing a standard double-layer cloth face mask can add a layer of protection, because it prevents your respiratory droplets from spreading. But they don't provide enough protection to filter out airborne or aerosolizedparticles, only a N95 respirator can dothat.But the CDC says N95 respirators should be saved forhealth care workers and other medical first responders.

Since airborne spread is a possibility, keep in mind that indoor gatherings (especially in places that are not well ventilated) with people outside your household increase your risk of infection. Going back to the smoking analogy, picture a person smoking a cigarette in the room with you. "What if all of the people in that situation are smoking? Are you going to be exposed? Will you breathe a lot of cigarette smoke? If yes, you need to do something to change the situation," Marr said in therelease.

Beyond wearing a mask and maintaining social distance, using portable air purifiers is one way to reduce airborne contaminants in a space. And simply opening windows to introduce clean air into your space is another way to increase ventilation.

In September, the CDC posted a draft of revised guidelinesthat included information about airborne spread, and then removed the update. The agency said it was still in the process of updating its recommendations when they were published in error.

The new guidelines published Monday cite "published reports showing limited, uncommon circumstances where people with Covid-19 infected others who were more than 6 feet away or shortly after the COVID-19-positive person left an area," the CDC said in a statement.

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Now the CDC confirms Covid-19 is airborne here's what that means for you - CNBC